Defending champ Harvick shoves Johnson after race

— -- JOLIET, Ill. -- The intensity from NASCAR's elimination-style Chase for the Sprint Cup playoffs ramped up earlier than ever this year.

Defending series champion Kevin Harvick shoved six-time champion Jimmie Johnson to express his frustration about a midrace clash during the MyAFibRisk.com 400, the first race of the 2015 Chase. Harvick cut a tire and crashed into the Turn 3 wall at Chicagoland Speedway a few laps later on the way to a 42nd-place finish.

Johnson went to Harvick's motorhome to discuss the incident after the race. He was standing outside with Josh Jones, the business development director of Harvick's company, when the driver of the No. 4 car emerged from his bus.

Within a few seconds, Harvick shoved Johnson in the chest with a closed fist and, separated by Jones, began jawing at his rival. Jones restrained Harvick until Harvick's wife, DeLana, intervened and the two of them coaxed him into a waiting Chevrolet Suburban.

The come-together in question happened just after a restart on the 135th lap of of the 267-lap race. Joey Logano's Team Penske Ford bumped Johnson's Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet as they were getting up to speed, sending the No. 48 car low on the the apron of the track.

Johnson's No. 48 pulled alongside Harvick and the two Chevrolets made side-to-side contact when Johnson attempted to move back onto the racing surface. Harvick's car developed a left-rear tire rub, and four laps later, the tire let go and the No. 4 car backed heavily into the Turn 3 wall.

After extensive repairs by Stewart-Haas Racing, Harvick rejoined the race 57 laps down, warning over his radio: "Let me know when that 48's near me on the track."

The final 60 laps occurred without incident, with Johnson losing a potential top-5 finish when he got bogged down in the wrong lane on the final restart. He finished 11th.

"I got a push from behind and went down on the apron, and I gotta get back on the track," Johnson said in pit lane, prior to his confrontation with Harvick. "I just tried to inch my way back onto the track and we had a little bit of contact there. It usually happens, and unfortunately, Kevin got a tire rub out of that.

"He didn't leave me any space," Johnson added. "He was pinning me down and I've got to get back on the track. I wouldn't say that what he did is different than other situations I've been in like that. When you're in Kevin's situation, you want to give that inside car a bad angle so they have to lift.

"I was fine with lifting, but I had to work my way back onto the race track."

Harvick was calm and controlled in a pit-lane interview a few minutes before he encountered Johnson in the motorhome lot.

"I got a pretty good restart and obviously the 22 [Logano] and 48 got a run," Harvick said. "I just held my line and the 48 just slammed into the side of my door. That's pretty much it."

He admitted to spinning his tires on the restart in a subsequent television interview with NBCSN.

"I got a fairly good restart, just had a little tire buzz at the end shifting into third gear," Harvick said. "I saw those guys coming on the apron; they must have gotten together and had a good run up.

"I stood my ground and he just slammed into the side of the door like I wasn't even there," he continued. "My spotter was telling me 'four-wide' and I guess he just figured that he'd come up the race track."

Logano steered clear of the controversy after finishing in sixth place. "I ain't getting in the middle of it," he said with a smile. "I don't want no part of that!"

NASCAR, after saying it would investigate the postrace incident between Harvick and Johnson, confirmed to ESPN on Monday that are no penalties are expected. 

Despite finishing 42nd in the 43-car field at Chicagoland, Harvick remains confident he will advance into the Contender Round of 12 that starts at Charlotte Motor Speedway in October. Race winners are guaranteed entry to the next round, and Harvick has two opportunities to win: at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Sunday and Dover International Speedway on Oct. 4.

With each finishing position essentially represented by one point, Harvick is 22 points behind the current 12th-place driver, Jeff Gordon. The drivers in between are Clint Bowyer, Paul Menard and Jamie McMurray.

Asked if he felt he needed to win, Harvick replied: "I don't know. There are some pretty slow cars at the back of this deal. We gotta try to win though.

"We can win anywhere," he added. "I mean, we could have won today. It's just a matter of putting a couple days together and being able to come back to Victory Lane. Same thing as last year."

Harvick's crew chief Rodney Childers also expressed confidence about the upcoming races.

"We led the most laps there in the last two races at Loudon [New Hampshire] and led the most laps, I think, the last three races at Dover, but we had knocked valve stems off in two of them," Childers said.

Race-winner Denny Hamlin revealed he wasn't surprised by the hot tempers on display after the race.

"Anytime you break your season into a three-race season, every point matters and every position matters," Hamlin said. "We saw more fights in the Chase last year than we've seen in the last 10 years because when people feel they're wronged by somebody, they can feel their entire season has been ruined because somebody made a mistake or something.

"But it's just racing," he added. "We mess each other up every single week, but those who are battling for a championship take it a little bit more seriously now than they did during the summer months.

"My guess is this is not the first and it's definitely not going to be the last confrontation you're going to see."

ESPN Staff Writer Bob Pockrass contributed to this report.