2014 champ, Team Penske rival get heated on pit road
Play: NASCAR Fantasy Live | Vote: Ultimate Daytona Challenge
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Joey Logano said he thought he was doing Kevin Harvick a favor.
Kevin Harvick said Logano should think again.
“I told him I didn’t appreciate it,” Harvick said after the two drivers had a less than convivial conversation on pit road following Saturday night’s Sprint Unlimited at Daytona International Speedway.
A late-race push from Logano’s No. 22 Ford sent Harvick, the defending Sprint Cup Series champion, briefly into the wall and cost both a shot at a victory in the season-opening non-points event.
The two exchanged a bit of sheet metal as they made their way to pit road, then exchanged words afterward.
“That is Kevin just being an instigator just like everywhere else,” the Team Penske driver said. “It’s a new year and the same stuff.
“I was just trying to help, really. We had a run and (I) just kept pushing. Apparently his car was tight. I was doing the same thing with the 78 (of runner-up Martin Truex Jr.) all night and it was working.”
Logano, sixth in the rundown for the 25-car field, said he understood Harvick’s frustration (the Stewart-Haas Racing driver finished 11th), but also said he "was trying to help out, trying to get to the front and trying to win this thing.
“No points or anything like that, you know; you go for the win. Second place, third place, fourth place doesn’t man anything.”
Harvick called it “just really dumb driving there at the end."
“Yeah, you’ve got to be aggressive,” he said, “but you’ve still got to use your head. You can’t just detach it and lay it on the floorboard.”
Joe Gibbs Racing's Matt Kenseth won the event, avoiding the multicar accidents that resulted in only 12 cars running at the finish. Logano failed to lead a lap, but appeared to have a strong ride; Harvick led one lap and was within striking distance for much of the race as well.
Truex confirmed that Logano had been helpful, and fast, during the 75-lap race.
“His car was really strong, he pushed me a lot,” Truex said of Logano. “He’s the only person I’ve seen that could get on somebody’s bumper and actually push them forward. Last year with this package it seemed like when you’d get on somebody’s bumper you’d just slow each other down.
“He was able to get on my bumper at times and push me past people, which is kind of unheard of with this package.”
Regardless of the speed in his car, Harvick said Logano still needs to use his head.
“He thinks he was helping, but you can’t just drive somebody straight into the corner into the fence,” he said. “He kind of did the same thing to me at Talladega and I told him … ‘the karma train’s coming after you,’ and it bit him right in the ass.”
Logano, along with Harvick, were two of the four drivers in the Championship 4 Round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup in 2014. Harvick won the season-ending event at Homestead to clinch the title; Logano finished 16th after a pit road issue and wound up fourth in the final standings.
“Like I told him last year, that kind of stuff catches up with you and it caught up with him last year,” Harvick said.
MORE:
READ: Latest
|
PLAY: Sign up
|
WATCH: Latest
|
FOLLOW LIVE: Get
|
|---|