Kevin Harvick is leaving Richard Childress Racing at the end of the 2013 season. On Saturday the Sprint Cup Series regular was bumped by RCR driver Ty Dillon late in the Kroger 200 at Martinsville Speedway.
Harvick did not take kindly to Dillon’s contact which knocked him out of the race.
“(Dillon) just dumped me,” Harvick said about the crash. “Exactly the reason why I’m leaving RCR because you’ve got those kids coming up, and they’ve got no respect for what they do in this sport and they’ve had everything fed to them with a spoon.
“So I cut him slack all day, and he just dive-bombs me in there, dumps me. It’s a shame you’ve got to get taken out by some rich kid like that.”
The issue was seen differently by Dillon who was upset that Harvick choose to go to reporters rather then tell him his thoughts on the incident.
“He was kind of hogging the bottom, and I just kept diving to the inside,” Dillon said. “I was low, and he kept chopping down, chopping down. It was getting toward the end of the race and I gave him a tap and he got sideways, but then he hit the brakes to try to brake-check me in the middle of the corner.”
Dillon said he tried to talk about the incident with Harvick, but the Sprint Cup veteran left.
“I can’t believe that happened,” he said. “To tear a truck up after the race and totally take us out, and then to not stick around after the race – to walk off and not even want to say anything to me — I’m sure he’s tweeting something now about it.
“So he can’t even face me afterward. I’m pretty disappointed in the things that went down. I used to look up to that guy. I guess he doesn’t understand the circumstances of what’s going on … To tear a truck up and act like a punk on pit road – and stopping by my pit stall when my guys are coming out – that was pretty ridiculous. I’m not happy with him. And for him to not even stick around, that’s pretty sad, too.”
MRN.com reported that Childress encouraged Dillon to hit Harvick’s truck under yellow. Childress will have Harvick drive this Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series race at Martinsville.
“That’s all I can say,” Childress said. “I’ve got too much class to say what I want to say right now. When I say it, I will say it to his face.”
