Richard Childress Racing’s Kevin Harvick says his team has isolated what caused his engine to fail in the season-opening Daytona 500 and is confident it won’t be an issue again.
When asked what happened, Harvick merely replied: “It broke.”
He said he wouldn’t divulge the details of what happened, but that the team called him Monday morning with their assessment of the engine failures for both Harvick and teammate Jeff Burton and felt “like they have a good direction to fix it.”
He said he thought both engines had the same problem, that an adjustment had been made and that it was not something to worry in the future.
“That’s the first time I’ve had an engine failure in my car in 156 races,” Harvick said Friday at Phoenix International Raceway, site of Sunday’s Subway Fresh Fit 500 on FOX. “Obviously it’s not the opportune time that you want to have it but when is? They do a great job and we have the best engines in the garage and it just is what it is. Just part of this sport. I’ll take those odds, one in every 156.”
The greater gap he now faces is in the standings. Harvick sits 37th in the standings thanks to his wreck and begins the effort to climb back into Chase for the Sprint Cup contention.
Harvick opts to take a positive view of getting back into the top ranks.
“Well, the good thing for us is all the good cars had problems last week,” he said. “I mean there was maybe one or two guys that didn’t have problems. We just got to do what we do on a week-to-week basis. I couldn’t even tell you who half the top 10 are.
“If you’re gonna have a problem, last week was a good week to have it.”
