MARTINSVILLE, Va. - Kevin Harvick apologized before Sunday’s race at Martinsville Speedway for comments about team owner Richard Childress’ grandsons.
Harvick lashed out at Ty Dillon and older brother, Austin, following Saturday’s Truck Series race.
Contact with Ty Dillon with 12 laps remaining knocked Harvick out of the race while Harvick was running second.
Harvick is leaving Richard Childress Racing at the end of the season, and said after the wreck he’s leaving the organization “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.”
Speaking to FOX Sports 1 before the Sprint Cup Series race on Sunday, Harvick apologized.
“There was just a lot of emotion involved,” Harvick said. “I hate it for everybody at RCR. You go back and look at the things that happened, and sometimes you regret the things thatyou say for sure. Yesterday was definitely one of them.”
Harvick was tied for third in the Sprint Cup standings headed into Sunday’s race at Martinsville, one of four events remaining with Childress. He’s moving to Stewart-Haas Racing next season - two of his major sponsors are following him - and Childress is expected to promote Austin Dillon to the Cup Series.
Following the on-track incident, a member of Dillon’s crew threw a rubber mallet at Harvick’s truck when Harvick stopped in Dillon’s pit stall.
Childress said he understood what happened on the track was a racing incident, but Harvick crossed a line with his personal attack on his grandsons.
“I’ll never apologize for giving my grandsons an opportunity, just like the France family, the Earnhardt family, the Wood brothers. You go down the list of the people that have been given opportunities, all of them didn’t make it,” Childress said.
Sports, Pages 21 on 10/28/2013