Kevin Harvick Rips NASCAR After “Absolutely Ridiculous” Qualifying

What’s Happening?

On the Mar. 18 episode of Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour FOX Sports analyst Kevin Harvick went on a rant about Qualifying from this past weekend at Las Vegas. The former NASCAR Cup Series Champion complained that it was “absolutely ridiculous” that the drivers qualified wide open on a 1.5-mile speedway.

• At the 17-minute mark, Harvick’s discussion with Kaitlyn Vincie and Dylan “Mamba” Smith broke down into a short rant about qualifying from this past weekend. “It’s absolutely ridiculous that we went to an unrestricted mile and a half, and they qualified wide open,” said Harvick. “What in the world do we need to do to get more horsepower?”
• The downfall of horsepower in NASCAR is long discussed issue amongst fans and drivers. For example, a decade ago, Jeff Gordon’s pole lap at Las Vegas was 27.738 seconds at 194.679 mph. This year, Michael McDowell led the way at just 28.883 seconds at 186.961 mph. While over one second and almost eight mph slower, McDowell’s lap was the fastest lap at Las Vegas in the NASCAR’s Next Gen era.
• As many fans and broadcasters pointed out this weekend, most drivers were full-throttle on their qualifying lap. As Harvick went on to say, “Put some damn power in the cars. Wide open qualifying in an unrestricted mile and half racetrack is dumb.”
• NASCAR currently uses a 670-horsepower package at tracks less than two miles long, such as Las Vegas and this week at Homestead-Miami. Despite these issues, fans mostly enjoyed last weekend’s race. However, this does not mean the horsepower debate is going anywhere anytime soon.

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