Kevin Harvick shared his thoughts on the incident between Kyle Busch and John Hunter Nemechek that occurred in the final laps of the race.

The two came together racing down the back stretch and they both got into the wall after hitting each other. After they began to recover and drove into the corner, Busch appeared to retaliate against Nemechek by driving up into his side. The contact sent Nemechek crashing hard into the outside wall. 

Following the race, Busch addressed it writing on X, “I did not start this. The 42 apparently doesn’t know where the RS of his car is and where he is in relation to the outside wall. There was 2 ft outside him and I was judging my left side tires to the hash marks. Always know who your racing beside.”

I did not start this. The 42 apparently doesn’t know where the RS of his car is and where he is in relation to the outside wall. There was 2 ft outside him and I was judging my left side tires to the hash marks. Always know who your racing beside. 🤬 https://t.co/7IxSUMePzm pic.twitter.com/AqSl5TlNsa

— Kyle Busch (@KyleBusch) May 3, 2026

 In the latest episode of Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour, Harvick reacted to Kyle Busch’s explanation. He said, “I don’t think that John Hunter Nemechek did anything wrong right here. As you see, the car in front of him is a little bit closer to the wall, but the car right in front of him is in the exact same line. And regardless of where they are, I mean, Kyle has to give him the room and they’re going straight and he turned over the front of John Hunter Nemechek’s car, puts them both in the wall, they go into turn 3, and then he wipes him out again.

So, I don’t know any other way to explain it. I want Kyle Busch to win. I want all the success for Kyle Busch. And I think, at the end of this race, he put a damper on what was a huge turnaround for his team, qualified well, running in the top 10, and they could have finished 25th at that point and no controversy and called it a great day. But instead, now you got to deal with all of this nonsense at the end of the race what was otherwise a complete win for the 8 car with a new crew chief for the whole day and the whole weekend. All you had positives all weekend and then it turns into a disaster unfortunately.”

“i don’t put any of this on John Hunter, personally,” he concluded.

NASCAR officials saw the incident in a very different manner. NASCAR’s Managing Director of Racing Communications Mike Forde explained on Hauler Talk why Busch would not be penalized for the incident, ”

We did the same thing, video, audio, and SMT data. Talked about Scott Miller, former Senior VP of Competition for NASCAR, now moved into the role of Competition Strategist. So he’s still part of our team and one of his responsibilities is when we have incidents like this is to dive into the SMT data. He has a long history with that and so we rely on his expertise when we do that. And the SMT data is largely what played a role for us in this decision,” he explained.

Regarding the seeming retaliation from Busch after the initial contact, Forde said, “It was interesting, Elton Sawyer, before I came over here, was saying that the data told us that after the incident he was turning the wheel all the way left just to go straight. We had a feeling that he had some pretty significant damage and it was to Letarte’s point was inconclusive on if that was a damaged vehicle that caused him to get into the 42 or if it was intentional. The SMT data there was zero things, in our opinion, that said he did this intentionally and it rose to the level of penalty. So that’s why we landed on no penalty there.”

While there will be no penalty, Forde shared that NASCAR plans to meet with Busch and Richard Childress Racing management to talk about his driving so that he’s not the subject of whether or not he should receive a penalty because “the benefit of the doubt is running out pretty quickly.”

Forde would then be asked about why Busch was not being penalized, but Preece was, “Does it just come down to the fact that the difference between this and Preece was there is no audio, there is no evidence of him vowing retribution and acting on it? That’s the difference?”

He answered, “That’s the difference. And the SMT data was different too. There was no audio that came out and said, ‘I’m going to wreck the 42.’ And then he wrecked the 42. So that’s one. And then two, is the SMT data that showed-. Well, one, it didn’t show anything that suggested that he did do it, and also the fact that his steering was so jacked it showed at least there was a plausible chance that his car had some damage that led to what happened.”

When asked if Kyle Busch and John Hunter Nemechek’s social media posts were discussed, Forde said, “Not any that I was involved in. Maybe, yesterday, behind-the-scenes, or after the one meeting we had there about it. The social media exchange was not part of the conversation I was in.”

NEXT: NASCAR Officials Penalize Ryan Preece For Incident With Ty Gibbs At Texas On Sunday