Harvick upset, but will move forward with Stewart

MONTREAL -- Kevin Harvick, the voice of reason?

The former poster boy for NASCAR road rage, once thrown in the penalty box for a Nextel Cup race at Martinsville for rough driving during a Craftsman Truck Series event earlier in the weekend, Harvick sounded like a changed man Thursday at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

Harvick was calm and composed as he discussed his late-race dustup with Tony Stewart last weekend at Indianapolis.

"You just have to pick and choose your battles," Harvick said. "Things happen. It's part of the sport. I'm not going to sit up here and whine about it. It's just something that happens.

"At some point, it'll go the other way and you just hope that it's not something that gets harped upon, if it happens to go that way."

Harvick said he was "caught off-guard" by Stewart's hard bump while racing side-by-side on Indy's long back straight. The resulting damage to the left front fender of Harvick's No. 29 Chevrolet cost him dearly, as he dropped all the way back to seventh place.

Stewart called Harvick "one of my friends" after the race, but what might have bothered Harvick most is Stewart's insistence upon driver etiquette when he doesn't always behave in similar fashion.

"If you're going to preach it, you've got to back it," Harvick said. "That's the biggest thing. I can understand, he probably made a mistake, but when you're on the receiving end ...

"I don't take lightly that we lost a chance to win the Brickyard 400. He was going to pass us and it was just a matter of time. We raced for 15 laps, side-by-side, trading the lead back and forth and gave him plenty of room. From my head it just looks like he got in a hurry, felt a little bit frustrated because he couldn't get by as easily as he wanted to."

What makes last weekend's incident even more interesting is that Harvick has hired Stewart to drive his Busch Series car. Still, Harvick doesn't think there will be any long-term ramifications.

"I don't think you let anything on the track affect your relationship off the racetrack," Harvick said. "Obviously, you expect one thing to happen and it happens another way. For me, it's better to just take some time and think about things, just realize where you are and go from there.

"I wouldn't think it would affect anything off the racetrack and I'll get over it, at some point. We're still good friends and we'll go from there."

So Harvick may be close to losing his "hothead" reputation -- but for now, he's not taking any chances, especially when it comes to returning phone calls from Stewart.

"He's called," Harvick said. "I'm just not answering it."