Kevin Harvick backs NASCAR on Goodyear issue at Bristol, shares inside intel from Elton Sawyer

Kevin Harvick was in the booth for last weekend’s entertainment at Bristol Motor Speedway, watching as the tire falloff completely changed the race.

On the latest episode of Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour, the former NASCAR champion elaborated on why he believes NASCAR did a phenomenal job at Bristol, along with sharing some inside intel from NASCAR VP of Competition Elton Sawyer, regarding how the officials handled the situation.

“The other thing that I liked about this scenario is how NASCAR handled it,” Harvick stated. “We knew 100 laps in that we we were short on tires. Elton Sawyer was in our booth and he says, ‘Hey, not for air. But here’s our plan.’ And you could see the little ant starting to scurry around from the from the Goodyear building, and tires started moving. And you know, NASCAR took their time in making sure the race track track was clean and everything for the first couple of stages.

“But when they gave out that extra set of tires, it’s like, ‘Alright, boys and girls, you know exactly what you have. The race is on to the end of the race. You’ve got enough tires. If your tires are bald, come on into the pits. You’ve got plenty of sets to put on, to get you to the end of the race, and you need to manage it.’ We’ve been in races like this before in the rain. We’ve been in races like this with tires. We’ve had asphalt come up, and this is just the way that it happens. This is, this is big boy auto racing here.”

As you can tell, Harvick was a fan of the racing at Bristol, as was everyone else who watched the race, for the most part. In the end, he believes it was a happy accident, and that NASCAR should do all they can to figure out how to do it again.

“There’s gonna be circumstances like this that pop up again, and you’ve got to deal with it. And but let me reiterate again, this was the one of the best accidents that’s ever happened to our sport,” Harvick explained. “Goodyear has proven that they can make a tire that will wear out. So we need to know why. And we need to do it again. And you know, maybe we can run a thicker tread on that particular tire and take it back.

“But talking to some of the folks that went and did the the wet weather testing at Bristol, which is why we did not have the same track compound with the the PJ1. We went back with the resin on the on the bottom of the racetrack, this time because the PJ1 one was too slick in the rain. And that’s how they tested. They tested with the PJ1 residual on the racetrack. It’s not a resin or a PJ1 one thing, because when they tested with the with the PJ1 one on the racetrack at the tire test, or the wet weather test, the track did the same thing. The tires were worn out in 25, 30 laps, and they had high tire wear. They were under the assumption that it was just because the track was green, but it was on the PJ1 one that was leftover. There was no track treatment. It was just how it was in the fall. So that tells me that you know, the resin didn’t have anything to really do with with what we had on the racetrack. It was the tire, and I loved it. I loved every minute of it.”

After debating horsepower all last week, Harvick believes NASCAR coincidentally found their fix at Bristol, and the future is bright for the sport once we figure out how to replicate the racing.

“Look we talked about horsepower last week, right? We were we were searching for problems to solve things that we thought could make it better. Well, guess what? We don’t need that freaking horsepower,” Harvick said. “If we can make tires like that, we don’t need more horsepower. We didn’t know this was even an option. It’s an option. Because we have proven that it’s an option.

“So I want to know why. I want to know how this happened. And I want to see it happen again. And I don’t want to see it happen to the degree that it just happened, but if you don’t have anything else, go ahead and bring those back. They’ll figure it out. Those teams will get better.”

It’ll be fascinating to see what changes NASCAR makes, and if tire falloff is here to stay, but we certainly know where Kevin Harvick stands on the issue moving forward.