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Matt Kenseth

Kenseth on Harvick wreck: 'I couldn't feel any worse'

Nate Ryan
USA TODAY Sports
Sprint Cup Series driver Matt Kenseth says he feels bad for  his mistake at Martinsville that left Kevin Harvick on the brink of title elimination.

FORT WORTH, Texas – Matt Kenseth and Kevin Harvick met Friday morning at Texas Motor Speedway for their first conversation since a mistake by Kenseth left Harvick on the brink of title elimination.

Though he can't do anything to fix it, Kenseth hopes his error somehow would be rectified partly if Harvick's title hopes are resuscitated.

"I don't think it's something I'll ever feel better about," Kenseth said. "The only way I'll probably feel a little better about it or whatever is if he makes it to Homestead, because if he doesn't win a championship, at least it wasn't because of my stupid mistake. But until then, I don't know how much better I'll feel about it."

Though the meeting seemed civil, Harvick vowed after Kenseth wrecked him at Martinsville Speedway that Kenseth would not win the championship as a result of their incident.

Does he still feel that way five days later?

"Absolutely," he told USA TODAY Sports on Friday night after qualifying at Texas.

So their conversation didn't change anything? Harvick shook his head no.

"I gotta do what I gotta do for my team to make it happen," he said. "He put us in the hole."

Before his chat with Harvick in a Nationwide Series garage stall, Kenseth spoke with the news media about triggering the Martinsville incident. A 33rd dropped Harvick to last among the eight Chase for the Sprint Cup drivers in the points standings, and the Stewart-Haas Racing driver virtually needs a victory in Sunday's AAA 500 at Texas or the next week at Phoenix International Raceway to advance to the Nov. 16 season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

"First of all you hate making mistakes," Kenseth said. "You really hate to take somebody else out in your mistakes. Being the new format and being Kevin is one of the favorites. Him and I have got along really good in the last five or six years, but the last eight or nine years, we've raced each other well.

"I honestly couldn't feel any worse about it. Only way maybe you feel worse is if you wrecked a teammate. You hate stuff like that to happen, and then in this format, to take him out of that race with as much as I like and respect Kevin and (crew chief) Rodney (Childers)."

But what of Harvick's ominous words? Kenseth said Friday he could appreciate Harvick's frustration but wasn't worried about the threat.

"I really try not to worry about things you can't really control," he said. "I don't feel it's ever constructive no matter what it's about. I really can't spend any time worrying about it. He knows it was a mistake. I'll try to make it as right as I can possibly make it and move on from there. I can only control my own car and what I do and all that stuff, and obviously I did a poor job of that last weekend."

After qualifying, Kenseth said he felt it was important to go have a conversation with Harvick given their positive history but preferred to keep the details of the talk private.

In his first season with Childers at SHR, Harvick has three victories, led a career-best 1,817 laps and found a believer in Kenseth, who enjoyed similar success moving to Joe Gibbs Racing in 2013 with a circuit-best seven wins.

"I've actually been pulling for (Harvick) this year, and I've been trying to encourage him this year when he's been frustrated, because they've ran good enough to win eight or nine or 10 races. They've ran so much better (than the finishes indicate).

"I feel like there's a lot of parallels for me going to Gibbs and him going to SHR and how we both ran our first years. If me or a teammate can't win it, he's been my favorite to go try to win a championship. I hope it don't end up being the determining factor whether he gets to Homestead or not. I know he doesn't want that, and I don't want to live with that, either. So I hope that they can go out and make it into the final four."

Though he called it "one of the lowlights of my career," Kenseth finished sixth at Martinsville and is clinging to the fourth and final transfer spot to Homestead with two races remaining in the third round.

"You've got to move on and concentrate on what's in front of you and not look backwards," he said. "But you feel pretty rotten about it because I've been racing a long time, and I'm typically not known for wrecking a lot and making mistakes like that, and the timing couldn't have been any worse. So I feel bad about that."

Contributing: Jeff Gluck

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