Kevin Harvick backs Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in fight: 'I have no idea what Kyle Busch is mad at'

Kevin Harvick is siding with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. following the altercation between the No. 47 wheelman and Kyle Busch over the weekend at North Wilkesboro.

During the latest episode of his Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast, the former NASCAR Cup Series champion explained why he believes Stenhouse Jr. didn’t do anything wrong on the track, and he wondered why Busch decided to wreck the No. 47 for seemingly no good reason.

“It sounds to me that there were a lot of things that were coming to a head at this particular point. I don’t think this is the first incident. Like, there’s no way that this is the first instance, that this all happened. When I go back and watch the video, I honestly have no idea what Kyle Busch is mad at,” Harvick explained. “They came up off of Turn 2. Kyle, I mean — Ricky drove through a hole big enough to drive a bus through. Put them three-wide. Kyle bounced off the fence, and bounced into Ricky, and they made contact, but here, you could see that Kyle lost his mind, and was angry, and drove into Turn 1 and Turn 2 right here and was not letting off until he wrecked him. So I think there’s a lot of things here.

“I think there’s something between Ricky and Kyle, that Ricky was obviously frustrated about. Kyle obviously didn’t like the position that Ricky put him in off of Turn 2. Maybe, there’s obviously something that Kyle didn’t like about that, and felt like he’s been put in that position before, and felt like this was the night where it all didn’t matter, I’m retaliating tonight.”

Moreover, Harvick believes the frustration of not running where he’d like week-in and week-out is getting to Busch, and that’s part of why he sent Stenhouse Jr. into the wall on Lap 2.

“I think Kyle’s also frustrated with his situation, and everything he has going on currently,” Harvick added. “I think that we finally have seen the trigger that pushed Kyle over the edge, with the performance of what they’ve been doing on the race track, and the things that have been happening. So you can tell that he’s frustrated and not happy, and I don’t know any other way to put that.

“When you look at Stenhouse and his situation, with the things that he said and where he was with Kyle Busch, he just felt like it was time to be done with it, and I think they both took the opportunity of the All-Star Race to settle those things up.”

Kevin Harvick has a strong theory, and his words regarding Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Kyle Busch ring true. We’ll see if another chapter is written in the duo’s story during the Coca-Cola 600 over the weekend, where Stenhouse Jr. threatened to wreck Busch.