Harvick rips female driver, calls her an ‘it’, it rips back

Keselowski leads Harvick

Fatherhood obviously hasn't softened Kevin Harvick, who blasted driver Amber Cope, referring to her as an "it" after the Nationwide Series race Saturday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

And as any young driver would do, Cope took to Twitter to defend herself, calling Harvick arrogant. Leading with 22 laps left in the race, Harvick had to slow after getting caught behind Cope, who had spent more than 20 minutes behind the wall and was more than 30 laps down at the time. Because Harvick lost momentum, it allowed Brad Keselowski to pass him for the lead and roll to the victory.

"The 24 (of Cope) all day just had no clue what direction—I don't know if that's a guy or a girl so we'll call it an ‘it'—which way it was going and it committed up the racetrack and I committed to the bottom and then it came back down," Harvick said.

One of the twin nieces of former Cup driver and 1990 Daytona 500 winner Derrike Cope, Amber Cope, 28, was competing in her second career Nationwide race.

Also a model who posed with her twin sister, Angela, in a racy spread for Maxim earlier this year, she also has one start in NASCAR's truck series.

Her fastest lap in practice was 119 mph; Harvick and the rest of the top drivers averaged 129 mph.

Harvick, a 12-year Sprint Cup veteran who has 69 wins in 816 career starts in NASCAR's three national series, wasn't impressed and wasn't going to give Cope a break despite her lack of experience in racing in NASCAR's No. 2 series. During the race, NASCAR officials had asked her to be more considerate to the leaders before the Harvick incident.

"It's not one of those deals," Harvick said. "It's somebody who shouldn't be on the racetrack that has no clue what they're doing in the racecar. She wants to be Danica Patrick, but she can't hold (Patrick's) helmet."

On Twitter, Amber posted photos to show another car in the upper groove and said she had nowhere else to go.

"Just bc u say it does not make it right!!!" Amber Cope tweeted from the joint account she holds with her sister. "Mr @kevinharvick…where should I go? I will take the apologies Monday! ASS!"

And it didn't end there. Cope tweeted, "I guess he forgot his journey" and "I know I can hold a helmet."

"Way to go tough guy," she tweeted. "I bet if u take a moment in your arrogance u will realize your fault @keselowski figured it out." Sporting News