Published: July 26, 2007 10:11 pm      

BILLS: Harvick drives through camp

PITTSFORD — NASCAR met the NFL on Thursday, and it was difficult to figure out who was more excited — Cup driver Kevin Harvick or Buffalo Bills defensive tackle Tim Anderson.

Call it a dead heat.

“These guys are huge,” Harvick said as the Bills walked by during a break in the opening day of training camp. “I told them coming here I was going to get some shoulder pads and a helmet and knock somebody down, but I don’t think I can. It’s cool to see how somebody else prepares for what they do. We all watch NFL games and watch these guys play every week. It’s neat just to be able to come and relate to somebody about what they do.”

Is he a fan of the Bills?

“No. I root for the 49ers,” said Harvick, who was born in Bakersfield, Calif. “I haven’t had a whole lot to root for, but they’re getting better. They got a lot better the second half last year. It’ll be fun to watch.”

Anderson is entering his fourth year with the Bills, and the former Ohio State star easily is the biggest auto racing fan on the team. And for him, it’s strictly NASCAR. Anderson has been to events at Charlotte, Daytona, Chicago, Michigan, Bristol, and Watkins Glen, and he imagines becoming a tire changer when his football career ends.

“Saying I’m a fan might be a little bit of an understatement,” said Anderson, a 6-foot-3, 328-pound reserve who counts a poster autographed by Harvick as one of his prized souvenirs. “I would say more borderline obsessed. I love it. It’s four hours of total relaxation on a Sunday or Saturday night. If I could fit in one of those things (a Cup car), I’d go out. Unfortunately, I probably won’t fit through the window.”

Anderson, who first met Harvick two years ago at Chicagoland Speedway, swapped an autographed Bills helmet and a couple of hats for one of Harvick’s shirts as the two briefly chatted about racing.

“I want to go to the night race at Bristol (in late August) badly,” Anderson said. “It’s kind of a bad scheduling time for me, though. I’m going to have to wait a few years, hopefully about seven more. Then I could finally get to one.”

Harvick, who won the Daytona 500 in February and is the lone driver in the Cup series to surpass $5 million in earnings this season, was in this Rochester suburb for an obligatory appearance as the defending winner of the Nextel Cup road race at Watkins Glen International.

In recording his first road-course victory in the Cup series last August, Harvick did what few thought was possible: He passed Tony Stewart for the lead with three laps to go and pulled away.

“Personally, it was a major accomplishment in my career,” said Harvick, who is eighth in the Cup points standings and second in the Busch Series. “We’d been able to win on all the different types of racetracks as we’ve gone through the years, but the road-course thing, we always had this little cloud over us. We had been in contention to win and always had things happen here and there. To finally do that was pretty satisfying. It’s almost a sense of relief because you get so frustrated at places you know you’re capable of winning and haven’t been able to.”

That Stewart had won three of the four previous Cup races at The Glen and had passed Harvick’s No. 29 Goodwrench Chevy a few laps earlier made the victory even sweeter.

“Any time you succeed at something, you don’t want to have it handed to you,” said Harvick, who was second to Juan Pablo Montoya on the road course at Sonoma in June and will defend his Watkins Glen title on Aug. 12. “It makes it a lot more rewarding to have done it against somebody that’s been winning all of the races there and been very successful on road courses.”