An array of polarized comments ran down the alleys of NASCAR when Kevin Harvick received the penalty for committing to the pit road after a red light. Some say it was NASCAR’s fault for bringing out the exceptionally prompt yellow flag, while others say it was a rookie move from Kevin Harvick’s crew chief. However, it is safe yet painful to say that Stewart-Haas Racing received a major blow in their opening playoff race.

Stewart-Haas Racing has not been able to fare that well throughout the seasonal races in the current season. Out of all their drivers, only Kevin Harvick’s #4 is running in playoff contention. And despite having blazing speed and running top 3 all day before the mishap, SHR’s hope of victory faded yet again.

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The series of events that ended the night for Stewart-Haas occurred a mere 56 laps from the checkered flag. Running 2nd, Harvick attempted to get a 4-tire change, to receive a significant advantage. Seeing this, Tyler Reddick’s team alerted him to do the same in order to keep Harvick from gaining the tire advantage.

Naturally, he slowed down and Ryan Newman, who was tailing Tyler Reddick, spun out, causing caution and the pit roads to be closed. However, Harvick was already in the pits. Unfortunately, NASCAR slammed him with a penalty that had him start from the back of the pack in the next restart.

All things considered, one can rightfully say that the chances of SHR bagging a win and entering into the round of 12 slipped out of their hands. Mike Davis cried out, “Harvick got scr*wed. He got straight-up scr*wed. Especially because the way the caution came out.”

According to Dale Earnhardt Jr, this was not NASCAR’s fault. He felt like this was a way of learning how situations like these could be better handled. He said, “This isn’t a fault of NASCAR. This is just a reaction to learning and having this process play out and go, okay is this really the best way to be doing this? I’d love to know NASCAR’s opinion.”

“I feel like…look if you’re beyond the box and committed to pit road, you’re free and clear to go ahead and come down pit road. It’s not giving an advantage to this team. It’s not manipulation,” he added.

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When a driver veers their car down the pit road, they find two check marks ahead of them, first the orange boxes and then the pit road line. Once you cross the line, the rule prohibits you from driving away without committing to the pit road. This is where Byron escaped a similar penalty.

Dale Junior explained, “… if he rolls on through he is able to basically blend back onto pit road and maintain his position. The fact that you performed the pit stop is what would incur the penalty and put you in the back.”

On that same note, someone tagged Rodney Childers on Twitter, and wrote, “Wouldn?t the penalty had been avoided if y?all just drove through and didn?t make the pit stop?” Harvick’s crew chief agreed. But he also explained how that was not possible either.

Childers explained, “Correct, but in those 15 seconds we didn?t know if we made the light or not. So the safe bet was to pit, so if you made the light you would be the leader. Driving thru, and then finding out we made the light would be even more of a disaster.”

With his Darlington outing, SHR’s sole playoff car now sits in the 14th place. What happened last Sunday was not Kevin’s fault. Let’s just hope that unfortunate incidents like these do not happen again.

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