Harvick’s move drew criticism from several drivers after the race, most notably Denny Hamlin, who entered the entered the race second in points but missed the cut when he finished 37th and out of the Chase after being caught in the wreck.
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“Denny is a very emotional person”, Harvick said.
However, NASCAR president Mike Helton said: “There is no evidence right now that there was anything that the 4 auto did that was questionable”.
He had a far more scathing take on Twitter after he was eliminated from the Chase. Harvick was told over team communications to block as many cars as he could on the restart in order to receive the maximum number of points possible. When the field took the green flag, Bayne pulled high on the track attempting to pass the slower Harvick.
Harvick informed his team under caution he had a mechanical issue that was preventing him from accelerating, but he stayed in line and his inability to go on the restart triggered the race-ending accident. NASCAR, incidentally, announced Tuesday that the results of the race would stand.
As for Hamlin, who he called a “fair acquaintance” because he doesn’t like to make friends in the garage, Harvick said he wasn’t upset by the driver’s accusations.
“Don’t ask me if I meant to do it. For all intents and purposes, I’m still alive to win the Cup”.
“I didn’t cause the first wreck”. I definitely don’t believe that I caused the second wreck, either.
“We were thinking before the race they made a good change to go to one on the green-white-checkered and I still feel that way”, Earnhardt said. I feel literally coming into Martinsville like I’m going to Daytona for the 500, because nothing else that’s happened before now really matters. “You have to try….” Wrecking to win. Time to watch football instead of this crap. Obviously, the situation with the restart was what it was, so…
“That’s exactly what he was hoping for”, Bayne’s spotter Freddie Kraft said.
“Come to Chase time, everyone is bringing their A-game, everything they got, the best they can, not only with their racecars, but every driver is trying to find that extra little bit”.
Harvick insisted he doesn’t have to defend himself.
“Joey Logano didn’t have to do anything to Matt Kenseth (at Kansas), except he knew Matt Kenseth was going to be a strong competitor for the championship at Homestead, so he eliminated him”, Busch said. But he was still able to maintain enough speed to stay with the other cars during caution laps. “If all the circumstances would have been different, it might have had a different outcome”.
Chaser Carl Edwards, a teammate of Hamlin and Kenseth, supports the view that Harvick was wrong. “They were aware of that, and it appears that they caused that caution”.
Probably not. NASCAR’s judges have many other precedents they can invoke which suggest a reticence to convict on the charge of race manipulation.
“Things happen in the heat of battle”.
Now, what you have is a driver who knows he got away with one and is doing all the right things after over a decade of being involved in this sport and paying the price for bad behavior or aggressive quotes made in front of the press. “Sweeping the Contender Round of the chase is an unbelievable achievement, with the Eliminator Round poised for even more excitement”. Uneasy lies the crown upon the reigning champion…
Andy Cagle writes about NASCAR in a weekly column.
No surprise that Talladega’s TV rating was a positive 2.6, with 4.2 million viewers.
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NASCAR should be extremely sensitive to accusations of race manipulation, particularly since the 2013 fiasco at Richmond in which Michael Waltrip Racing used a series of maneuvers to put a driver in the Chase. Check back again over the weekend after the lineup’s been set to get my final picks and avoidances for the race. The rating for the F1 race was an IndyCar-ish 0.58, with 889,000 viewers.
