Harvick spoke after he slowed to avoid an accident and was slammed in the back by Bubba Wallace in Sunday’s Cup race at Circuit of the Americas. Vision was difficult because of the rain and the large spray of water from the cars on the wet track.
Christopher Bell rammed into the rear of a slowing Ryan Blaney, causing Harvick to slow down. There were no casualties.
In the garage, Harvick was livid.
“It’s the most unsafe thing I’ve ever done in a race car by a lot,” he said. “You can’t see anything down the straightaways. These cars were not built to run in the rain and when you can’t see, my spotter said, ‘Check up, check up,’ because he thought he saw two cars wrecking.
“I let off and the guy behind me hit me wide-open because he never saw me. It’s unbelievable that we’re out there doing what we’re doing because we’re in race cars that aren’t made to do this, and if you can’t see going down the straightaway it’s absolutely not safe, not even close.”
Kevin Harvick Shirt 2019 Racing Clothes Nascar
When asked if the sport had any business being on the track in the rain, Harvick replied:
“We don’t have any business being out in the rain, period. All I can say is this is the worst decision that we’ve ever made in our sport that I’ve been a part of, and I’ve never felt more unsafe in my whole racing career, period.”
Martin Truex Jr then collided with the back of Michael McDowell’s car as it slowed. Truex was slowed by that contact. Cole Custer then slammed into the back of Truex’s car, launching Truex’s car into the air. There were no injuries. The race was halted while the track was being cleaned. The Air Titans were dispatched to the track to help remove some of the water.
“You can’t see,”Truex said. “Just wide open in third gear and next thing there’s a car on my hood, it’s not a good feeling. I’m trying to stay in the gas and keep going. I want to get out of that area and through the braking zone because I knew I was going to get hit again and the next thing I knew, I got hit so hard that I was 10-feet in the air. I don’t know. Just wild. Hopefully, everybody else is okay, that’s the most important thing. Just a mess, you can’t see anything.”
“It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it was gonna be, but it’s just that you can’t see anything. It’s pretty bad. I mean, you can’t see a foot in front of your car. I was just rolling down the backstretch. You can’t see anything. I’m just so frustrated about having our day end like this. It killed the car and it’s just really frustrating.” said Custer.
Before the race resumed, NASCAR granted teams time to clean their vehicles’ windshields and announced that restarts would be single file until further notice for visibility concerns.
Purchase NASCAR racing suits at the following links.
