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POLICE BLOTTER

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Cartwright shares coffee, conversation with constituents

<p>PITTSTON &#8212; NASCAR driver Kevin Harvick spent an hour bouncing around Sky Zone Indoor Trampoline Park with his 5-year-old son Keelan and kids from the Lehigh Valley Children&#8217;s Hospital Kids Club.</p><p>Perhaps it was a fitting way to spend Tuesday morning since Harvick is also getting used to another jump &#8212; from driving a Chevrolet for the first 16 years in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series to a Ford this season.</p><p>&#8220;I think it&#8217;s gone way better than I anticipated,&#8221; said Harvick, who drives the No. 4 Ford for Stewart-Haas Racing. &#8220;I anticipated some pretty rough patches just because of the fact that there was an extreme amount of work for Stewart-Haas Racing to deal with.</p><p>&#8220;It wasn&#8217;t because of a lack of effort from the people in the race shop or Ford or anything like that. It&#8217;s just that it&#8217;s all new.&#8221;</p><p>Stewart-Haas started building its own chassis this year and brought the engineering aspect in house. The team hit a homer in the season-opening Daytona 500 with Kurt Busch, one of Harvick&#8217;s three teammates, winning.</p><p>Harvick finished 22nd at Daytona, but topped all drivers by leading 50 of the 200 laps. He also finished second in Stage 1 and won Stage 2. He was caught up in a multi-car accident in the final stage of the race.</p><p>Since then, Harvick&#8217;s finishes have bounced around. The 2014 Cup champion picked up his first victory three races ago at Sonoma&#8217;s road course only to follow with a 33rd finish in the series&#8217; second visit to Daytona.</p><p>Still, the 41-year-old is in fourth place in the drivers standings and has a solid grip on a playoff spot. The key is how the team adjusts as it starts returning to tracks for a second time. The Cup Series is back at Pocono Raceway on July 30 after first-time stops at New Hampshire and Indianapolis.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s gone really good,&#8221; Harvick said. &#8220;We have a lot of things to improve, but that&#8217;s the most exciting thing. We&#8217;re still learning at a rapid pace. We probably learn faster that we can actually apply it at this particular point just because there is so much changing and getting better.&#8221;</p><p>The switch from Chevys to Fords isn&#8217;t the only wrinkle for Harvick and Stewart-Haas to tackle.</p><p>NASCAR started this season breaking down races into three stages. Points are awarded for finishing in the top 10 in each stage. The winner of each stage gets playoff points that carry over to the final 10-race playoff provided the driver qualifies for the run to the title.</p><p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know if you&#8217;re learning race by race how to tweak it,&#8221; Harvick said. &#8220;If it was a straight forward race, I think everybody knows how that would go. Like at Dover how the cautions fell, the next thing you know you&#8217;re out of tires and you can&#8217;t pit anymore.</p><p>&#8220;It all kind of creeps up on you. People take different chances and do different things at different times so you have to be able to get through traffic as best as you can because at some point you&#8217;re going to be in traffic and have to wait for it to cycle back around. &#8230; There are a lot of different things you have to do to cycle through the stages and be where you want to be at the end. But you can&#8217;t give up the stage points.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">NASCAR driver Kevin Harvick and his son Keelan, 5, take a break in the foam pit Tuesday at Sky Zone Indoor Trampoline Park in Pittston. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/web1_TTL071217harvick1-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>NASCAR driver Kevin Harvick and his son Keelan, 5, take a break in the foam pit Tuesday at Sky Zone Indoor Trampoline Park in Pittston. </caption0><photoCredit0>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/web1_TTL071217harvick2-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">NASCAR driver Kevin Harvick and his son Keelan, 5, jump on the trampolines Tuesday at Sky Zone Indoor Trampoline Park in Pittston. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/web1_TTL071217harvick2-1.jpg</photo1><caption1>NASCAR driver Kevin Harvick and his son Keelan, 5, jump on the trampolines Tuesday at Sky Zone Indoor Trampoline Park in Pittston. </caption1><photoCredit1>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>NASCAR vet still adjusting to Fords</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By John Erzar</p><p>jerzar@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>VIDEO</strong></p><p>To see video of NASCAR driver Kevin Harvick enjoying a day at Sky Zone in Pittston, check out the online version of this story on timesleader.com</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach John Erzar at 570-991-6394 or on Twitter @TLJohnErzar</p></shirttailMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><videoMeta><p><table style="border:none;width:98%;" class="mceItemTable"><tbody><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">VideoID:</td><td id="videoid" style="width:50em;font-size:90%;">BuEZ73KOUbg </td></tr><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">VideoType:</td><td id="videotype" style="font-size:90%;">YOUTUBE </td></tr><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">URL:</td><td id="url" style="font-size:90%;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuEZ73KOUbg </td></tr><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">Video Embed String:</td><td id="videoembedstring" style="font-size:90%;"> </td></tr><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">Video Caption:</td><td id="videocaption" style="font-size:90%;"></p><p>NASCAR driver Kevin Harvick at Sky Zone in Pittston</td></tr><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">Video Credit:</td><td id="videocredit" style="font-size:90%;"> John Erzar | Times Leader </td></tr><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">Video Position:</td><td id="videoposition" style="font-size:90%;"> </td></tr></tbody></table></p><p style="margin-top:10px;font-size:70%;color:#555;">(use the &#8220;for files&#8230;&#8221; link above to associate attached files with this source)</p></videoMeta></div>

NASCAR driver Kevin Harvick bounces into town