All day Friday at Michigan, drivers were asked about their view of the Joey Logano/Kevin Harvick incident from last week.
Other Drivers Weigh In On Who Was Right: Joey Logano Or Kevin Harvick?
Here’s some selected comments (will be updated throughout the afternoon):
Mark Martin, a friend of Logano: ”(Joey is) a firm, hard competitor that races fair with great intensity. It is unfortunate that he has had multiple run-ins with a couple of different drivers. I’m not sure exactly why that has happened. But, as far as after the race goes, I was surprised to see his ferocity.
"I loved seeing Tom Logano's reaction and I'm a dad. And anybody who would criticize that, a lot of them aren't dads. I have a son thatcompeted, not only in racing, but in hockey too. Heck, I stood up one day, yelled at him, hit him with his stick when he was playing hockey and a kid's dad was standing to me and I didn't care. So, I'm a dad and I am a Tom Logano fan as well.
”Eventually he will earn everyone’s respect. He has earned my respect by racing hard and causing very little problem. Don’t forget, most of the guys that come in here and are new at it and race really hard cause a lot of problems. Accidently; they don’t mean to. But they do. And Joey is not.
“If I was Kevin Harvick and I didn’t know Joey Logano, I would say (I’d think Logano would try for payback). I think Joey Logano still has enough integrity to continue to try to make that right and make that work without doing it. But I might be wrong. I’m not Joey. But if I’m Harvick, yeah, I’m going to figure out I’ve got one coming.”
Kyle Busch, a teammate of Logano: “Joey, I felt like, had the right position on the racetrack. ... I’m going to stick up for Joey and say, ‘Yeah, you have to turn into the corner.’ Harvick went straight. He was trying to stay on the patch and he’s the bottom lane car. You’ve seen all day that the bottom lane car shoots to the bottom of the race track. Harvick did hold his line, but Harvick dumped him doing so.
”I don’t think any of the Joe Gibbs Racing drivers (are dirty). I don’t try to race dirty. I might race hard and might be difficult for some people, but I’m not out there to wreck anybody on purpose. I try to give the lane, if someone has the lane then I give it to him and try to make sure that I don’t make any enemies. I know about that, I know about the big picture and I don’t need enemies going on forward. To me, you just have to make sure that you pick and choose your battles when you want to and that you don’t make too many of them.
“I don’t think what he did shows anything. I think what will show is if he retaliates, that’s what’s going to show. Driving up to somebody on pit road and running your mouth to him isn’t a whole lot, that’s not that difficult to do. Everybody’s got an opinion and everybody can let one out. I think Joey is a smarter race car driver than that and he’s not going to stoop to that level. Time will tell.”
Greg Biffle, who has had incidents with Logano: “It does seem like (Logano) is the common denominator in the deal. I would have to gather that it might be some of his doing, if I had to guess.
”I watched the Nationwide race (at Bristol) and I watched him chop off Kevin Harvick for 15 laps. Kevin had his nose in there two or three times and Joey chopped it to the bottom. I knew that was only going to go on for so long. I could have written him a letter and put it in the mail and sent it to him to let him know: He was going to have a problem eventually.
”On the last lap, he had a problem and doesn’t understand why. If you don’t understand why you have a problem, then you have a serious problem. If you understand that you probably should have given some racing room, then you lick your wounds and go onto the next week.
”I didn’t see last week. I saw Kevin not give him any room getting into that corner there, but I am willing to bet if you watch the laps before that, Kevin was quite a bit faster than the 20 and may have been beside him a couple times. At Kansas I had the same issue. I had a run on the bottom of whoever it was and had a car that was competing with the No. 18. He dropped it down there and door slammed me and I finished ninth. He felt like there was nothing wrong with that.
“Joey is a great race car driver. He has a lot of speed and a lot of talent. We have all been in those situations. He will come around.”
Denny Hamlin, a teammate of Logano: “My only thing is that I wish he would say what he wants to say. It doesn’t matter. I think he should be able to say anything he wants. If it’s his opinion then that’s his opinion and everyone’s entitled to one. If you feel like you’re wrong, you don’t want to just go out there and wreck the guy, instead just take a gash out of him in the media and that’s all he did.
“I think if they sat down, not necessarily face-to-face, but maybe just sat on the phone and talked and said, ‘I feel like you raced me hard every time I’m around you, what do I have to do different?‘ Then the person will respond and you’ll get an understanding at the end of what each other’s thinking. I’ve had things happen with Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. and Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, people don’t see it and behind closed doors I will talk to them and say, ‘Hey man, why do I feel like you race me harder than you race everyone else?’ They give an explanation and the next thing you know, its clear sailing from there. I think that is the most effective way. Otherwise, if you don’t talk, you still have animosity toward the person.”
”I have no idea whether Harvick and Joey talked to each other after Bristol, but Harvick pretty much flat out took him out at Bristol just to show him something. I don’t know what. Whether they came to an understanding or not I’m not sure.
“But I know coming down to the last few laps at Pocono when you’re racing a guy that you don’t agree with, you’re not going to give an inch and that’s what caused that wreck, is neither one of them wanted to give an inch because if you let the guy go by you’re showing that he’s right. That’s just the way we think.”
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