Though circumstantial, the evidence overwhelmingly suggests Kevin Harvick intentionally crashed Trevor Bayne in the final laps of Sunday’s playoff race at Talladega Superspeedway to preserve his own championship hopes.
With an ailing car on the verge of losing its motor, Harvick found himself in a precarious position, sitting 10th and assured of tumbling down the running order once NASCAR waved the green flag and restarted the CampingWorld.com 500. If that occurred, the defending series champion would likely fail to advance to the third round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
What Harvick needed was a quick caution that result in NASCAR freezing the field as is and declaring the race official — a scenario crew chief Rodney Childers radioed to his driver just prior to the decisive restart. Thusly, Harvick’s spot would then be secured, elimination averted and he’d be on his way to the third of four rounds — one mammoth step closer to securing a second consecutive title.
“Hopefully, they wreck right past the start/finish line and we end up with something,” Childers informed Harvick. “If not, we’ll be out.”
So, how did Harvick go about getting the caution he desperately needed? He slowed on the restart, allowing Bayne to go pass him on the outside and then Harvick tagged the No. 6 car, turning Bayne down towards the apron into the path of the field. What unfolded was mass carnage with several drivers sustaining significant damage, leaving NASCAR little recourse but to throw the yellow flag.
Harvick finished 15th and transferred to Round 3 by a six-point margin over Ryan Newman, the first driver below the cut line.
“We weren’t running very well there at the end on restarts and we were just trying to get out of the way,” Harvick said. “I don’t know if I clipped the No. 6 or if he came across as I was coming up. Just one of those days where everything went wrong until the very end.”
Again, all this is circumstantial and the events may in fact have been nothing more than an accident, as Harvick explained. But the video builds a convincing case he acted with intent and deliberately turned into Bayne, which several drivers vehemently alleged afterward.
Among those objecting to Harvick’s actions were Denny Hamlin, Matt Kenseth and Ryan Newman, each eliminated from the Chase on Sunday, along with non-playoff participants Bayne and David Gilliland.
In various ways they condemned Harvick and questioned his integrity. How could a driver at NASCAR’s highest level conduct himself in such a fashion, especially the reigning Sprint Cup champion who is a representative for all of them? Not only was Harvick in essence a cheater, his disingenuous clarification was a further affront to good sportsmanship.
Said Bayne: “That’s a crappy way for Harvick to have to get in the Chase is to wreck somebody — what I believe to be on purpose.”
Said Kenseth: “(Harvick) knew he was blowing up, so he said he was going to stay in his lane. (Bayne) then went up and outside and he clipped him and caused a wreck because he knew he’d make the Chase that way.”
But it was Hamlin who really unloaded on Harvick in the form of a tweet roughly an hour after the race concluded.
What a joke we have a car with no motor wreck the field to end the race. Complete crap. Sorry to anyone who spent $ coming to this circus
— Denny Hamlin (@dennyhamlin) October 25, 2015
Each wronged party possesses valid points. A fraught Harvick seemingly created, then benefited from the caution he needed. And instead of clearing Harvick of misconduct as it later did, NASCAR officials should have levied sanctions against its champ.
“There is no evidence right now that there was anything (Harvick) did that was questionable other than moving out of line,” NASCAR vice chairman Mike Helton said.
Except, those who want Harvick punished are missing an obvious point — he was operating within a precedent NASCAR established last season in the first year of its knockout playoff format, when Newman blatantly and admittedly shoved Kyle Larson into the wall on the final lap of the penultimate race of the 2014 Chase.
That maneuver earned Newman a berth in the final four and the consensus then was the Richard Childress Racing driver, who narrowly finished second to Harvick in the championship, was merely doing whatever it took to maintain eligibility.
A standard further reinforced when NASCAR CEO and chairman Brian France supported Joey Logano spinning Kenseth out to win last week’s race at Kansas Speedway. During an interview on SiriusXM Radio the following day, France heralded Logano’s hard driving as “quintessential NASCAR.”
Was what Harvick did dirty? No doubt. And if you want to decry him, the justification is certainly not lacking and absolutely deserving.
Yet Harvick’s actions are also understandable and within the context of the stakes, easy to rationalize. Desperate men will do desperate things when a championship is on the line. NASCAR prides itself on being a full-contact sport, embodied by rough drivers who fight for positions on the track and if provoked, off of it, as well.
Pulling off far more egregious acts of recklessness, Dale Earnhardt won seven Cup titles filling scrapyards with the demolished cars of competitors who dared to stand between him and a checkered flag.
For this, Earnhardt is lionized. Bestowed with nicknames “The Intimidator” and “The Man in Black,” and forever viewed as the personification of what a stock car driver is supposed to be.
Harvick is no Earnhardt (who he replaced at RCR when Earnhardt was killed on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500). But if you’re going worship the latter, then you can’t condemn Harvick for pulling off a tactic Earnhardt employed many times over.
That doesn’t mean Harvick is worthy of absolution. He was wrong and if Kenseth and Hamlin want to seek retribution, few would begrudge them.
Nor will Harvick have any qualms being cast as the villain. Known for antagonizing rivals with pointed barbs and a tendency to play mind games — he threw a verbal bomb towards Kenseth and Hamlin at the beginning of the Chase even before a lap had been turned — Harvick seemingly thrives when backed into a corner.
If Sunday is the galvanizing moment for another run to a championship, it would surprise no one. But that potential only exists because Harvick, sensing a potential second title endanger of slipping away, responded with a masterly executed maneuver — one that also happened to be unscrupulous.
