Championship intrigue swirls, Harvick stirs pot

AVONDALE, Ariz. -- Long before the cars took to the track at Phoenix International Raceway on Friday, the words were already flying.

At least that's the way it appeared after a morning of verbal posturing between three championship-contending teams that was as entertaining as anything that occurred between the concrete walls of the desert oval. The decision by Jimmie Johnson's team last week at Texas to change pit crews, the choice by Denny Hamlin's crew chief to call them out for it, and Kevin Harvick's assessment of the entire situation only heaped more layers of intrigue on top of what's already one of the closest Chases.

"I can tell you right now, we're paying attention to everything that's going on, whether it's something that's said, heard, everything that's going on on the race track," said Harvick, third in the standings and 59 points behind leader Hamlin. "You just look for that one opening to pounce on somebody."

And Friday he pounced on Mike Ford, Hamlin's crew chief, who last weekend in Fort Worth called the mid-race pit crew change on the No. 48 team a "desperation move" and declared he wasn't "going to tiptoe" around a program that had won the past four championships in NASCAR's premier series. Harvick, as loose as he's been in an interview session all season and knowing he has absolutely nothing to lose, couldn't have stirred the pot more effectively had he carried a giant spoon into the media center.

"The only good thing that comes from being cocky like that is, you better win. Because if you don't, you're going to have to answer a lot of questions about your comments when you get done. So you create a lot more work than what you see initially when you say those things if it all doesn't go your way," Harvick said.

"I think when you're trying to intimidate the guy who's won four championships in a row, I think you ought to go out and rethink your strategy and just go out and worry about racing, because it's really not something that is probably necessary. But he got all over Denny at Dover for saying the things he did about RCR and how it disrupted the team, and in my opinion, all the things he said seem to be a disruption to his team, and now Denny is going to have to come in here and answer all those questions."

Hamlin's victory last weekend in Texas gave him a 33-point lead over Johnson, who has never been behind at this point in his championship reign. Chad Knaus, Johnson's crew chief, became so disgusted with slow stops in Fort Worth that he subbed out his entire over-the-wall crew with that of Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon, who had crashed out of the race. Johnson will continue to use Gordon's old crew for the final two events of this season. Ford made no secret of his feeling that the move was a sign of weakness, and an indication that his No. 11 team was superior.

Days after the race, Harvick mocked Ford's bravado in a Twitter post. Friday at Phoenix, he pulled out the needles yet again. "I think Mike should take his own advice to his driver and not insert your foot into your mouth," he said. "... There's just nothing to be gained from it, as far as a team standpoint. I mean, it's a crew chief, for God's sake. I just don't understand, I guess."

The crew chief of the No. 11 car had no regrets over his comments from a week ago. "I didn't do anything but state the truth. That's all I did. If you think that's cocky, I don't care. It's time to go. That's it," Ford said.

"I'm not going to get in the middle of any sh-- here. It is what it is. It's competition. It's no mind games, there's none of that crap that anybody speculates. It was simply, we went out and won the race and did what we had to do, and you see other guys making changes and what they feel like they need to do. It's one of those things where, we're being chased, and there's no other way to put it."

And yet, Ford is in the middle of something. His unfiltered comments from last weekend -- which, to be fair, weren't necessarily out of character for one of the more forthright crew chiefs in the garage area -- have become billboard material for Johnson's squad over at Hendrick.

"I expected comments to be made after the 11 won at Texas, and believe me, we have used those comments as motivation inside Hendrick Motorsports," Johnson said. "[There have been] plenty of references to the comments made -- guys thinking about it during their sets at the gym, when they're changing tires on pit stops, there have been plenty of e-mails internally. It's been a great motivational tool, and we certainly hope to show up this weekend."

At the same time, though, Johnson understood what Ford was trying to do. "I think at the end of the day, the comments made, they're to be expected," he said. "You have a team that's fighting for their first championship, they won the race, they did everything they needed to do. We certainly didn't want to have the day we wanted .... I think among all that, it was very easy for Denny or Mike to give some comments. I'd think anyone in that position would take the opportunity to put some heat on the 48."

Hamlin, who spent the latter part of this week in Las Vegas and plans to play golf Saturday with PGA Tour pro Bubba Watson, tried to stay above the fray. He said his crew chief isn't cocky, but honest and supportive of his own team.

"I think anyone who's leading the points is going to have a target on their backs, like it or not," the points leader said. "The he-said, she-said is totally irrelevant."

In a way, though, it's Harvick instigating much of this, whether through Twitter posts about Ford finally finding a certain part of his anatomy, or cutting comments like those he made Friday morning. Like a third-place car on the race track, he's hoping the two leaders get so fixated on one another that he's able to slip by.

"I think we're in a great position, because the pressure on our team is very, very low," he said. "You're not going to finish lower than where you are in the points, you have everything to gain with winning the championship. We have those two guys obviously going back and forth with each another, and we're just sitting back, hoping to do what we need to do."