Larson wins at Bristol while Harvick and Elliott’s feud steals show

BRISTOL, Tenn. — Kyle Larson won at Bristol Motor Speedway — not really a big surprise or even the most interesting part of NASCAR’s first playoff elimination race.

The post-race feud between reigning Cup Series champion Chase Elliott and Kevin Harvick stole the show Saturday night, especially when Harvick angrily told the energized crowd: “I’m ready to freakin’ rip somebody’s head off.”

The fickle crowd struggled to pick a side before settling firmly behind Elliott, NASCAR’s most popular driver.

Harvick took the lead from Elliott with 33 laps remaining but the hard racing caused contact that cut one of Elliott’s tires. After a quick tire change, Elliott exacted his revenge by deliberately slowing in front of Harvick to give Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson a chance to catch Harvick.

Larson made the race-winning pass with four laps to go to earn his sixth win of the year. Then Harvick and Elliott parked alongside each other on pit road, bounded out their windows, and immediately began jawing at each other.

“Obviously, Harvick and Chase got together. Chase was upset. Kind of held him up,” Larson said. “It got Harvick having to move around and use his tires up off the bottom. I started to get some dive-ins working off of [turn] two, got a big run, decided to pull the trigger, slide him, squeeze him a little bit, hen he had me jacked up down the frontstretch. It was wild.” Then came the pit-road confrontation.

Harvick had his helmet on at first and Elliott wagged his finger in Harvick’s face. There was brief shoving, Harvick slammed his helmet in anger, and both drivers blamed the other even after the verbal sparring moved inside Elliott’s hauler for a private conversation.

“We were racing for the frickin’ win at Bristol, we’re threewide in the middle, and he throws a temper tantrum like I was just trying to get the lead and race him hard,” Harvick fumed. “Then he pulled up in front of me and just sits there until I lose the whole lead.”

The crowd at that moment was very decidedly on Elliott’s side. “They can boo all the want, I don’t care,” Harvick said.

Elliott, meanwhile, indicated Harvick pushes people around on the track and the pattern must stop.

“It’s something he does all the time. He runs into your left side constantly at other tracks and sometimes it does cut down your left side and other times it doesn’t,” Elliott said. “He did it to me in Darlington a few weeks ago because he was tired of racing with me and whether he did it on purpose it doesn’t matter.

“I don’t care who he is or how long he’s been doing it. I am going to stand up for myself and my team and go on down the road.”

With that, the Bristol faithful was firmly Team Elliott.