Kevin Harvick's Take, on Joey Logano:

   The NASCAR world according to Kevin Harvick....(Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   BROOKLYN, Mich.
   All morning and much of the afternoon, particularly during the rain delay, the NASCAR garage was consumed with debate about the latest Kevin Harvick-Joey Logano.
   It was like watching a tennis game: Wham! Wham! Wham!
   Each side made its points. Logano himself gave his version of 'moving on, but I'm still ticked.'
   Generally the sense was that Logano was a clean, hard driver, but just racing these veterans, these tour stars, too hard...for a kid just turned 20.
   And there were a lot of questions aimed at Sprint Cup title contenders about the wisdom of ticking off a rival who might just be willing to put you in the wall at some crucial point of the 10-race championship chase.
   Harvick, after all is atop the Cup standings, and that's where he's been most of the spring.
   And Greg Biffle – another racer not too enthralled with Logano's hard driving – is another title contender whose run-ins with Logano have been questioned.
   One view – that Harvick and his guys might be ticked at the whole Joe Gibbs bunch for trying to take the Shell sponsorship (which will instead be moving from the Harvick quarterpanels to Kurt Busch's in 2011).
   That was the setting for Harvick's own press conference over the issues at hand.
   And Harvick was flat brilliant in his performance.
   Cool. Calm. Collected. Precise with his words.
   Almost chillingly perfect.
   First, Harvick addressed the flippant post-Pocono comment by Logano that 'We know who wears the firesuit in that family,' a jab at Delana Harvick, who does indeed wear a firesuit on pit road, instead of the more typically fashionable attire of other drivers' wives.
   

   

   ....is not quite the same as the NASCAR world according to Joey Logano (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
   

    "Being brought into this sport when I was 23," Harvick, now 34,  began, "I said a lot of things that I probably shouldn't have said.
     "But it's right on the edge of making it personal," he said of the jab at Delana. "And 'personal,' I don't think he really wants to get into that.
    "That would be a lot worse for him than just handling it man-to-man and doing it the right way."
  Then Harvick methodically laid out the specifics of his issues with Logano, beginning with the March Nationwide race, in which down the stretch they were battling for fifth place, Harvick trying to pass Logano, and Logano repeatedly chopping him off:
  "Let me break this all down for you:
    "We had the issues at Bristol (in the March Nationwide race). He was fired up, and we raced for 40 laps -- Chop, chop, chop, chop, chop. And that one ended up the way it ended up."
    With Harvick spinning Logano.
   "We go to Nashville (two weeks later, for the next Nationwide race). His dad (Tom Logano) had 'physical contact' with one my PR people (at Bristol). so I go to Nashville and  I say 'All right, Joey. The best thing you can do is get your dad under control.'  And he turned around, laughed at me, and said 'Do you really think that was a big deal?'
    "And now look where he's at. Obviously now it's a pretty big deal....
    "So at that particular point I said obviously he really doesn't want to take any advice and doesn't want to talk about things any further than what he thinks is right.
     "We go to Phoenix (the following week), and crashes in the back of me (in the Cup race), tries to put me out, down the straightaway.
     "We go to Richmond (three weeks later): last restart...dumps me out of the way...I lose four or five spots. I get out of the car and tell him how I feel.
     "Go to Pocono, and race hard, same thing happened. We were both just going for the same spot. But you have to race him two inches apart, because you have to get everything you can. Otherwise it will take you all day to get by him.
     "That's how you've got to race him, from my standpoint.
     "I'd tried to break the ice at Nashville at driver intros, and basically he turned around and told me that his dad having problem with my PR person was not a big deal and pretty much laughed in my face.
      "So at this point it's up to him.
     "I'd love to work it out.
      "Normally you have every opportunity to work it out with anybody in the garage. I feel I can go to pretty much anybody in the garage and work something out.
      "At this stage it's up to him to where he wants it to go, and how he wants to play the game.
      "I'm fine with the game. I've been on both sides of it."
    Harvick says that Logano has twice this season tried to take him out, but missed.

    Is this whole thing simply about respect, or disrespect?
    Harvick says it more about commonsense and good racing.
    "Racing hard is one thing...but not chopping and blocking, and not giving somebody a lane to race," Harvick says.
    "Joey Logano is a good driver. He deserves to be here. He's going to have a long career at this level.
    "But the hardest part to figure about this sport is how the politics work -- how the on-track stuff works, how to handle yourself as a driver.
     "And unfortunately he's 20.
     "So there's a big step that has to be taken...
     "Obviously shedding the dad; that was the biggest issue last week.
    "His father has no place in this. His father needs to step back and act like all of the rest of the dads -- and be happy his kid's here.
    "This isn't Little League baseball.
     "After the race, it's the same thing: Dad is up in the motorhome driver's face, chanting and hollering.
     "Those things don't need to happen.
      "He's responsible for his own career and everybody's actions around him. So he can either fix it and go about things the right way.....
     "In my opinion he gets bad advice on how he needs to race.
      "He's not Tony Stewart (who ran Gibbs' cars for 10 years and won two championships). The team guys obviously all miss Tony and the way he raced.
      "He's getting pushed...and it's very evident who's pushing him the most, and that's his dad.
      "I mean his dad shoved him into a pile (of crewmen on Pocono pit road) like a dog chasing after a bone last week....to go over there and want to fight.
      "And that's okay too.
       "The good thing about it is my (crew) guys did a great job in handling it. We all handled it good...because that could have escalated into something that it really didn't need to be."

     But how to correlate Harvick's view of Logan and Greg Biffle's view, with the different side of things as seen by Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon.
     For example, Gordon says "I haven't had any issues with Joey.
    "I feel when he's competitive he's aggressive and does what he needs to do. And when he's not, he's respectful.
     "It seems like he's always respectful.
     "So I've had no issues with Joey. He and I have raced one another hard and clean...and if I felt he was ever out of line, I feel like it was justified."
    And Martin, while conceding Logano may driving aggravatingly hard, he's still fair.
    Harvick responded by throwing a jab at Martin: "You've got to figure Mark Martin and the Loganos are buddies, so he (Martin) is on whoever's side is most convenient this week."
     The bottom line for Harvick is the ball is in Joey Logano's court: "However he wants to play it, I'm fine with it.
     "I've dealt with this stuff since I was racing go-karts; it's just on a much bigger scale now.
      "It is not something I let affect me very much.
      "I don't worry about what people say; I don't worry about what people do.
      "You just worry about your team and your sponsors and the people immediately around you – because, in this garage, those are the only people who  really care about what you do."

  

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  Jeff Gordon says he's had no problems racing with Joey Logano (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)