Kevin Harvick went against his usual opinion when giving his thoughts on the NASCAR Cup Series’ five-overtime thriller in Nashville over the weekend.
While Harvick normally preferred a race to end at it’s scheduled distance as a driver, since joining the television side of the sport, the former Cup Series champion is of the opinion that ending the race under green, no matter how long it takes, is the right move for NASCAR.
“You can’t start at the start, because the finish was just out of control,” Harvick said, pressed about his opinion on the race, during the latest episode of Harvick’s Happy Hour. “I think that, for me, I guess the place to start is, do we like all the green-white-checkereds? … I think part of this is, we are in the entertainment business. I think that traditional me would tell you that I want the race to end at the right distance, whether there’s green or caution, but I like the show.
“I like the fact that the race ended up green flag, and they were competing, and it added all these different elements to the end of the race.”
Alas, the five overtimes we saw over the weekend in Nashville severely changed the way the race was shaping up in the end, as Joey Logano was able to shock the world and win his first race of 2024. Evidently, Harvick believes it’s a prime example of why you just have to keep the faith when you’re in those situations, like Logano did.
“It did drag all the slow cars to the front. It drug all the slow cars to the front. They were obviously making a lot more gas than the cars that were running up front,” Harvick added. “The fact that Joey Logano could run that far, and I saw Chris Gabehart tweet after the race, a fan asked, ‘How did Joey Logano go that far on fuel?’ Chris Gabehart wrote, ‘Because he was slow.’ You know, I think that it’s — you just never know in this sport. I think you just have to keep yourself rolling. You have to keep yourself in contention. I’ve been on the other side of the fence, where they have these rules where you can only do one green-white-checkered, and then somebody will spin somebody out, and something happens and it ends the same way that it would’ve if it just ended at the correct distance. So, we went away from the green-white-checkereds unlimited when the Truck Series was in St. Louis, and they had all of those crashes at the end of the race.
“I like it ending under green, because I think that’s what the fans want to see, and you just have these unexpected moments that show up, with the races ending this way, and now with Logano winning, it kind of turns that whole playoff picture a little bit upside down. But I’m telling you, if one person outside of that Top 16 wins, it’s really going to get interesting.”
Alas, we’ll see if any other of the playoff-bubble drivers can rip off a similar win to Joey Logano in the coming weeks, but Kevin Harvick and the rest of the NASCAR world will be hoping for more exciting finishes throughout the summer for the Cup Series, like we saw in Nashville.
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