Pit officials’ post-race duties revised following Darlington scrap

May 12, 2011 3 Comments »

NASCAR officials won't be leaving pit road until the cars are cleared, as a result of Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick tangling at Darlington. Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images for NASCAR

NASCAR is changing the post-race process for its pit road officials as a result of last week’s confrontation between Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick at Darlington.

“This is something we have addressed for sure and we are revising how we dispatch our pit road officials once the race is over to make sure all the cars are off pit road before they head on to other post-race responsibilities,” Kerry Tharp, NASCAR’s senior director of competition communications, said in an e-mail to As the World Turns (Left) Thursday afternoon.  

Harvick and Busch’s well-documented scrap ended with Harvick leaving his car to try to punch Busch and Busch responding by pushing Harvick’s car into the pit road wall.

The sanctioning body has received criticism in the past week for not getting officials to Harvick and Busch quickly enough to diffuse the situation. The most notable critique came Tuesday from Texas Motor Speedway President Eddie Gossage.

On his ESPN.com blog, Gossage authored a post titled “NASCAR’s Fingerprints All Over Post-Race Scene” in which he maintained that NASCAR had plenty of time to get officials to Harvick and Busch but chose not to, presumably to preserve last year’s “boys, have at it” proclamation.

  • John Potts

    I’ve been around this sport since I was 10 – 62 years ago – and was an official from 1961 until 2000. I still announce at a short track and stay on the radio with officials throughout an event.

    At every track I’ve ever worked, and for every sanctioning body I’ve ever worked, it has been standard procedure for race control to tell officials to “get somebody to those two (or more) cars quickly when the race is over” as soon as an incident occurs.

    Funny that it just now occurs to the biggest stock car racing sanctioning body on the planet.

  • Moe Foe

    Another thing that would have diffused this was; if NASCAR had called Busch to the hauler after the race to discuss that questionable move that turned Harvick during the caution, so Harvick woulda known that NASCAR was gonna to deal with it. ‘Happy’ wouldn’t have been so eager to deal it himself.

    • http://allnascar sylviarichardson

      HEE HEE. KEVIN IS ONE BIG {PUNK}