Race Weekend Central

Kevin Harvick, Erik Jones Crash During South Point 400 from Las Vegas

Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series playoff contenders Kevin Harvick and Erik Jones had their days end early after being involved in an incident with around 10 laps to go in stage two of the South Point 400 from Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Harvick blew a tire while running inside the top 10 entering Turn 1 and slammed the wall. Jones, who was committed to the high lane, was unable to slow down in time. The No. 20 Toyota had nowhere to go, piling into the No. 4.

“It’s unfortunate,” Jones told NBCSN after starting from the pole. “We didn’t have the best handling DeWalt Camry today … but we were going to finish top 10 no matter what. Nothing Kevin (Harvick) can do and nothing we can do, unfortunately. Not the situation we needed to be in.”

Harvick was displeased with Goodyear, to put it lightly.

“It’s like Russian Roulette every time you put these piece-of-crap tires on,” a frustrated Harvick told NBCSN at the infield care center. “I’m not happy about anything right now.”

Harvick had the same incident last season at Las Vegas, ending his day in stage one. But the March winner of this race had high hopes to repeat and was running at or near the front most of the race. Unfortunately, five spots lost on pit road put Harvick back in dirty air and the blown right front finished him off.

Both drivers will look to rebound next weekend at Richmond Raceway.

About the author

Davey is in his fifth season with Frontstretch and currently serves as a multimedia editor and reporter. He authors the "NASCAR Mailbox" column, spearheads the site's video content and hosts the Frontstretch Podcast weekly. He's covered the K&N Pro Series and ARCA extensively for NASCAR.com and currently serves as an associate producer for SiriusXM NASCAR Radio and production assistant for NBC Sports Washington. Follow him on Twitter @DaveyCenter.

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DoninAjax

The blown right front implies to me that the car was pushing and Harvick was pushing and the tire finally sent a message to Harvick. Typical of the driver to blame the tire seeing as everyone else had the same problem.

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