Kevin Harvick explains his involvement in the massive fight between Gordon and Keselowski

Kevin Harvick announced that he would retire from NASCAR at the end of the 2023 Cup season.


Kevin Harvick explains his involvement in the massive fight between Gordon and Keselowski

Brad Keselowski, Kevin Harvick and Jeff Gordon

The 2023 Cup season will mark the end of an era as Stewart Hass Racing veteran Kevin Harvick announced his retirement. The 2014 Cup champion is known for his calm and collected persona with an outspoken attitude, but he wasn’t the same guy always.

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Harvick has been part of some fights in his career, prompting chaos. One incident he regrets the most is starting a fight between two NASCAR champions back in his 2014 Championship winning season. Harvick finished P2 in the playoff race in Texas, and he went on push 2012 Cup Champion Brad Keselowski to 43 times Cup champion Jeff Gordon instigating a big fight among them.

The first Cup playoff race in Texas Motor Speedway history saw an intense battle between Jeff Gordon and Brad Keselowski on track, and contact among the drivers on the track left the No:24 with a flat tire resulting in a P29 finish for him. Keselowski finished P3 behind Harvick and winner Jimmie Johnson. Gordon confronted the then No:2 driver off the track.

While they had an intense conversation, Kevin Harvick came out to know where and pushed the current RFK Racing owner in front of Gordon. Keselowski was left stunned, and Jeff Gordon jumped on his starting the brawl.  The incident caused Gordon’s elimination from R-12, and Harvick later went on to win the championship by scoring wins in the season’s final two races.

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The sole objective of Harvick was to instigate chaos. He told Corey LaJoie in Stacking Pennies, “I know what I was thinking when I pushed him into the fight, and then it caused the chaos. For me, my mind was, ‘Man, we didn’t win tonight. We need chaos.’ In the end, we made it to Homestead,”.

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The incident turned out to be the moment that changed Kevin Harvick’s character

Kevin Harvick
Kevin Harvick

Kevin Harvick instigated the chaos to subvert the storyline in the media from him being potentially out of the championship contention. But he later realized that it isn’t something his kids should watch and learn from him.

“…We needed the story to go elsewhere other than us and being out of contention. It did exactly what I wanted it to do, but it’s not the best thing for your kids to find on YouTube, starting the fight,” Harvick said.

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That made him realize that he can no longer be the one who constantly complains and causes problems. He understood that screaming at one’s crew or rivals isn’t going to fix anything.

From that point on, I realized that I’m just a part of this process. I can’t just be the a****** that walks in and says, ‘You’re stupid, our cars are terrible.’ Just scream and yell, this and that. That isn’t going to fix anything,”.

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