Harvick’s guaranteed slot in NASCAR title race nullified
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Kevin Harvick’s bid for a second NASCAR title suffered a massive setback Wednesday when he was stripped of his berth in the championship race because his winning car failed inspection after Sunday’s race at Texas Motor Speedway.
The discovery of an illegally modified spoiler, made during a detailed post-race inspection after the No. 4 Ford returned to NASCAR’s Research and Development Center, negates the automatic berth Harvick earned into the final four.
The rule violated states that spoilers must be used exactly as supplied from the manufacturer and not altered.
On top of losing his spot in next weekend’s finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Harvick must also close out the final two races of the season without crew chief Rodney Childers and car chief Robert Smith. Both were suspended for two races, and Childers fined $75,000.
Harvick was docked 40 driver points, and StewartHaas Racing was docked 40 owner points as well. Harvick enters this weekend’s race at Phoenix fourth among the remaining eight playoff drivers, three points above the cutline.
Should there be a tie for the final transfer spot, Harvick would not be eligible to use the Texas victory in the tiebreaking procedure.
Greg Zipadelli, vice president of competition at SHR, said the team will not appeal the penalties. Tony Gibson will be Harvick’s interim crew chief and Nick DeFazio will be interim car chief.
“We work tirelessly across every inch of our race cars to create speed and, unfortunately, NASCAR determined we ventured into an area not accommodated by its rule book,” Zipadelli said. “We will not appeal the penalty. Instead, we will direct our immediate focus to this weekend’s event in Phoenix and control our destiny on the racetrack.” also was
Harvick’s win at Texas was his series-leading eighth in 2018 and qualified him for Homestead along with Joey Logano. Now three spots in the finale will be up for grabs Sunday in Phoenix.
Harvick won the 2014 Cup Series championship and went to Phoenix that season in a must-win situation to race for the title. He pulled it off and is a ninetime winner at Phoenix, including earlier this year.
Harvick has been in NASCAR’s finale three of the last four years.
It took until Wednesday for the penalties to be announced because the cars were in transit Monday from Texas to North Carolina. Inspection was on Tuesday, and the teams do the actual teardown themselves.
Once the Harvick violation was discovered late Tuesday, NASCAR had to examine whether the violation was correct and didn’t release its findings until the next day — two days before Harvick and his interim crew chief and car chief will practice at Phoenix.