BROOKLYN, Mich. - A year ago, Kevin Harvick was on his way to becoming the toast of NASCAR.

Stepping into arguably the most difficult situation that any driver ever has -- replacing the legendary Dale Earnhardt, who was killed in the first race of the 2001 season -- Harvick effortlessly took to Winston Cup competition as if he had been doing it for 20 years. He needed just three starts after stepping into the No. 29 Chevrolet to earn his first career Cup win, at Atlanta, setting a modern-era record for quickest first win by a rookie driver.

Harvick would go on to earn a slew of achievements and accolades, including capturing Winston Cup Rookie of the Year honors, winning the Busch Series championship (he was the first driver in NASCAR history to compete full-time in both series), added a second Cup victory in the inaugural event at Chicago, and ultimately capped everything off by finishing ninth in the final Winston Cup standings.

Including competition on the Winston Cup and Busch levels, plus one start in the Craftsman Truck Series, Harvick ran in 70 races last season, covering over 20,000 miles in the process.

To fathom the significance of that last stat, he logged enough mileage to nearly circle the circumference of Mother Earth.

Yet, what was unquestionably a "career year" for Harvick in 2001 has untastefully segued into a season that he would rather forget ever started.

What's worse, he still has another 21 events still left to compete in. As much as he'd like to have some semblance of optimism for the rest of the season, Harvick's biggest fear is his current freefall will drop even further, making him an even more obscure entity on the circuit.

From the time Harvick was penalized for overly-aggressive driving in a Truck race at Martinsville, Va., followed by an unprecedented one-race suspension from Cup competition and probation on all levels of racing for the remainder of the year as punishment for his actions, he has been nothing but a shell of a driver ever since.

He's failed to finish higher than 27th in any of the seven events since Martinsville (not counting his eighth-place finish at the non-points The Winston all-star race last month in Charlotte). His scorecard since then reads dismally: 28th, 35th, 40th, 34th, 28th, 39th and his best finish since being suspended: 27th in Sunday's Sirius Satellite Radio 400 at Michigan International Speedway.

	Kevin Harvick has suffered through a sophomore slump of unimaginable proportions.

That's not the kind of driving -- or driver, for that matter -- that we saw last year. That's not the Kevin Harvick so many people came to know and admire in 2001.

Harvick has to watch every move he makes on the racetrack and every word he utters off it. Every time he climbs into his Richard Childress-owned car, Harvick feels the weight of thousands of eyeballs, from NASCAR President Mike Helton's glare to Childress' stare, to the sad-eyed disappointment from his still-loyal group of fans, a band of faithful that has likely shrunk considerably in numbers since Harvick's road rage incident at Martinsville.

At 26, he's gone from gloat to goat. He knows his temper and tendency to turn over-aggressive driving into nothing short of road rage has cost him dearly in 2002.

Prior to the start of the season, Childress and Harvick both anticipated perhaps an even bigger year for the Bakersfield, Calif. native this season. Talk of a potential Harvick championship in 2002 permeated throughout the Childress operation.

But all that's gone now. Harvick is merely a man playing out a string. If Harvick's season was put to musical terms, he'd be on the verge of becoming a one-hit wonder by now, going from budding superstar to anonymous used-to-be.

Even with the optimal good behavior he has displayed ever since he was smacked down by the powerful discipline lords of NASCAR, Harvick is like a criminal trying to go straight: as hard as he tries to stay out of trouble, it's still unlikely that NASCAR will lift his probation early. As a result, Harvick will continue to be a non-entity as a driver and Winston Cup competitor.

What should have been an even brighter season to remember than last year's sparkling performance has been relegated to nothing more than a season to completely forget -- that is, if Harvick, Childress, fans and, most importantly, NASCAR's rule enforcers ever can do just that.

Even when his probation is lifted at season's end, I'm afraid the valuable lessons Harvick has learned in 2002 will have served their purpose in one regard, but also will have changed him as a driver for the rest of his career. He'll second-guess himself to death from now to eternity on so many things that his confidence, competitiveness and hunger to win will be altered forever.

As Bill Clinton is fond of saying, "I can feel Harvick's pain." He wants to do so much, yet can only achieve so preciously little. If there ever was a hard-luck story this season, he wins it hands down.

Harvick's gone from the magician of 2001 to the toad frog of 2002. It can only be hoped that Lady Luck will kiss the frog and return his charred spirit before he continues to hop away into even further obscurity.

Jerry Bonkowski covers NASCAR for ESPN.com.