The effective end of Sunday’s CampingWorld.com 500 at Talladega Superspeedway came moments after Kevin Harvick’s Chevrolet clipped Trevor Bayne’s Ford and ignited a multicar wreck in the tri-oval during the one attempt at a green-white-checkered-flag finish.
The caution ended the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series title run for Dale Earnhardt Jr., who was inches behind race winner Joey Logano when the caution lights illuminated.
But the wreck also kept Harvick in the Chase, a position that was in jeopardy with his car faltering on the final laps. Two drivers who failed to advance to the Eliminator Round, Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth, were quick to accuse Harvick of causing the crash on purpose, after both were victims of the late-race chaos.
“The 4 knew he was blew up, so he said he was going to stay in his lane, so the 6 (Bayne) then went up and outside, and he (Harvick) clipped him and caused a wreck because he knew he’d make the Chase that way,” said Kenseth, who was leading at Kansas a week earlier before contact from Logano’s Ford sent him spinning with less than five laps left.
“I got wrecked out two weeks in a row from people doing what they had to do to make the Chase, but call it what you want.”
Naturally enough, Harvick had a different version of the events.
“It wasn’t running really well on the restarts,” Harvick said of his No. 4 Chevy. “Then at the end, I was trying to get out of the way. I don’t know if I clipped the 6 or if he came across as I was coming up.
“It was one of those days where everything went well until the very end, until the bottom fell out on those last couple of restarts when it cooled off. It has a broken exhaust pipe or something.”
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