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NASCAR America: Should Kevin Harvick have publicly criticized his pit crew?

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The NASCAR America team debates whether it was okay for Kevin Harvick to rip his pit crew team publicly following some massive struggles in Darlington.

After issues on pit road cost Kevin Harvick a chance to win Sunday’s Southern 500, Harvick said his pit crew was doing a “terrible job.’' Harvick also said that “I’m over being a cheerleader. Those guys get paid a lot of money to perform on pit road, and cheerleading hasn’t really been working. You’ve got to get after it on pit road and do your job.’'

NASCAR America analysts Brian Vickers and Parker Kligerman discussed if Harvick took the right approach with his crew after the race.

“Don’t misunderstand me, Harvick has a right to be furious, and I think he should be mad,’' Vickers said. “I’m not even saying that someone shouldn’t be fired over some of the issues that they’ve had, but there’s just a time and place. For me personally, I don’t like to handle those things in the public view. I don’t like to push the button on the radio. I don’t like to talk about it on TV or put it in the public. We go to the trailer, we go to the shop and we hash things out.’'

Kligerman said: “There’s no doubt this is not the correct way to handle anything, is to put it out there in the media.’'

Kligerman also discussed the matter from Harvick’s perspective.

“There’s no way that we’re going to condone this, but I want to step into Kevin’s shoes a little bit and just explain how do you get so frustrated as a driver,’' Kligerman said. “It comes down to a lot of what Kevin does in the background, what he does to prepare for these races, how much effort he puts into these races to become a championship-caliber at this level. It’s a huge amount of effort. When (crew chief) Rodney Childers is putting out great race cars ... that are leading the most laps in a race, when it comes down to one link that continually loses them the race, there’s going to be a point which it breaks and that’s where they’re at now.’'