Kevin Harvick barely had enough time to get out of his car on Sunday at Darlington before it burst into flames. Once out of the care center, he made it clear what he thought was to blame for the incident that took him out of NASCAR’s first Cup Series playoff race of 2022.
Harvick told NBC Sports’ Marty Snider it was because of the “crappy parts on the race car” that his car caught fire. Harvick, who has often been critical of the Next Gen car this season, said he didn’t think it was an engine issue, but that the rocker had been on fire for a few laps.
Eventually, Harvick said he needed to get out of the car because the flames started coming up through the dashboard.
“We haven’t fixed anything. It’s kinda like the safety stuff, we just let it keep going and keep going,” Harvick said. “The car started burning and as it burned, the flames started coming through the dash and I ran a couple laps and then as the flame got bigger, it started burning stuff up and I think right there you see all the brake fluid that was probably coming out of the brakes. It burned the brake line. But the fire was coming through the dash.”
Kevin Harvick’s car bursts into flames! #NASCARPlayoffs
📺 : @USA_Network pic.twitter.com/WWW53y2y3d
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) September 5, 2022
MORE: Erik Jones shocks playoff field with win at Darlington
On the 275th lap of Sunday’s race, flames began to come out of both sides of Harvick’s car. Harvick, who had been in the top 10, told his team that his rocker panel was on fire, and he pulled his car over to the side of the track and began to pull himself out of the car.
As he did, the flames continued to climb up the sides of the car, engulfing the right side.
“What a disaster man. No reason. We didn’t touch a wall, we didn’t touch a car and here we are in the pits with a burned up car and can’t finish the race during the playoffs because of crappy-ass parts,” Harvick said.
A frustrated Kevin Harvick explains what happened inside the car as it caught fire. #NASCARPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/VK35Bal3kv
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) September 5, 2022
Since Harvick could not finish the race, he wound up placing 33rd in the race. The finish dropped him to last in the playoff standings, 13 points below the cut line. He will have two races — the Hollywood Casino 400 on Sept. 11 and Bass Pro Shops Night Race on Sept. 17 — to reach the top 12 and avoid missing the cut.
This is not the first time Harvick has voiced safety concerns over the Next Gen cars. He first brought up concerns back in July 2021, before the rollout of the cars, and in August, he discussed how these cars handle crashes differently from previous cars.
“I think when you look at the things that happened with the accidents, I think these are the exact concerns that the drivers had from the very first day we saw the car,” Harvick said, per Racer.com. “There hasn’t been a lot of progression other than we changed some of the rear clip stuff; we changed some of the impact stuff. But these cars don’t crash like the other cars crash. They’re violent impacts, and they feel a lot different than what the crash data g-load is. It goes straight through the driver’s body.”
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