Ahead of NASCAR’s return to Texas Motor Speedway this weekend, Kevin Harvick took some time to reminisce about the famous brawl between Jeff Gordon and Brad Keselowski from 2014.
Of course, the moment was spurred by Harvick, who slyly shoved Keselowksi closer to Gordon, igniting the fuse. On the latest episode of Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour, Harvick spoke regarding his side of the story.
“Here’s the deal, so in ’15 (2014), I just felt like we had a lot of things go wrong. Everybody was talking about everything that we were doing wrong, and we needed to change the direction of the conversation,” Harvick recalled. “Now, was this the right thing to do? I don’t know. But when we got done, the conversation was not about me anymore. It was really about this chaos.
“But definitely, when we talk about those not-so-proud moments, this is definitely one of those moments. This is pretty close to the top of the list.”
Evidently, Harvick was looking to change the conversation around his performance, and it worked out great for him, even if it might’ve gone a little too far in the end.
“It’s one of those things, and we’ve talked about it on here, there’s more to it than just driving the car. Sometimes you have to try to do different things to redirect the conversation, or put somebody in the fire that’s not in the fire, that you’re competing against,” Harvick added. “This was a very calculated moment.
“I thought that we could capitalize on this, to really turn the story on somebody else. But it just didn’t look good. But that’s the way it worked out. … I mean, it was awesome to watch, just not awesome to start.”
Regardless, the move helped catapult Harvick’s team to the Championship 4, or at least he thinks it played a major role for him.
“I was like, ‘Man, get in there,’ and next thing you know, there’s a massive fight on pit road,” Harvick laughed. “They weren’t talking about me anymore. So that was one of those calculations that I would recalculate today, and not advise you to be the one that does that, but it wound up changing the direction of the conversation.
“We went all the way to the Championship 4 that year, and put ourselves in position to win a championship. … It worked out.”
Alas, Jeff Gordan and Brad Keselowski may not be fond of the moment, but Kevin Harvick can still havre a laugh about it to this day, ahead of NASCAR’s return to Texas on Sunday afternoon.
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