Kevin Harvick, watching from his new perch in the broadcast booth, appreciated what Tyler Reddick did in trying to win the NASCAR Cup Series race on Sunday at Darlington Raceway and wishes he wouldn’t have apologized so mightily at least in public.
Speaking on his Happy Hour show, Harvick said the below interviews were a bad look for Reddick.
“I hated that interview. I did,” Harvick said on the show. “I don’t like when these guys go down the road of apologizing so much that it’s just pathetic. Honestly, that’s how I feel. I understand that – I just wish they would apologize and just say, ‘I had to do what I had to do to try to win the race. It didn’t work out, I’m sorry. I apologize for doing that. If I had to do it again I wish we had both continued.’ But don’t over-apologize, please. Please do not over apologize.”
Harvick found the racing compelling, and while the move was aggressive, it also wasn’t overly egregious given how challenging overtakes are in the NextGen car.
“I love the fact that he shot that thing in there trying to make a slide job happen,” Harvick added. “Like, I love the way that Tyler Reddick drives. I don’t want to be overcritical but I just wish he would not worry about, some of them, not just Tyler, but some of them would just not worry about apologizing so much that it seems overdone. ‘Hey I didn’t want that to happen, I’m sorry, I hate that for Chris,’ and just move on. Just don’t sink us in a sympathy train.”
Harvick said an apology to Buescher was warranted but just not one that came across that strongly.
“I think you have to apologize, but you never want, I never wanted to overdo it because I think it, I didn’t want it to end that way but I did want to make that move and I’m not going to apologize for trying to make a move that is spectacular and it would have been a spectacular move,” Harvick explained. “It just didn’t work out. Don’t apologize for being a dynamic, spectacular driver. I just, I don’t know. That’s just how I felt about it when I heard it.”
And that’s the key point, because Harvick doesn’t want Reddick to change anything about his driving style even though it didn’t work out for him nor Buescher on Sunday.
“If I’m Tyler Reddick’s crew chief or team owner I’m pulling him in there today and I’m saying, ‘Look man, I don’t want you to think twice about any of this,” Harvick said. “Do the exact same thing again, I want you to be that guy.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.