Kevin Harvick on victory burnouts, pre-race tech and penalties

Kevin Harvick: “Hopefully we can just have immediate penalties.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr introduced the hot topic of victory burnouts designed specifically to tear off the fenders of these race cars. He stated that NASCAR should crack down on that.

Related: Dale Earnhardt jr calls out NASCAR for not policing burnouts

Kevin Harvick has a different approach with the same goal in mind.

“I’d hate for NASCAR to get involved in the victory celebration side of things,” Kevin Harvick stated via ‘Happy Hours’ on Sirius XM NASCAR Radio.

“I think as you look at the polish victory lap and the burnouts. Whether it’s blowing the tires out or not blowing the tires out.”

Kevin Harvick on NASCAR inspection
Kevin Harvick

NASCAR pre-race tech inspection

“I’d rather just let the guy do whatever he wants to do. At Chicagoland, they had the new hawk eye system to be hopefully the new inspection system for 2018.”

“It’s got these camera’s and it’s suppose to do everything that the LIS does. Measure the body, measure all the offsets, skew and all those things in a reasonable amount of time.”

The new laser beam inspection station has 17 HD cameras. It combines three stations into just one. With the old system, it was 6 minute inspection process. The new system cuts the time down to just 90 seconds.

Related: NASCAR debuted a new inspection process at Chicagoland Speedway

“Hopefully we can get that working. And hopefully in those meetings for the 2018 rules, we can get to a point where the car goes out on pit road and that’s final.”

“As you see NASCAR take those cars after the race they’ll be looking for things they need to inspect at the race track. Hopefully, we can come up with some kind of inspection process. And not have to have all the post-race stuff.”

Kevin Harvick on NASCAR penalties and pre-race tech
Kevin Harvick

In other words, Kevin Harvick  is calling for a double down on pre-race tech. Then, a reduction in post-race tech. Once it’s on the race track, it’s good. With a handful of exceptions of course.

I love it! I’ve been saying it for months. But what about the transformers? These NASCAR race cars have been known to get through pre-race tech just fine. Then, they roll it back to the R&D center. Suddenly, the same car that passed pre-race tech is ruled encumbered.

How did that happen? The car transformed, on the race track. These engineers are geniuses. From phase 1 of the design, the car was built to do just that.

Kevin Harvick says that in those situations, it should be an automatic and immediate penalty.

2017 NASCAR Chicagoland Speedway penalties announced
JOLIET, IL – SEPTEMBER 17: Chase Elliott, driver of the #24 NAPA Brakes Chevrolet, leads Brad Keselowski, driver of the #2 Miller Lite Ford, Denny Hamlin, driver of the #11 FedEx Office Toyota, and Kyle Larson, driver of the #42 Target Chevrolet, during the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Tales of the Turtles 400 at Chicagoland Speedway on September 17, 2017 in Joliet, Illinois. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)

Kevin Harvick on immediate penalties after post-race inspection

“Obviously, there’s a lot of stuff that you can hide and there’s a lot of things you can do. If you look at the #24 situation, with all the wickers and the spoiler tape.”

“That was intentional. Those are the things that they told us not to do and there would be major consequences for wickers, that were on the car, last year. Not this year, that was last year when they told us that.”

“When you look at that car that they had at Chicago… That’s one of those situations where if that happened after the race there should be an immediate penalty.”

“I think you say another step toward that this weekend. With no crew members out by the car [after the race]. That, to me, will eliminate the guy trying to cut the wicker off the spoiler that they built into the wrap, another one on the right side and another one on the A post.”

Related: Chase Elliott spoiler wicker penalty

“That’s a ton of downforce. That’s a big downforce number. If you see those type of things, hopefully we can just have immediate penalties.”

Related: Encumbered is quintessential NASCAR

Kevin Harvick discusses victory celebrations

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