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closeWhining coming from the newbies, Harvick says
MIKE HARRIS
The Associated Press
Saturday, Jun. 14, 2008
BROOKLYN, Mich. - Kevin Harvick isn't impressed with the attitudes of some of the young drivers who have arrived in NASCAR in the last few years.
After a meeting on Friday in which NASCAR president Mike Helton asked drivers to complain less and be more mindful of the economic woes affecting fans, Harvick said Saturday that a lot of the grousing is coming from drivers who haven't been around long.
"There are a lot of them that disrespect the sport week in and week out and they act like a bunch of 18-year-old punks, which most of them probably are, and they just need to grow up," Harvick said.
"If we all move in the same direction, things will get better, as they would in any business, whether it's the media or the drivers or the owners. Everybody here has the same goal and that's to have a successful sport."
The usually outspoken Harvick, once considered a bad boy in the sport, said the short meeting with Helton in the garage area at Michigan International Speedway was a good one.
"NASCAR talks to a lot of the drivers a lot of the time," Harvick said. "It's just a matter of how willing you are to go up and spend the time to talk about it. As young drivers ... you don't want to go up in the (NASCAR) trailer. It's kind of like talking to your dad.
"When you turn 15, 16, or 17 years old, you kind of rebel against the whole situation, and a lot of the young guys in the garage don't really understand what's going on. And they're really fast in the race car, but don't really have a clue of everything that's going on around them."
Many of the recent complaints from Cup drivers have been about the new race car, which is being used for its first full season after a 16-race trial in 2007. Helton asked the drivers to be more patient and let the development of the car take place as the season goes on.
"Right now, there are some of them that, sure their car doesn't drive like it was a couple of years ago. But this car was not intended to drive like the ones a couple of years ago," Harvick said.
"We were supposed to put more of the driver capability back in (their) hands. And if you go back a year and a half or two years ago, a lot of the guys just wanted to keep putting downforce in the car, put downforce in the car so they could hold the thing wide open.
"Well, that's never been what NASCAR racing is all about. If they want something they can hold wide open, they need to go race IndyCars and ride around in a pack like that."
