Harvick claims pole in Phoenix
Driver on cheating scandal: “I just show up and drive the cars”
AVONDALE, ARIZ . » Kevin Harvick shrugged off a cheating scandal to show he’s still a legitimate title contender by winning the pole for his final shot at making the championship race.
As for what exactly happened with his racewinning car last week, Harvick didn’t offer any new information after claiming the top starting spot at ISM Raceway outside of Phoenix.
“I don’t build the cars. I can’t tell you what’s good and what’s bad. I just show up and drive the cars,” Harvick said Friday.
But his crew chief, Rodney Childers, said Stewart-Haas Racing modified the spoiler on Harvick’s car because other teams were already doing similar alterations. Childers is suspended for the final two races of the season and working at the race shop in North Carolina as Harvick tries to overcome a devastating penalty issued this week for what NASCAR determined was a blatant case of cheating.
Harvick won last weekend at Texas. When the spoiler was removed from his No. 4 Ford during an extensive inspection in North Carolina, NASCAR discovered the part had been altered.
It is NASCAR’s belief that SHR built its own spoiler and tried to pass it off as one distributed by the vendor. The spoiler was offset to the right and NASCAR says it gave Harvick an aerodynamic advantage.
SHR did not appeal the penalty and acknowledged “NASCAR determined we ventured into an area not accommodated by its rule book.”
Childers elaborated in a series of tweets early Friday morning in which he said SHR made the decision to move the spoiler after other teams shifted their decklids and spoilers to the right in the previous 1.5-mile race at Kansas Speedway.
“This year there isn’t a number or officiating on the offset of the decklid and spoiler together on the car. And at Kansas we noticed people we were racing had the spoilers and decklids further to the right than ours. And it was too late to move the decklid over more,” Childers posted on Twitter.
Additional posts claimed the downforce advantage was “4 counts. That’s 0.04 percent of the total downforce of the car. If you think 4 counts is the reason we won you’re way wrong.”
Harvick leads the series with eight victories, but two were with illegal cars. His Las Vegas victory from earlier this year was disqualified, as was last week’s Texas win.
Harvick is still mathematically in contention to advance into the final four and he’s a ninetime winner at Phoenix, site of Sunday’s final championship-qualifying event. He won at Phoenix earlier this year.
Chase Elliott, a playoff contender, qualified second and was followed by Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Ryan Blaney and Alex Bowman, none of whom are racing for the three remaining spots in the finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Only Joey Logano is already locked into Homestead and he qualified ninth.
The rest of the playoff drivers are spread throughout the field. Kyle Busch qualified sixth, reigning series champion Martin Truex Jr. was 13th and followed by Kurt Busch. Clint Bowyer qualified 15th and Aric Almirola was 18th, lowest of the playoff drivers.