Kevin Harvick believes it should speak volumes that a driver like Kyle Busch has decided to speak out so loudly against the high-downforce, high-drag Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series rules package.

A longtime critic of NASCAR’s current direction, Busch transitioned from subtle criticism to full-blown discontempt following Monday’s rain-delayed race at Dover International Speedway. Before the race, the current championship leader warned that corner speeds were too high, and after the race, he simply said the package sucked.

Harvick addressed those criticisms, sentiments that were shared by Alex Bowman, Erik Jones and team owner Bob Leavine, while also expressing concern that NASCAR hasn’t had a powerful driver liaison to the sanctioning body since the death of Dale Earnhardt in 2001.

He did so on his "Happy Hours" SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Show.

"You look at the things he does and places he races -- those are big comments from somebody like Kyle," Harvick said of Busch. "Look at the facts. My car was 17 mph faster through the corner than it was last year and 4 mph slower on the straightaway.

"That’s something the drivers have really talked about the last three to four years, getting the corner speeds down. That’s where some of the frustration showed up at Dover.

"We’ve slowed the cars on the straight, but the center of the corner speeds are still up at most every racetrack we go to. So I understand and agree with his frustrations."

For the 2019 season, NASCAR has implemented an 8-inch spoiler and a significantly larger splitter in the attempts to create drafting on some of the largest tracks on the schedule. While there has been closer racing in some of the 1.5-mile intermediate tracks, the high downforce has created too much turbulence for cars to drive through on shorter tracks, like 1-mile Dover.

This package was not widely approved by drivers, even when it was in the conceptual stage, with Harvick even removing himself from the debate out of frustration last fall.

Harvick said drivers do not have a powerful enough voice to lobby on behalf of their interests.

"From a driver’s standpoint, in the past, we started the driver’s council and that has kind of faded away this year, and there’s a little frustration on the driver’s side because it has fallen on deaf ears over the past couple of years,” Harvick added.

The driver’s council no longer exists this year with NASCAR working to create a new system to communicate with racers. A handfu of drivers felt their concerns were falling on deaf ears.

"I think a lot of Kyle’s (Busch) frustration and what he’s saying bleeds over to other drivers," he said. "You don’t feel like your voice is being heard. … The driver’s voice is not being heard very much on things when it comes to competition, especially when it comes to this particular style of rules package, and then you get to Dover, and it boils over after the first 11 weeks.

"Before Dale Sr. passed, he was the kind of guy NASCAR trusted, could go to and say things and the drivers all trusted and said we’re on board with him. I don’t really feel there’s that type of communication since Dale Sr. left.

"There’s no guy and no one really in the very top of the NASCAR executive side of things that has the experience inside the car that can relate to the drivers and say this is what these guys are feeling, what they’re saying, and I understand their frustrations.

"It’s a very tough, tough position that everything is in right now, after all this stuff is laid on the table by the race winner, (team owner) Bob Leavine and Kyle Busch. There’s a lot of things to digest here."

Despite the heavy-handed comments from both Busch and Leavine, NASCAR chose not to penalize them for actions detrimental to stock car racing, much to the surprise of the racing community.

With that said, during his own SiriusXM Radio segment on Tuesday, NASCAR vice president and chief racing development officer Steve O’Donnell praised the package his team developed.

Harvick said a lack of unity between drivers and owners is what led the Cup Series to this point. Harvick walked away from the debate. And while a handful of owners, like Leavine, did not approve of this package, NASCAR pushed them toward it because new manufacturers have expressed interest in joining the sport with a 550-hp engine.

Team owners rejected multiple packages for this season due to the costs associated with developing such a scenario, and the sanctioning body landed on one high-downforce, high-drag formula.

"I don’t think all of it lays on NASCAR," Harvick said. "Some of it lays on the team owners, to get the drivers more into the mix. It’s not like that on a lot of teams.

"Our team is not aligned with a lot of the decisions and some of the things that have happened in the sport. … I think we’ve got to pull the owners into this conversation because a lot of them have pushed NASCAR into doing the things they’ve done from a financial situation.

"We have to get the drivers and owners to be more on the same page with what’s going on from the owners' and NASCAR standpoint and get that communication right. That’s a piece of the puzzle that’s missing.

"I wouldn’t lay all the decisions that have been made in the sport are definitely not all on NASCAR’s shoulders. That’s one of the more frustrating things that happens. Everybody comes into how do we make the sport better, whether it’s competition or social media or whatever, and can’t set aside those agendas to do what’s right for the sport.

"Unfortunately, there’s a lot of politics in every decision that gets made and everything we do in today’s world. This is not my favorite thing to talk about, but obviously with everything that happened this week, this is definitely a topic we have to talk about."

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