PC: NASCAR

NASCAR has been built on two main things, family and rivalries and it was that second one that helped boom the sport to the peak popularity in the early 2000's. Back in the 80's and 90's we saw many rivalries, including Dale Earnhardt and Darrell Waltrip, among many others.

In the 2000's and 2010's we've seen rivalries with drivers including Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, Jeff Gordon, Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick and Tony Stewart. In recent years Hamlin and Harvick have gotten into it with Chase Elliott, 2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion.

There is one main difference with modern rivalries and those of the past, drivers will wreck each other intentionally. While that did happen when Earnhardt and Waltrip were rivals it didn't happen often and if it did they were battling for the lead.

While a rivalry may start due to an accident, wrecking someone as payback for slight contact and destroying their racecar due to it crosses the line. There is no need to wreck someone who annoys you during the race.

At the Bristol Playoff race this year we saw contact between Chase Elliott and Kevin Harvick. The contact left Elliott with a flat tire and he was angry with Harvick, for right or wrong. After coming back onto the track down a lap and made sure to slow Harvick down to help Kyle Larson pass him to win the race.

Now this weekend Harvick was running behind Elliott and decided to just gas it up and put Elliott in the wall. While this is a usual type of payback we see, it needs to stop. At Bristol Elliott cost Harvick a win, but he still came home second place in the race. Now Elliott could have been eliminated from the entire playoffs had the race gone worse for Elliott.

Ironically, as Elliott was approaching Harvick going into turn one Harvick missed his breaking point, or thought that Elliott was going to wreck him and slammed into the wall, eliminating himself from the race and essentially the Playoffs.

To summarize, a simple bit of contact a month ago resulted in a very damaged Camaro for Chase Elliott and a totaled Mustang for Kevin Harvick. That is the issue with rivalries and paybacks, in what could have been done in a matter of Harvick just spinning Elliott either at Bristol when he was slowing him down or just turning him at the Charlotte Roval going into the chicane and that would have meant minimal damage for the teams to try and fix.

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