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FONTANA, CA – MARCH 18: Kevin Harvick, driver of the #4 Jimmy John’s Chevrolet, talks to his crew chief, Rodney Childers, during practice for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California. (Photo by Jonathan Moore/Getty Images)
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FONTANA, CA – MARCH 18: Kevin Harvick, driver of the #4 Jimmy John’s Chevrolet, talks to his crew chief, Rodney Childers, during practice for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California. (Photo by Jonathan Moore/Getty Images)
Darlington was quite a bumpy ride for a couple of drivers. And a couple of Championship contenders had their days cut short. However, Kevin Harvick’s incident really takes the cake in the pool of calamities at Darlington. He wasn’t the only one though with problems, as William Byron faced the same issues.
After a fire brought Harvick’s race to an end, his crew chief was furious.
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Rodney Childers, crew chief of the #4 car for Stewart-Haas Racing, took to Twitter to rant about the mess that happened in his car.
Lets put holes in the nose that will pick up every piece of rubber off the track. Let’s mandate 75% open grill area going to the rocker boxes. Let’s have a fan blowing air thru that hose to make sure the rubber reaches the headers. Then once the rubber stacks up and catches fire-
— Rodney Childers (@RodneyChilders4) September 5, 2022
Then we will have the equivalent of a leaf blower blowing oxygen on the fire and see how fast it gets a lot bigger.. https://t.co/zC83856tNr
— Rodney Childers (@RodneyChilders4) September 5, 2022
Complete bullshit… Was going to be a great night…
— Rodney Childers (@RodneyChilders4) September 5, 2022
Childers is visibly annoyed by the result and for good reason. The car had some issues with the intakes and airflow, causing the car to catch fire. But he is not alone.
Byron had issues with his engine too and it almost failed, as he explained in the post-race interview.
William Byron is happy for his friend Erik Jones, pleased to have made the most of his challenging day and details what their brief engine or mechanical fears were. pic.twitter.com/JpbQmTCfqj
— Matt Weaver (@MattWeaverRA) September 5, 2022
Byron said, “With these intakes on the front, it could’ve easily been starved of some air. Just the pitch of the engine changed, the engine felt like it was down on power, like everywhere I was getting beat was in the middle of the straightaways.”
However, unlike Harvick, things ended up working out for the Hendrick Motorsports driver, as his engine kind of recovered. He explained, “It just miraculously cleared itself up, and we kept going. So that’s a good thing.”
But what caused the #4 car to burn up like that?
Kevin Harvick blames poor parts as the cause of his fire
The next-gen cars are quite new to the series, still. And we still don’t know enough about them. But Harvick’s issues, which were then validated by William Byron, prove that there’s something fatally wrong with the current era of Stock Cars. However, the driver of the #4 car points his finger at the choice of parts.
"No reason. We didn't touch the wall. We didn't touch a car."- Kevin Harvick was frustrated after a fire ended his night in Darlington. pic.twitter.com/edENBfPrVr
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) September 5, 2022
He said, “I’m sure it’s just the crappy parts on the race car, like we’ve seen so many times.”
“We haven’t fixed anything. It’s kind of like the safety stuff: We just let it keep going and keep going. And the car started burning, and as it burned, the flames started coming through the dash.”
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It sure is pretty alarming. But what do you think is causing these issues?
Written by
Edited by
Ranvijay Singh