NASCAR Cup Series

Busch, Harvick upped ante at Darlington

Published May. 9, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

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Larry McReynolds

So we came out of Richmond two weeks ago talking about the Juan Pablo Montoya-Ryan Newman feud, only to leave Darlington on Saturday night talking about the Kyle Busch-Kevin Harvick feud.

A lot of things unfolded in a really short period of time in the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Darlington Raceway.

I have to say I am pretty impressed and kind of amazed at how Kyle Busch handled this deal. He saw that Kevin Harvick was not going to let this thing go, so Kyle stayed in his race car when he pulled up behind the No. 29 car.

Kevin did get out of his race car and took a swing at Kyle.

Then Kyle simply used his car to push the No. 29 car out of the way and left.

The part that had me concerned was Kyle was pushing a driver-less car on pit road with a lot of crew members out there. That’s the one thing that flirts with maybe not being smart because someone unrelated to this deal could have been injured. On Tuesday, that altercation on pit road after the race netted each driver a $25,000 fine and both were put on probation for four NASCAR races.

Obviously both guys were frustrated. Both had led the race, but both also had problems. Clint Bowyer added to the tension by going three wide. Heck, going two wide at Darlington can be treacherous, so three wide was pretty tense.

I still maintain things like this are good for the sport because it draws a lot of attention.

What is going to be interesting is seeing what Kevin does next. The man just doesn’t let things go. That’s just his personality. Now, let’s be clear: I am not saying one way or another whether that is good or bad.

I just think this weekend in Dover will be really interesting. Even more than that, in two weeks is the Sprint All-Star Race, where points don’t matter, so you can settle up your debts in that event.

I still maintain that the best thing NASCAR did about 1½ years ago was speak those now-famous words, “Boys, have at it.” I still agree they have to maintain law and order to a certain extent. However, letting these drivers express their emotions again has been simply great for our sport.

I think we will see more of this from drivers as we continue to get deeper into our season.

Simply put, it is the pressure to show results that is driving it. It’s the pressure to win — and win now. We’re more than one-third through the “Race to the Chase,” as we like to call it, and the intensity is building.

Fast forward a minute and just think about how intense the month of August is going to be for these drivers. They know Richmond on Saturday night, Sept. 10, is coming, and that’s the last race to set the 2011 Chase for the Sprint Cup field.

So it’s only going to get better, and it all starts Sunday at Dover International Speedway on NASCAR on FOX.

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