Carl Edwards expected NASCAR to penalize Kevin Harvick for Talladega crash

Despite protestations by Denny Hamlin, Matt Kenseth and others, NASCAR judged that Kevin Harvick did not willfully crash a competitor to preserve his playoff spot during Sunday’s elimination race at Talladega Superspeedway.

That decision by the sanctioning body surprised Carl Edwards, a Joe Gibbs Racing teammate of Kenseth and Hamlin, who said he thought NASCAR would issue Harvick a penalty of some kind. Edwards echoed Kenseth and Hamlin’s remarks that Harvick’s actions seemed dubious considering the circumstances.

“It appears that Kevin and the 4 team had to have a caution in order to preserve their position,” Edwards told reporters Tuesday at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in downtown Charlotte. “They were aware of that, and it appears that they caused that caution. That’s tough, to be completely frank. That makes me uncomfortable that if that’s the case that a team could do something that’s calculated to alter the outcome of the most important race of the year.

“It’s tough to see a race end that way and there be no consequences for it. ... I was expecting there to be some action or penalty, and there wasn’t.”

Driving a car not operating at 100 percent, Harvick was in danger of losing several positions on a restart with two laps remaining Sunday, a scenario that would have knocked the defending series champion out of the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

But on the ensuing restart Harvick’s No. 4 Chevrolet hit Trevor Bayne, spinning him out and setting off a multi-car accident that ended the race under the yellow flag. Harvick finished 15th and advanced by six points to the third of four rounds of NASCAR’s playoffs, while the crash eliminated Kenseth and Hamlin.

Not everyone remaining in title contention agrees with the assertion offered by the JGR camp that Harvick acted ignobly.

While Jeff Gordon didn’t like how the CampingWorld.com 500 concluded, he wasn’t certain Harvick wrecked Bayne intentionally. Gordon contends the pressure of the Chase format, where four drivers are eliminated every three races, forces those in the playoffs into uncompromising scenarios.

“Do I like the fact that there’s somebody with an engine that is under-powered starting right in the middle of the pack? No,” Gordon said. “If this Chase format wasn’t the way that it is, I don’t think somebody would do that. There’s no doubt that the way that Kevin started that last restart was to cause chaos.

“I don’t think that he intentionally tried to do it. I can’t see anything from what I saw that he was intentionally trying to take somebody out. ... He did what he had to do. You can’t blame somebody for that.”

Brad Keselowski thinks if NASCAR were to penalize Harvick it would need a “pretty high burden of proof” to make such call. And in this instance, Keselowski believes the evidence wasn’t overwhelming.

Kyle Busch, a JGR teammate of Kenseth, Hamlin and Edwards, offered another reason why Harvick escaped without sanctions.

“It depends on who’s name is above the door,” Busch said. “If I would have done it, I probably wouldn’t be racing (Sunday) at Martinsville. Last year’s champion did it — they’re not going to do anything to a champion.”