Originally Posted on Foxsports.com on November 8, 2006
Kevin Harvick has clinched his second Busch series Championship, and is poised to steal away the Nextel Cup trophy this year too. On top of that, Harvick has won nine Busch races and has two chances to tie or best the Busch series record of 10 wins in a season (currently held by Sam Ard).
Harvick has been a lightning rod of controversy since he took over Dale Earnhardt's #3 car after the Daytona crash that took Earnhardt's life. He won in short order, but was unable to do more than the occasional win, and he was never a contender for the Championship.
During those years, Harvick had altercations with Ricky Rudd (resulting in a one race suspension) and bump and runs with competitors too numerous to list. He trash talks with the best of them, with his favorite target of late to be Kurt Busch. Harvick hasn't rumbled with Tony Stewart, and Stewart calls Harvick his "probable" best friend in Nextel Cup series.
Last week at the Texas race, Harvick had an on-track incident with Scott Riggs. Riggs was running in the top five at the time. Depending on whether you like Harvick or Riggs, you either saw Harvick get Riggs loose and Riggs lost it, or saw Harvick take him out. Definitely shades of a Black #3 bumping whomever out of the way to get the win or just a better finish.
After the race, Rigg's front tire carrier, Craig Curione started arguing with Harvick as he and his wife, Delana, walked to the media center. Curione eventually shoved Harvick, who fell into Delana, who fell into a Nascar Official. Unfortunately, the official fell in front of the pit box and was injured. The incident was observed by many people, including Roger Penske, who got called to the trailer to tell his side of the story. Nascar fined Curione and suspended him indefinitely. Evernham Motorsports does not plan to appeal the decision, and gave Curione its own suspension.
The media and fans have been outraged. Mostly because Delana was shoved, bumped, or accidently knocked to the ground. Had it just been Harvick, I'd imagine most would say he probably deserved it for one thing or another.
Harvick has proven this year why he was a hot commodity when he was negotiating with Richard Childress to renew his contract. Rumors floated that Harvick would leave RCR and move onto greener pastures. Harvick remained loyal to Childress.
It is due to RCR's resurgence that Harvick has dominated the Busch series this year. In addition to running races for RCR, Harvick owns Busch teams with his wife Delana. And Harvick has ideas on how to make the Busch series less attractive to Cup drivers. First, Harvick would change the schedule so that Cup drivers couldn't run the full series. He'd do this by scheduling on opposite ends of the country and at times that would make it impossible to do both series. He'd start with five races that would be impossible to get to without missing the Cup races.
Next, Harvick would use crew rosters to prevent Cup teams from pitting Busch cars. That way, he'd develop the next group of outstanding Cup pit crews, and make Busch pitstops more competitive.
Finally, Harvick would seal the motors so that they would have to be run twice, thereby saving $500,000 to $700,000 each year in motor costs. In Harvick's opinion, it is the cost of running a Busch team that is causing problems for the smaller teams (like FitzBradshaw, Braun, etc.).
Regardless what you think about Harvick, his ideas about the Busch series are worth pondering. The ideas have the potential to return the Busch series to the original plan of a development series for the Nextel Cup series. And Harvick's on-track savvy and wins are making it possible that he will have the "bully pulpit" of the Championship to push his ideas.
Whether you like him or not.
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