Kevin Harvick isn’t cheating, he’s just winning

If there’s a constant throughout NASCAR’s history, it’s when a driver and team exude overpowering superiority, allegations of malfeasance soon follow. After all, it’s far easier to blame outside factors than accept responsibility for one’s own shortcomings.

Surely a reason exists beyond just a team simply being better to rationale an exceptional performance and not that in fact, they may be better? Not so in NASCAR, where an accusation of wrongdoing by your adversaries is the ultimate show of respect. When the innuendo of wrongdoing begins is to know a team has gotten into the heads of the competition.

When Jeff Gordon stormed to three championships by winning 31 percent of all races between 1995-to-1998, fingers pointed at the No. 24 team. Rival Jack Roush, an ardent Ford man who took it personally whenever a Chevrolet-backed driver won, even went as far to say Gordon’s crew chief Ray Evernham chemically softened Gordon’s tires, a highly illegal tactic that provides significantly greater traction and thus, more speed.

Though such claims proved unfounded, nonetheless the aura of suspicion remained.

As Jimmie Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus rewrote the NASCAR record book with five consecutive championships their brilliance always carried an undercurrent the No. 48 team was not operating within the rulebook and putting something over on officials. A notion furthered when Chad Knaus was twice suspended for infractions.

But in Knaus’ defense, Johnson still won the 2006 Daytona 500 even though NASCAR officials ejected Knaus off the grounds days before. And the reality is he’s no different from most other crew chiefs, who habitually push the envelope between what’s legal and what’s not. To go fast is to work the fringes of the NASCAR rulebook.

Following the lineage of Gordon and Johnson, Kevin Harvick and the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing team has assumed the position of having arrows cast their way.

The latest insinuation is the defending Sprint Cup champion deliberately smacked his car against the wall while performing a celebratory burnout after winning Sunday’s elimination race at Dover International Speedway. Without that victory, Harvick would have otherwise been cut from the Chase for the Sprint playoff. And not only did he win, he dominated leading 355 of a possible 400 laps.

Except, as Harvick was smoking rubber, Denny Hamlin’s crew chief Dave Rodgers made an observation to his driver over the radio.

“He took the hotrod and just fenced it hard right in front of us,” Rogers said. “Drove it straight into the fence. Be awfully hard to tech that one.”

“Yeah, no s***,” Hamlin replied.

NASCAR not only cleared the No. 4 car in post-race Sunday, but also after taking the machine back to its research and developmental center for further scrutiny officials again found no irregularities. And Harvick denied even knowing he contacted the inside wall when asked by reporters during a Chase media day session Tuesday.

Yet, while not condemning Harvick outright, Hamlin cast doubt whether Harvick’s actions were all that innocent.

“Nothing we do is without merit,” Hamlin said. “We all know what we’re doing. It’s a tough balance because NASCAR wants you to celebrate, but as drivers we know when a tire is about to blow and sometimes we continue to put the throttle to it and other times if you really want to save your car for a race coming up, you don’t do that.”

Hamlin wasn’t finished with the not so subtle accusatory remarks.

“You don’t want to discredit anyone’s win because of what he did was really, really impressive,” he said. “Obviously, as all the other competitors wants to make sure they’re on a level playing field with whoever did win.”

Now, Harvick not only remains in the playoffs, he is the unquestionable favorite to again take the title. And the daunting challenge of having to unseat him no doubt factors into the allegations he intentionally damaged his car so NASCAR inspectors couldn’t identify how crew chief Rodney Childers was playing loose and fast with the rulebook.

By happenstance, of course, Harvick is Hamlin’s biggest championship threat outside of his own Joe Gibbs Racing teammates. Equally less of a coincidence is Childers posting multiple photographs of Harvick carrying out victory burnouts on his Instagram page late Tuesday night.

Not that any of this is likely to bother Harvick, as he loves to throw verbal barbs, find ways to instigate conflict and play with the psyches of anyone he’s in competition against. This is a man who’s made a career out of proving the detractors wrong and thrives when backed into a corner. That there are those who think his Dover win may have been tainted only adds to Harvick’s resolve.

“I knew how to knock my car back into compliance by rubbing it against the wall?” Harvick asked sarcastically on Tuesday.

Because beyond the rhetoric and questions about the legality of the No. 4 car, the fundamental truth is Harvick is the defending champ not through some loophole. He’s the best because he, Childers and company have ascended to a higher plane.

A stature, unfortunately, that also comes with unsubstantiated rumormongering.