A NASCAR racer was furious and blamed the ‘crappy ass parts’ after his Next Gen car caught fire in Sunday night’s Southern 500.
Kevin Harvick spent the early stages of the race at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway fighting back from a poor first pit stop to eventually climb his way back into the top 10 in Stage 3. However, his hopes quite literally went up in flames.
On lap 276, fire emerged out of both sides from beneath the underside of Harvick’s Ford, forcing him to bring it to a stop. He safely left the vehicle, which rapidly descended into the blaze.
Harvick was particularly frustrated as he had not experienced any issues with his engine prior to the fire and had not suffered any damage to his car in the race. The 46-year-old is now last in the 16-driver playoff standings with just two races remaining in the first round - and he held nothing back after the race.
“I’m sure it’s just crappy parts on the race car like we’ve seen so many times,” Harvick said. “They haven’t fixed anything. It’s kind of like the safety stuff. We just let it keep going and keep going.
“The car started burning and as it burned the flames started coming through the dash. I ran a couple laps and then as the flames got bigger it started burning stuff up and I think right there you see all the brake fluid that was probably coming out the brakes and part of the brake line, but the fire was coming through the dash.
“What a disaster for no reason. We didn’t touch the wall. We didn’t touch a car and here we are in the pits with a burned up car and we can’t finish the race during the playoffs because of crappy-ass parts.”
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During the caution for Harvick’s vehicle after the incident, another racer - J.J. Yeley - suffered similar issues as his Ford also set on fire. The fires from the Ford duo are the fourth and fifth examples of such an incident originating from the car’s exhaust system, with the iconic American company involved in each issue.
NASCAR were forced to mandate an exhaust shroud to be added to the car after fires ignited on the cars of Chris Buescher and Joey Logano at the Indy Road Course. Harvick’s incident, however, saw fire coming out of both sides of the car and he was adamant the governing body wouldn’t address the issue.
“They don’t care,” he said. “It’s cheaper to not fix it. Find someone to run the show who can run it.”
