In the wake of 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 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, 33, 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.”
“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.”
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