Kevin Harvick arguably escalated the conflict between Jeff Gordon and Brad Keselowski on Sunday night at Texas Motor Speedway and says he did it in the hopes that it would teach Keselowski a lesson.
Gordon and Keselowski were exchanging words on pit road, and the conversation had started to settle down, when Harvick shoved a somewhat retreating Keselowski back towards the four-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion. The action ignited a brawl as Gordon, Keselowski and their respective crew members all threw punches and ended up with cut lips, bruises and blackened eyes.
Harvick was a part of the four-way battle for the win in the closing laps with Gordon, Keselowski and eventual winner Jimmie Johnson. He took umbrage with how the 2012 champion conducted himself both on and off the track over the past several weeks.
Keselowski forced himself into the middle of a three-wide situation with Gordon and Johnson on the penultimate restart, cutting the Gordon car’s tire and eliminating him from contention for the win. Harvick says that sort of aggressive driving should come with consequences.
“If you’re going to drive like that, you had best be willing to fight,” Harvick said. “It’s like I told him when he was going to back up on this fight, if you’re going to drive like a madman — you had best be willing to take a few punches too because he was going to stand behind his guys.
“Jeff Gordon deserved to at least have a face to face conversation with him.”
Harvick added that he wasn’t trying to stand up for Gordon as much as he was his own convictions over how drivers should conduct themselves in the face of criticism and conflict.
“I wasn’t standing up for anyone,” Harvick said. (Keselowski) just ran over (Gordon) and he’s standing behind his guys, not wanting to defend what he did. If you’re going to do that, you had better be ready when you come in. I said, you’re the problem, get in your own fight.”
When asked ‘what was too far,’ in the current pressure-cooking NASCAR atmosphere, Harvick may have had the most poignant line of them all.
“There are no rules right now. There are no rules.”
