Team owner: 'I think it's going to be a level playing field' in finale
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HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- The little needling comments that Kevin Harvick has lofted out this week to potentially tweak championship rival Joey Logano ahead of the season-ending NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race have made for interesting exchanges -- some humorous, some awkward.
Roger Penske, Logano's venerable team owner, said on the eve of the season finale that the barbs ring hollow.
"I respect him a lot," Penske said of Harvick, noting his hometown connection with famed IndyCar racer Rick Mears, a Penske legend. "But I can tell you this, that 24‑year‑old Joey Logano, no one gets in his head. You could see that when he got down last week in Phoenix. We're standing behind him."
Harvick and Logano will vie for their first Sprint Cup crown in Sunday's Ford EcoBoost 400 (3 p.m. ET, ESPN) with Denny Hamlin and Ryan Newman, who are also seeking their first Sprint Cup Series championship.
Harvick's opening salvo of remarks began in Wednesday's Media Day for the Championship 4 and continued Friday in a post-qualifying media session from Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The talk stops Sunday with the drop of the green flag, and Penske said he expects Logano to be firmly in the mix.
"To me he's going to be one of the guys that are going to have to get beat," Penske said. "Harvick is going to have to beat him to win. I think it's going to be a level playing field, and the best guy is going to win."
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