Kevin Harvick calls for NASCAR to change superspeedway rules after Daytona

Kevin Harvick believes it’s time for NASCAR to make an amendment to its superspeedway package rules in the aftermath of this past Saturday’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona.

Harvick, speaking on his “ Happy Hour ” podcast Tuesday, expressed concern after watching Josh Berry flip upside down and crash nose first into the inside wall. The FOX Sports analyst said the issue comes down to the amount of pushing and shoving that takes place at superspeedways.

Kevin Harvick opines on Daytona package rules

“I’m concerned,” Harvick said. “It started at Michigan — this wreck right here, wow. Upside down, hitting nose first. That’s one that I don’t think we’ve seen, head-on into the safer barrier upside down. So, I guess maybe we’ll flip all of our data upside down and start to read it. … You have to push and shove and sometimes those pushes come from the third, fourth, fifth row and the guy in the second row can’t really control it. By the time it gets to the first guy, you know you saw Austin Cindric get sent into the 4 [Berry] right there. And that’s what causes these wrecks.

“So, if you wanna eliminate stuff like this happening, we gotta make these pushes mean more. And be able to not have to push and shove as much as we do. Because if you can’t push and shove right now, you won’t be able to go anywhere. If they take the pushing and shoving away, nobody will be able to make any ground. So, you can’t take that away from them until we make the lanes move faster or spread the cars out a little bit. But one step to that is being aggressive in changing the rules on the superspeedway packages. So, the teams have to chase it all the time.

“Sure, it’s easy and it saves everyone money. But does it really save everyone money when they’re tearing stuff up every single time that they go to a superspeedway? You can count on millions of dollars get torn up every single time. I’d love to see them mix the rules up. So, the teams and the drivers have to continuously chase those superspeedway rules.”

Elton Sawyer admits more safety work needs to be done at superspeedways like Daytona

To NASCAR’s credit, it did make two notable changes in hoping to limit violent wrecks at Daytona. The backstretch grass at Daytona was removed and NASCAR mandated a new right-side rear-window air deflector .

The sanctioning body implemented the new procedure following Corey LaJoie’s scary flip down the backstretch the week prior at Michigan. Elton Sawyer, NASCAR senior vice president of competition, acknowledged on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Tuesday that additional work needs to be done to prevent cars from flipping over at superspeedways.

“It’s a complicated situation there when you’re running the speeds that we’re running. And you put multiple cars close together and how they affect each other,” Sawyer said . “Our guys in the back, I know they’ve been working since Saturday night to kind of recreate all that. And still some additional work on our side to be done.”

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