Joe Gibbs reflects on Coy Gibbs, Kevin Harvick Martinsville incident: 'I saved your life'

For longtime NASCAR fans, Kevin Harvick and Coy Gibbs going at each other at Martinsville is an iconic Truck Series moment. Joe Gibbs remembers when his son went toe-to-toe with Harvick and ended up wrecked because of it. It also earned The Closer a suspension.

Those early years of Harvick in NASCAR were wild. He was willing to wreck you over any perceived slight on the track. Then he was willing to take it to the pits if need be.

This week on Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour, Joe Gibbs reminisced with the retired driver about the incident with his son. It ended up having relatively big implications for Harvick. But it could have been much worse.

“You know Coy got me in as much trouble, or I got myself in trouble,” Harvick remarked. “Do you remember that when Coy and I went at it at Martinsville?”

Joe Gibbs definitely remembered. After all, Harvick wrecked not just his son, but the truck he owned as well. So, it was probably a little personal. Gibbs revealed a little more that Harvick did not know about.

“I’ll tell you the honest truth, I saved your life. You don’t know this. … Because when you got into it that day, where were we? Martinsville, I think,” Gibbs recalled. “I remember this, you put that truck right up against NASCAR, and of course, that didn’t go over well. And Coy, when he got out of there, Coy said, ‘I’m going to get him some day.’ I said, ‘Hey, we can’t be doing this in the sport.’ So, anyway, I don’t know who would have won that fight. I think it would probably, I would put the odds on Coy, he outweighs you by about 100 pounds.”

For those not familiar with the story, Coy Gibbs made contact with Harvick during the spring 2002 Truck Series race at Martinsville Speedway. Being the wild man that he was at the time, Harvick wrecked Coy on a restart soon after that.

He kinda also said, “I’m gonna go get him,” on his radio and NASCAR heard. Since he was on probation for an earlier incident with Greg Biffle that season. So, Harvick was suspended for the Martinsville Cup Series race and had to pay a $35,000 fine.

Joe Gibbs has been around the sport for decades. He was there as Kevin Harvick was becoming Kevin Harvick. While he never drove for JGR, the two did get along.

“I used to joke with you all the time. I remember you’d come up with funny comments about other drivers and stuff,” Gibbs continued. ‘And then you backed off for a while, and I remember walking up to you and I said, ‘Hey, what’s the deal? You get a lobotomy or something? Come on. Let’s get back to the funny stuff.'”

The conversation between Kevin Harvick and Joe Gibbs was really great. Between his NFL career, coaching on the field, and winning multiple Super Bowls, to owning JGR and winning five Cup Series championships, he has been on the top of the American sports world multiple times. And he has a lot of great stories to tell about it.