The ties that bind NASCAR's four title contenders

HOMESTEAD, Fla. — With impish references to ancient feuds, meddlesome parents and indecorous teamwork, Kevin Harvick mercilessly needled Joey Logano during much of a media blitz for NASCAR's championship round.

"I'm a firm believer in karma," Harvick said. "At some point, it comes full circle."

That might be the overarching theme for the 2014 Chase for the Sprint Cup, which will conclude Sunday with the Ford Ecoboost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway amid myriad threads of contentious history interlocking the contenders in a manner consistent with the largest field in the reformatted playoff's 11-year history.

Harvick, Logano, Denny Hamlin and Ryan Newman will square off on even ground in a first-of-its-kind four-way title fight for NASCAR. The highest finisher at Homestead will hoist the Sprint Cup, and the inherent tension already has produced an exceptionally chippy news conference notable for stone faces and forced laughter from the predictable and playful mind games of Harvick, a natural born pot stirrer who delights in antagonizing opponents.

"Everyone knew that was coming," Hamlin said. "Everyone is going to look for every advantage they can get, whether it be coincidence that the person poking fun is the one who gets under the other person's skin."

There are endless ways to play the Six Degrees of Stock-Car Racing with this quartet, and most of those ties are tinged with misfortune, pain and volatility.

At the nexus is Logano, who has stood his ground in heated postrace garage confrontations with Newman and Harvick in 2010. Two years ago, Logano was cut loose by Joe Gibbs Racing and waged a most memorable feud in 2013 with former teammate Hamlin, who suffered through a career-worst season whose lowlight was a broken back sustained in a crash while battling Logano for a lead at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif.

Harvick and Newman haven't been teammates, but they also have many team connections after essentially trading places this season.

Harvick drives the No. 4 Chevrolet for Stewart-Haas Racing, which fired Newman last year. The ugly breakup left Tony Stewart, who stands to win his fourth championship in NASCAR's premier series but his first exclusively as a car owner, awkwardly trying to straddle his friendship with Newman and his business partnership with Gene Haas, who heartily endorsed the split.

Newman, meanwhile, is in his first year for Richard Childress Racing, which is seeking its first championship in 20 years. The last was with Dale Earnhardt, whose 2001 death thrust Harvick into the RCR ride for 13 seasons that produced triumphs, turmoil but no titles.

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History of head games

That's a plethora of old scars, scabs and fodder for potential animosity, but there's little evidence it's producing much motivation.

"I just want to win a championship for me," said Logano, in his second year with Team Penske's No. 22 Ford. "I am not going to go rubbing it in someone's face and go, 'Look at me now'. I am just going to take my trophy and go home and that is it. I am not doing this out of spite. I am winning a championship for myself, my team and my sponsors. Not to get someone back. That is not what it is all about.

"The past is the past and you can't change it. I was never very good at history."

Newman, who drove from 2000-08 for Team Penske that now supplies Logano's No. 22 Ford, also said there'd be no special satisfaction from beating SHR or Team Penske.

"I have no animosities toward either," he said. "That's all behind us.

"You can (play) head games if you want, but you better have everything else buttoned up because that's taking focus away from your team. I haven't played head games the first 35 races, I don't see any need to start now."

Still, there have been indications that it's a useful strategy. On his way to the 2011 championship, Stewart spent the second half of the Chase trying to get inside Carl Edwards' head.

Jimmie Johnson won the 2010 championship after he took turns with Harvick verbally pummeling Hamlin, who was clinging to a meager points lead after a disappointing finish at Phoenix International Raceway, in a news conference three days before the finale.

Hamlin claims it didn't affect his performance in the No. 11 Toyota ("I just ran like (crap) in the last race. Everything was just bad that weekend") but concedes that mental warfare can have an impact.

"It has an effect on preparation," he said. "You get in the car, and no one remembers what was said in a press conference.

"But it can weigh on you and maybe change the way you do things if you get shook or rattled a little bit. You're more nervous. When you lock up, you tend to worry about not making mistakes rather than doing the job."

Heavy favorites

Logano believes that's why he has been targeted by Harvick, who enters Homestead with four victories and a series-high 2,083 laps led.

With five Sprint Cup victories, Logano is the biggest remaining threat. At 24, he also is the youngest and most inexperienced, traits associated with being more susceptible to pressure.

"When you have one of the threats to win the championship trying to play head games with you, it means they are nervous about you," Logano said. "I think that is cool. I kind of take it as a compliment."

Harvick went on the offensive early Wednesday to throw Logano off his game, accusing him of being a "moving chicane" blocking other drivers to help teammate Brad Keselowski win at Talladega Superspeedway last month.

"I was just answering the question," Harvick said later with a wry smile. "Only thing that would be better is if we could get his dad to bring him out here."

At Pocono Raceway in June 2010, Logano was pushed by his father, Tom, toward Harvick during a postrace scuffle. Afterward, Logano infamously said that Harvick's wife, DeLana (who once made a habit of sitting on the pit box in full racing attire), "wears the firesuit in the family."

In an amusing twist, Logano now has the primary sponsor (Shell) that Harvick had then.

It's yet another touchy intersection for this season's title hopefuls.

"I have to get that suit from her so Brittany can wear that," Logano said, laughingly referring to his fiancee. "I should ask DeLana and not him, I guess."

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