HOLLYWOOD, Fla. -- Kevin Harvick, ever the prankster, the needler, the “I bet I can get under his skin” guy, took the high road Thursday during Championship 4 media day activities, choosing instead to pay homage to a four-time series champion.
“In the end, you don’t want to be the guy that was disrespectful at Jeff Gordon’s last press conference or say something that’s just a total jackass move,” Harvick said.
Harvick (Stewart-Haas Racing) is the defending Sprint Cup Series champion. Gordon (Hendrick Motorsports) is a four-time winner of the title and is retiring as a full-time driver at season’s end.
The two, along with Kyle Busch (Joe Gibbs Racing) and Martin Truex Jr. (Furniture Row Racing) make up this year’s championship contenders. The highest finishing driver of the four in Sunday’s Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway captures the title.
It was an unexpected tact from Harvick, who began this year’s Chase by going for the throat when asked about Joe Gibbs Racing’s perceived superiority heading into the 10-race playoff.
“I've raced against the Gibbs cars. I think we're going to pound them into the ground, that's what I think,” Harvick said of his No. 4 team during a pre-Chase media day gathering in Chicago. “Hopefully they can beat themselves."
At last year’s pre-championship press conference, it was Team Penske’s Joey Logano who bore the brunt of the Harvick mind game, coming after what Harvick saw as questionable driving tactics at an earlier Chase race.
After Logano referenced the anticipated “hard racing” in the finale and added “we want to be able to win the championship the right way,” Harvick was quick to chime in.
“I thought you were going to say you were going to send Brad (Keselowski) out to be the moving chicane like you were at Talladega," he said.
Thursday, Harvick said this year’s fellow Chase competitors deserved much success for what each has been able to accomplish this season. Truex and his single-car, Colorado-based team surviving each round of the Chase to make the finals and Busch coming back after missing the first 11 weeks of the season due to injury to not only qualify for the Chase but make it this far.
“There’s really no reason to ‘create’ a story. There’s no reason to ‘create’ a moment,” Harvick said.
Gordon, however, deserves special recognition, he said, primarily because of what he has meant to the sport for more than two decades.
“Sure I want to go out and win the championship and win the race, but you know in the end, this is a pretty big moment for our sport,” Harvick said. “… Even though it's his last race and growing up a race fan and seeing all the things that he's accomplished in the sport and being able to be a part of (it) a little bit closer … over the last couple years with the SHR relationship with Hendrick for me has been pretty neat.
“I think when you look at all that, I think there's a demand for that respect that he deserves, and it's Jeff Gordon. So … this is a moment where it's about the championship, but it's also paying respect to what is going to be his last race and a pretty cool moment, whether he wins or loses, the way the year has gone for him has been pretty neat.”