Harvick: We screwed up!

Kevin Harvick was a frustrated man after Sunday's Crown Royal 400 at Richmond International raceway, believing that he and the #29 team had thrown away a chance of ending Hendrick Motorsports' domination of the Car of Tomorrow events.

Although the Reese's Chevrolet Impala finished a respectable seventh overall, Harvick and crew chief Todd Berrier were left to rue a miscalculation that cost the reigning Busch Series champion a shot a victory in Sunday's rescheduled race.

Harvick was leading when the sixth caution of the afternoon came out to cover an incident involving JJ Yeley on lap 253. Having already made the decision to pit, the #29 was about to rejoin the fray when Harvick collided with David Ragan's #6 Ford, causing significant damage to the right front corner of the Reese's machine.

"It happened so fast - I hadn't heard anybody tell me he's coming," the driver revealed, "We just didn't communicate well and wound up getting torn up. The Reese's Chevrolet was pretty much the class of the field and we screwed it up. But it is what it is, and there's nothing we can do about it now. "

So confident was Harvick of success, that he even managed to joke that 'it's a good thing that we crashed because it was going to be a no-contest'. Despite being assessed two penalties after the accident - one for pitting before pit-road was officially open and one for exceeding the pit speed limit - Harvick still managed to fight his
way back up the order.

"The Reese's Chevrolet was really good," he insisted after leading as many laps in the race as eventual winner Jimmie Johnson, "[Getting back to seventh] just goes to show you how good this car was. We came back up through there and battled up. It's just unfortunate, but that's the way it goes."