Kevin Harvick rips NASCAR officiating: 'It was awful in certain situations' this season

Kevin Harvick believes NASCAR has “a lot of work to do” in the offseason with the 2024 season coming to a close this past weekend at Phoenix Raceway.

One major item Harvick thinks NASCAR should address is officiating. Speaking on Tuesday’s “Happy Hour” podcast, the FOX Sports announcer said the officiating was “awful in certain situations” this season, though he did praise the sanctioning body for being transparent and admitting when they “screwed up.”

“I think the officiating has to be better,” Harvick said. “I think it was awful in certain situations. They have to be more proactive in putting people in the right positions to try to get in front of things instead of reacting to things when they’re wrong. Now, on the flip side of that, they’ve done a great job of saying hey, we screwed up.

“I think [senior vice president of competition] Elton Sawyer and NASCAR in general have done a great job of admitting things, but far too many things have to be admitted as we’ve gone throughout the season and some of the late caution calls and just using that as an example, just need to be cleaned up.”

The topic of officiating isn’t exclusive to NASCAR. Other sports leagues such as the NFL and NBA have come under criticism for its officiating in recent years. But when it comes to the decisions of when to throw caution flags potentially changing the outcome of races, the Damaged Vehicle Policy and various punishments handed down, NASCAR has taken its fair share of heat from fans.

NASCAR COO Steve O’Donnell responds to officiating criticism

NASCAR COO Steve O’Donnell tackled the subject of officiating head-on last Friday at Phoenix, explaining the unique challenges they face in making decisions as opposed to other sports.

“We’ve had to navigate some tough challenges throughout the year, but I will say, about our group, especially those officiating each and every weekend, there is no harder sport to officiate,” O’Donnell said. “We don’t have time outs. We don’t wait during the action. Cars going 200 miles an hour. You’ve got to make split-second decisions. We don’t always get those right, but for the most part, we do, and what I’m most proud of is we come, we speak to the media, we’re transparent on every single call that we make.

“When there’s a challenge, or when we can learn from something, we’re going to do that and we’re going to make adjustments, like we always have. I can tell you, I’ve been here almost 30 years, and every race you probably see something different. It’s our job to react to that and come up with a new rule, or come up with a new policy, that we’ve got to go after it.”

NASCAR making adjustments to officiating in offseason?

O’Donnell said they will look for ways to make adjustments in the offseason.

“Can you name one sport that doesn’t have officiating questions throughout the year, right? So, absolutely, we — every year, we address those,” O’Donnell said. “I think a lot of it is around technology, right? And a lot of it’s around formats that you look at, and different things that come into play now. So, you know, one of the biggest ones that we saw, you know, consistently, was the Damaged Vehicle Policy. You know, through, really no fault of trying to, in essence, save the industry money, we created a challenge, in terms of how we officiate. So, that’s something we want to continue to investigate.

“I think one of the biggest things you want to do is, how do we continue to use technology in real time, to notice what may or may not be occurring on the track, and address that as soon as possible. I don’t believe we have an officiating issue, at all. Think we have the best and the brightest in the business. Yes, we make mistakes. They’re humans. Hopefully we’ll never get to just AI making calls. But we will make adjustments. I think, if me or John or Elton or Steve [Phelps] are not up talking before the Daytona 500 about adjustments that we’ve made, then we haven’t done our job, because that’s what we always do in the off-season.”