Logano vs. Harvick Spices Up Hamlin's 4th Career Pocono Win

Joey Logano tries to save his Home Depot Toyota from spinning out after making contact with Kevin Harvick's No. 29 Chevrolet. Photo courtesy NASCAR.

A funny thing happened on Denny Hamlin’s way to cruising to his fourth victory at Pocono Raceway. His teammate Joey Logano finished 13th, but picked up a bunch of new fans.

The fireworks at the end of Pocono Sunday between Logano and Harvick are some of the best NASCAR’s seen in a while. The post-race antics are the latest byproduct of NASCAR’s new “Have at it boys” mentality that’s led to more driver confrontation and has spiced things up in this year’s Sprint Cup season.

Rain at the start of the race led to an hours-long delay. But once the green flag finally waved, Hamlin led 88 of 204 laps, continuing his trend of schooling the field at NASCAR’s only triangle-shaped track. But with four laps to go, the front of Harvick’s car hit the rear of Logano’s coming out of turn three, sending Logano spinning. He almost saved his car from spinning out, a testament to the talent of the second-year driver and his future in the sport.It’s hard to say if either Logano or Harvick was at fault for the incident. From Logano’s perspective, Harvick let him go by on the straightaway, only to turn him in the corner. The Harvick version is that it was two guys going for the same piece of real estate on the track, the contact nothing but a racing incident.

Maybe Harvick’s right. But it’s not the first time these two drivers have been involved in on-track incidents while both were running up front. And usually, Logano’s on the short end of the stick. Remember the Nationwide race at Bristol earlier this year?

And that’s what’s got the 20-year-old fired up. After the race at Pocono, where Harvick finished fourth and Logano finished 13th, Logano parked his car perpendicular to Harvick’s and got out fuming. Harvick’s crew kept the two drivers apart, and even though Logano’s crew tried to pull him away from the situation, Logano’s father and spotter, Tom, was seen encouraging his young son to confront Harvick, to stand up for himself.

When he couldn’t get to Harvick, Logano got to a camera, uttering his now infamous line that the incident wasn’t Harvick’s fault since “his wife wears the firesuit in the family and tells him what to do.”

Harvick’s wife, DeLana, runs the Kevin Harvick Inc. truck and Nationwide race teams and is known for wearing a team firesuit on the pitbox when her husband is racing on Sundays.

As stupid as the comment was, it was good to see Logano stand up for himself. And gauging the reaction of fans on Twitter after the race, the NASCAR community loves this brewing feud. Logano made a lot of new fans after Sunday’s race.

People will complain that Logano’s father shouldn’t be involved in this tiff his son has with Harvick. TV footage showed him pulling a uniformed member of Logano’s No. 20 team off his son as he encouraged his son to confront Harvick. There are also allegations that he shoved a member of the media as he rushed toward his son. Tom Logano’s NASCAR credentials were previously revoked in reaction to his behavior at the track. Some have gone so far as to accuse him of being a helicopter parent the likes seen in the ranks of Little League.

But the behavior of Harvick’s crew – pushing Logano and creating a human barricade between the two drivers – was no better than that of the elder Logano.

Crew members – whether they are tire changers, crew chiefs, or in the case of Tom Logano, a driver’s spotter, need to remove themselves from situations between drivers. They’re not the ones on the track racing each other. It’s a matter that needs to be settled between drivers.

Last year, during one of the rain delays at the Coke 600, where David Reutimann got his first and so far, only, Sprint Cup win, Tony Stewart and a member of the No. 00 crew got into an argument on pit road. Dwayne “Billy Bad Butt” Bigger didn’t like the way Stewart was speaking to Reutimann and injected himself into the discussion, going so far as to mockingly get on his knees and bow down to Stewart. Stewart publicly chastised the crewman for interfering after the incident, which led to the creation of Bigger’s nickname.

It was a funny situation for the fans, and the involved parties later laughed it off. But last year at Charlotte, just like last week at Pocono, crew involvement hurt a situation rather than made it better.