Kevin Harvick weighs in on Noah Gragson, Chris Buescher feud

Noah Gragson and Chris Buescher got into a bit of a kerfuffle at Martinsville Speedway this past weekend. After contact from the Buescher’s No. 17 sent Gragson’s No. 4 around, the latter was heated with the RFK Racing wheelman.

There was no love throughout the Cook Out 400, and that’s just how it goes at the Virginia-based short-track sometimes. Kevin Harvick recognizes that, as he tried to make sense of the dust-up between Gragson and Buscher on the latest episode of his Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour show.

“I’m not sure that Buescher got the message that they were checking up. Drove over the left- rear of the No. 4 car. That happens sometimes. It’s not easy to constantly get that message. It’s definitely evident that Noah was not happy after all this took place, where he wound up spinning around,” Harvick stated. “He was waiting for him when he came back out of the pits. I don’t know exactly which fingers were flying out of the No. 4 window, but Noah was showing his displeasure with a swerve and some fingers.”

Evidently, Harvick is chalking it up to short-track racing. The incident resulted in some hurt feelings, but the former Cup Series champion isn’t expecting any long-term beef between Gragson and Buescher. Still, he can’t rule it out.

“That’s pretty typical Martinsville,” Harvick added. “It’s always good. We need a little bit of that fire. And it’s going to happen. That’s the hardest thing to balance at Martinsville. You’re going to get run into. You’re going to run into somebody. You have to be aggressive. You have to push them out of the way. You have to block. So, all these things that you have to do are not going to make somebody else happy. That’s tough to mentally get your arms wrapped around that, and how you deal with it throughout the day.

“You look at the first half of the field and the way that they race and then you look at the second half of the field — It’s a completely different race in the second half of the field. They are, I mean — it is brutal back there. You get run into, run over, too wide, door slammed, you name it. It’s happening.”

Time will tell if Noah Gragson and Chris Buescher let bygones be bygones. Regardless, Kevin Harvick will be keeping a keen eye on the two wheelmen, as they both look to continue making names for themselves in the NASCAR Cup Series.