WATCH: JGR drivers displeased with Talladega finish | Complete results
UPDATE: NASCAR statement on Talladega results
TALLADEGA, Ala. — Kevin Harvick walked away from Sunday’s elimination race at Talladega Superspeedway with a Chase berth and a fighting chance to compete for his second straight title. Harvick’s 15th-place result in the 500-mile event put him seventh in the standings and apart of the final eight moving onto the third round of the Chase.
But it’s the reigning Sprint Cup Series champion’s final restart — not his advancement — that had the garage buzzing hours after the checkered flag waved.
Harvick and Trevor Bayne wrecked on a green-white-checkered attempt to end the race, causing a “Big One” before the main pack had even reached the start/finish line. The result froze the field and, as NASCAR worked to determine which eight drivers would advance to the Eliminator Round, sent the Stewart-Haas Racing driver onward in the postseason.
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“I was just trying to get out of the way once I got going there,” Harvick told FOX Sports after the race. “I thought I could get going better than I did the first time and I just didn’t get going. So as I was pulling up, I was looking to the inside waiting for them to shoot the gap and I hit the 6.”
No. 4 crew chief Rodney Childers said after the race that “the motor was blowing up,” referring to Harvick’s late-race engine troubles that had caused him to fall back prior to the final restart.
“He’s trying to get out of the way, but not lose too many spots — it’s easy,” Childers said. “We’re not the ones that invented this (expletive).”
But others weren’t so sure — many thought motor-troubled Harvick caused the wreck intentionally to end the race and thus, hold onto his Chase position.
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“That’s a crappy way for Harvick to have to get in the Chase is to wreck somebody — what I believe on purpose,” Bayne said after the race. “Maybe it wasn’t … the restart before that he had engine problems and got out of the way. I think he realized if the caution came out he was gonna be fine, so I go by and get hooked in the left-rear.
“Harvick is a really good driver. I think he knows the limits of his car and where it’s at, that’s why I think it was intentional.”
Matt Kenseth, who was one of the four drivers eliminated from the Chase on Sunday, seconded Bayne’s sentiment.
“(Harvick) pulled out of the way the first time because he knew he was blowing up and this time he said he was going to hold his lane, so we went up to go around him and then he clipped the 6 (Trevor Bayne),” Kenseth said after the race. “He knew if he put him in a slow spin the race was over and he’d make it.”
Kenseth’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin, who battled problems with his car and was eliminated after getting caught up in the wreck, tweeted “What a joke we have a car with no motor wreck the field to end the race.”
Intentional or not, the No. 4 team’s in-car audio prior to the restart revealed the crew knew Harvick needed something drastic to happen for him to advance to the next round of the Chase.
“Hopefully they wreck right past the start-finish line, might end up with something,” Childers said on the radio. “If not we’ll be out. Everybody’s done a good job all day though, no matter what.”
Another team member piped up, saying that he knew Harvick “ain’t got much option, but I would try to block as many positions as you can because that’s really what it’s going to come down to.”
Officials and team members met post-race at the NASCAR hauler to review the controversial restart and determine whether or not the No. 4 car’s actions were intentional and if action was needed.
The conclusion was no.
“What we saw, there’s no evidence right now that there’s anything the 4 car did that was questionable other than moving out of line,” NASCAR Vice Chairman Mike Helton said. “…”Obviously there are some of the teams that have questioned what the 4 car did on the restarts. We went back and walked through with him but procedurally from NASCAR, we don’t see anything there that was of suspect.”
“So far,” he added, saying the sanctioning body would review footage from different angles in case something fell “out of the woodwork in the next 24 hours.”