NASCAR outlines 2013 rules and regulations

Harvick goes into Sunday's race at Talladega trailing leader Brad Keselowski by 46 points in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship standings. A driver can only earn 48 points in one race.

So what's wrong with Richard Childress Racing?

"I don't have time to tell you," Harvick said.

His No. 29 team has had some upheaval this season, which opened with Shane Wilson as crew chief. But in August RCR brought back Gil Martin, who was replaced by Wilson at the start of the year, and there's only two top-10 finishes to show for the change.

So Harvick hopes RCR soon fills the hole created when competition director Scott Miller moved to Michael Waltrip Racing late last year.

"I think that definitely would be the key piece to start at," Harvick said. "A lot of it comes with that piece falling into place and structure. When you don't have that guy in there, it just didn't pan out the way that we all thought it would pan out and mesh together. It just kind of became a little bit more disruptive than I think everybody had anticipated.

"Richard and those guys are working hard on putting back structure and pieces in places and trying to get everything where it needs to be. It's a big machine."