Joey
Logano did all he could do to keep Kevin Harvick in his rear-view mirror late
in Saturday night’s Duck Commander 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.
Harvick
did what it took to get past Logano and challenge for the win.
After
it was over, neither man looked for an apology.
Logano
admitted blocking Harvick’s faster Chevrolet while battling for fourth place in
the late going. After a brief period of mirror-driving, the Penske Racing
driver was bumped from behind by Harvick, sending the Shell/Pennzoil Ford up
the track and back to eighth place in the running order. Harvick drove on and
eventually edged Dale Earnhardt, Jr. for the runner-up position at the drop of the
checkered flag.
"He blocked and I knocked him out of the way," said
a surprisingly calm Harvick afterward. "You've got to do what you've got to do at the end of those
races. Everybody went into block mode, and you've just got to go.
“It's
fine (if people choose to block). You knock them out of the way.”
Far
from being upset, Logano actually endorsed Harvick’s late-race aggressiveness, saying,
“I would do the same thing.
"It was hard
racing, it was understandable," said Logano. "We're racing (near) the
end of the race and… I felt like I had to guard that position. We're all racing
for wins. We've got nothing to lose, so I made that move thinking, 'Hey, I've
got to win this race and do what I've got to do to win it.”
NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing
Development Officer Steve O'Donnell said after the race that the sanctioning body
had no issue with the tactics used by either driver.
"We know
we have the best drivers in the world, and we know they're going to control
what they do behind the steering wheel," said O'Donnell. "We've seen
some other sanctioning bodies react to blocking and put themselves into those
calls. It's certainly been a challenge and it has certainly been very
controversial. We choose to stay out of that and let the drivers play it out on
the race track."
Harvick recorded his sixth finish of second or
better in seven races this season, extending his string of consecutive Top-10
finishes to 10, dating back to last November’s Texas race. Logano has also finished in the Top-10 in every race this season.
Seriously????????? Harvick is the biggest whiner next to his boss. He gives this hard post race speech of blocking..yada, yada, yada..real tough guy. Yap-Yap doing his thing. Cue the post race interview with Logano..he basically didn't want to go there and he dropped it. Harvick kept yapping. Do yourself a favor..look back at Yappy and his mouth..nothing new in particular with blocking. He is a hypocrite. Look to future races and the hypocrisy and whining will surface. But the bowtie babies will find a zillion excuses to find out if Harvick is moved because he is a "chicane" it will be a different narrative. It already happened at Daytona this past winter..whine, whine, whine. With this manufactured drama the media is pushing and Harvick seeming obsessed with the young talent, more to come no doubt.. Logano is looking more and more like the 40 year old instead of the 24 year old.
ReplyDeleteWell of course nothing was going to come of this. Neither of the combatants last name's was Keselowski.
ReplyDelete