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Kevin Harvick says there was no need to be critical of pit call at Sonoma

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Listen in to radio transmission from the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway as Martin Truex Jr. storms back late to win his third race of the year.

JOLIET, Ill. — Kevin Harvick said Friday there was no need to be critical of crew chief Rodney Childers’ pit call last weekend at Sonoma Raceway because he not have beaten Martin Truex Jr.

Cole Pearn called Truex to pit road on Lap 73 while running second to Harvick last week. After Harvick pitted, Pearn told Truex to stay out. Truex went on to win the race.

After the race, Childers radioed Harvick: “I kind of let everyone down.

Harvick responded: “It’s all good man. All good. Give ‘er hell, man. That’s all that matters. Stuff happens.”

So why did Harvick react that way? He explained Friday at Chicagoland Speedway:

“I think everybody in this room, as an adult as you go through life, you mature as a person, I hope. I think the other thing is that I don’t really feel like Rodney’s call affected the race one way or another. I don’t feel like if we had waited eight laps to pit we would have beaten (Truex) anyway. I think Martin had the best car at that particular point, and we were fighting things that nobody really knew about at that particular time, not even Rodney.

“I try not to talk about our weaknesses on the radio. I can always tell him afterwards. There were things going on that after the first two stages that I felt like we were in position to be competitive with (Truex), but we got a little bit worse and I felt like he got a little bit better at the end of the race and eight laps of pitting wasn’t going to change the outcome. When you have something that is going as well as everything that we have going, there is no reason to put a chink in the armor and start to tear it down.

“Those guys, when I smashed into the side of Kyle Larson and spun myself out in the middle of the straightaway at California, those guys were all there to support me and that is what I was there to do last week when he thought he did something wrong.

“The support system is really one of the things that I feel like our team has built over the past five years amongst each other. The trust and the support that each other gets from each other when you feel like you did something wrong is really part of the strength of the team.”

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