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Kevin Harvick said Carson Hocevar‘s repeated brake-checks of Austin Cindric in Sunday’s Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway were “the dirtiest of dirty tricks,” and that NASCAR should treat them like a right-rear hook.
Harvick, the 2014 Cup champion, made the comments on this week’s episode of his show with Will Buxton.
Harvick: ‘Usually you hold that for your worst enemies’
Harvick admitted he has brake-checked other drivers himself, but said he saved it for drivers he was at war with.
“Yeah, usually you hold that for your worst enemies,” Harvick said. “Been there, done that with the brake-check thing. And usually that is leading to the last source of, ‘Hey, middle finger, I don’t care what you think. I’m going to tear your day up.’”
“And as I went back and watched all these videos, I just, ah, man, there wasn’t a lot of contact from the 2 car, leaning on the back bumper. And then you saw what he did to Austin Cindric and the three or four brake-checks.”
“Usually it’s where you’re completely mad at a situation or a person to be able to cause a war. And, you know, there was no war afterwards.”
‘The right-rear hook category’
NASCAR treats a right-rear hook, turning a driver into the wall by hitting his right-rear corner, as one of the most dangerous moves in racing. Harvick said brake-checking a driver with the softer short-track bumpers belongs in the same group.
“I think when you look at it from a NASCAR standpoint, it’s detrimental to the way that you want to see things race and probably falls into the right-rear hook category of whether it’s intentional or not intentional with the way that all this happens,” Harvick said.
“That’s the dirtiest of dirty tricks that you can possibly use on the racetrack. And to see it happen three, four times on the racetrack, when you go back and you listen to his spotter, even his spotter was aggravated with the way that he was doing things and trying to tell him to move on and start racing again.”
A growing list of critics
NBC analysts Jeff Burton and Dale Jarrett criticized Hocevar’s explanation after the race, as Pit This Time reported. Steve Letarte and Jamie McMurray showed car data with Hocevar applying about 1,000 pounds of brake pressure on the straightaway, as Pit This Time reported, and Denny Hamlin and Dale Earnhardt Jr. debated whether NASCAR should step in.
Hocevar’s side
Hocevar, who drives the No. 77 for Spire Motorsports, has denied that the contact was intentional. “It’s just Martinsville,” he said after the race. “I had fun.”
The contact caved in the nose of Cindric’s No. 2 Team Penske Ford and ended his race. NASCAR had not announced a penalty as of Tuesday morning.
Update: Spire Motorsports suspended Hocevar for the Homestead finale on Tuesday, and Justin Haley will drive the No. 77, as Pit This Time reported.
The season ends Sunday, November 8, at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
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