Chase Elliott, Kevin Harvick dust-up injects drama into Cup Series playoffs
By Bob Pockrass
FOX Sports NASCAR Writer
BRISTOL, Tenn. — The Chase Elliott-Kevin Harvick postrace dust-up Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway might mean as much for both drivers going forward as what occurred on the track.
Neither has had the season he would have wanted — at least not so far.
Elliott has two victories, both on road courses. His Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson earned his sixth victory Saturday night at Bristol, and Elliott has seen his fair share of opportunities slip away because of mistakes. While he has the same number of wins as he did at this time last year, a signature oval victory would be nice for Elliott as he navigates the playoffs.
Harvick, who recorded a series-high nine victories last year, has gone winless in 2021. Stewart-Haas Racing fell behind this year, seemingly impacted the most by NASCAR’s emphasis on the rear wheel well measurements. Harvick needed a victory Saturday, both for the points it would deliver and to end his drought.
Both drivers at least appear to have found speed at the right time. The 25-year-old Elliott had to show that he wouldn’t be intimidated, and the 45-year-old Harvick had to show that he still has that fire.
Elliott thought he needed to stand up for himself after contact between him and Harvick led to a flat tire, resulting in Elliott falling a couple of laps down. With Harvick attempting to lap Elliott and Larson trailing Harvick for the lead, Elliott ran in the same lane as Harvick’s preferred groove, stalling him out and allowing Larson to catch Harvick and eventually pass for the win.
Elliott, with no chance to win, didn’t mind helping Larson and ruining Harvick’s day. But will it come back to bite him?
Harvick has no teammates left in championship contention, so the three other SHR drivers could make life miserable for Elliott or his teammates, as they have little to lose in the final seven events. While they want to win or get the best finish possible, they might not hesitate to take away Elliott’s line, much as he did to Harvick, if they are a lap down. But with all of Elliott’s teammates still alive in the playoffs, they might not be able to offer a similar favor.
Then again, Elliott thought he had no choice but to pick his battle. And Harvick said Elliott pulled a similar blocking maneuver to stall him out earlier in the race.
"It was chicken s---," Harvick said. "Instead of racing hard, he just sat out there and rode around like he did in the first stage for his teammate instead of racing hard.
"The guy hangs on my right-rear fender every week, and we’re racing for the lead at Bristol, and you throw a temper tantrum like that?"
Elliott said he had to stand up for himself after what he saw as a pattern of driving while attempting to cut his competitor’s tires. He said Harvick did it to him at Darlington in the opening race of the playoffs, but it didn’t cut a tire down.
"He gets upset racing at these places and turns into your left side and hopes you cut a left-side tire down," he said. "It happens more than I can count on two hands in my career racing in Cup — six years and more than 10 times. I’ve had enough."
Both drivers are likely future Hall of Famers. Harvick, the 2014 Cup champion, will make it with 58 career victories. Elliott, the 2020 Cup champion and voted three times as the series' most popular driver, has 13 career wins.
"Whether he did it on purpose doesn't matter," Elliott said. "At some point, you have to draw a line. I don't care who he is or how long he's been doing it, I'm going to stand up for myself and my team, and we're going down the road."
Harvick also indicated that he doesn't care who Elliott is and wouldn't hesitate to criticize the fan favorite in the sport.
"Anytime you run into him, it's a problem," Harvick said as fans booed him following the race. "So they can boo all they want. I don't care."
When it comes to the standings, a win would have been pivotal for both drivers. Elliott sits sixth, just eight points ahead of the cutoff entering the second round. The win would have put him third and 13 points ahead.
Harvick is last in the playoff standings — just as he was entering the first round — and sits 12 points behind the cutoff. He would have been seven points back with the win.
Elliott crew chief Alan Gustafson said that when a driver has a fast car and something like that happens, it's "salt in the wound."
"I’m happy he stood up for himself and us," Gustafson said. "We support him 100 percent. It’s just frustrating, you know? To have the damage and lose the race like that. It’s tough."
Obviously, the teams will stand up for their drivers.
"Chase did what he thought he needed to do," Gustafson said. "We’re all about it and support him no matter what. Kevin is a smart guy. He knows that left rear tire is very vulnerable, that left rear fender is very vulnerable, and he knows how to put his car there.
"I don’t really know what happened. Chase obviously took a lot of offense to it."
Harvick certainly did for what he thought was unwarranted retaliation.
"I wanted to rip his freaking head off," Harvick said.
Drivers never forget, but some are better than others at putting things in the past and not letting them impact the driving week-to-week. This, more likely than not, won’t be one of those moments.
Stay tuned.
Thinking out loud
What about the undercard? The Xfinity and truck races at Bristol both had some controversy, too.
Austin Cindric, AJ Allmendinger and Justin Allgaier swapped paint in the final laps of the Xfinity race, with Allgaier suffering a flat tire and Cindric and Allmendinger sideways crashing across the finish line. Allmendinger won the race to win the regular-season title.
That finish was the way NASCAR designed this points system — it wants to encourage drivers to be physical by creating value for winning races as well as the regular-season championship, which allowed Allmendinger to earn an extra 10 points to start the playoffs.
In the trucks, it wasn’t as physical, but it also was a product of the NASCAR playoff system. Chandler Smith needed to win to advance, and he knocked Sheldon Creed out of the way and also had some contact with his Kyle Busch Motorsports teammate, John Hunter Nemechek.
It is natural to wonder whether Nemechek let Smith win to advance — or at the very least raced him differently, especially when it appeared that Smith got by him easily for second. Nemechek said Smith gave him "a cheap shot" when they battled for the lead, but it could be argued that was just playing the game of making sure to not say anything that could raise the ire of NASCAR officials.
Nemechek created enough benefit of the doubt that there isn’t much NASCAR can do in this situation. And it shouldn’t. Its system of win-and-in creates scenarios in which teammates might sacrifice for one another.
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Stat of note
William Byron, who finished third at Bristol to launch himself into the playoffs, did so with his first career top-5 at Bristol and his third top-10 in his past 11 races.
They said it
"I’ve always wanted to win this [Bristol] race, whether it be the springtime or the nighttime. But the night race is always my favorite one. It is always such a fun race. ... Cool to finally get it done." – Kyle Larson on his Bristol win
Bob Pockrass has spent decades covering motorsports, including the past 30 Daytona 500s. He joined FOX Sports in 2019 following stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @bobpockrass. Looking for more NASCAR content? Sign up for the FOX Sports NASCAR Newsletter with Bob Pockrass!