Photo Credit: Noel Lanier
Speaking on Sirius XM Radio on Monday, NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer Steve O’Donnell says Kevin Harvick will not be penalized for hitting Jimmie Johnson following the Sprint Cup Series race at Chicagoland Speedway.
“That is emotion coming out when the stakes are really high in the Chase,” O’Donnell said. “We’ve got a reigning champion who finds himself in a tough spot … really needing to win (to advance), so you understand the frustration. You don’t like to see what happened, but from our standpoint that’s just pure emotion when the stakes are high and knowing how important it is to go out and win a championship.”
RELATED: Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick Make Contact, Have Post-Race Altercation
During Sunday’s race, Harvick had a left rear tire go flat and hit the wall at lap 139, following contact with Johnson on a lap 135 restart. For the restart, Harvick would restart 2nd on the outside, with Johnson third and Joey Logano fifth. Logano would push Johnson on the restart, causing Johnson to go below the yellow line. Johnson would then move up the track to get back in line, getting into Harvick and pushing him up.
Following the event, Johnson went to talk to Harvick post-race, with Harvick giving him a shove. Harvick would try to get another shot in, though was held by a team member.
Well you might have known , had it been someone else, like Newman or Biffle, nascar would have been all over them. Since it was Harvick , we all knew before hand that Nascar was not going to penalize him. We know Nascar has different sets of rules for different drivers. I’ve been a Nascar fan since 1960 and never seen so much corruption.
Hey Arland,
Thanks for stopping by OPR and reading our stuff and commenting. It’s much appreciated.
To go along with your comment, I have to disagree with what you’re saying. For one, Harvick has received his fair share of penalties over the year for on-track aggression and off-track skirmishes so he hasn’t been always left out of the equation. Secondly, while you may want to compare this to everything NASCAR has done over the years, recall that they changed the driver confrontation policy a couple years ago with the “boys have at it” motto. They encouraged drivers to get up in each other’s faces to display their displeasure, while sounding off their disagreements in interviews. To go along with that, if you recall the fight that Gordon and Keselowski had last season, along with Kenseth’s actions towards Keselowski, none of the drivers got penalized for their fighting. The only ones to get penalized were the crew chiefs, for not keeping the teams outta the fight as NASCAR says they want the drivers to be able to fight, but not have the pit crew members involved and creating a big circus. Just a thought on the topic.
Again, thanks for stopping by :)
Even being an old woman and freely admitting Jimmie is my driver due to 5 odd coincidences in our lives, I don’t blame NASCAR. If “Have at it boys,” is a way to bring back viewers they have to go for it. Butts in seats pays, empty stadiums help no one. In the old Winston cup days rivalry between drivers kept things interesting. Without it, it just seems like a bunch of guys going fast turning left. Most fans don’t pay attention to car changes and restrictions, just to their driver. Hate to say so, but the DVR has made NASCAR, like other things easy to watch later and for some, not at all if nothing interesting happened before or especially after a race to add action.