NASCAR Sorcery?

This year NASCAR driver Kevin Harvick has had more than his share of bad luck. Despite having ostensibly solid, fast cars and driving well, he has won fewer races than he should because little things keep going wrong. According to this article from Sporting News, last week a fan of rival driver Dale Earnhardt, Jr. was spotted casting some sort of spell involving a monkey skull on Harvick's car, which encountered technical problems that cost him the race. So maybe the problem really is that he's being cursed.

“Last week, we had a Dale Jr. fan with a monkey skull with some sort of witchcraft standing behind our car,” Harvick said. “There’s some weird things happening. The skull had a 2 and a 4 on it so I guess that was meant for myself and (Brad) Keselowski.

“So I guess she got us last week at Dover. I don’t know that she will be able to show up for every race.”

Harvick isn't convinced that the bad luck will necessarily go away. All he knows is that he had a great car at Dover only to have a lugnut fall onto a valve stem and snap it on a pit stop, causing a flat tire that ruined his chances.

It was just another instance where Harvick saw a chance to win slip away. Harvick, who has just two wins this year despite leading 96 more laps and 247 more miles than any other driver, knows that circumstances need to go right as he enters the second round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup this weekend at Kansas Speedway.

This is exactly how curses work in the real world. They don't produce tons of special effects like in the movies, but rather they slant the odds against their target. And when you're under an effective curse, if something weird is even remotely likely to go wrong, it will. Harvick may have been cursed during other races as well, since many such spells don't require direct contact or even line-of-sight.

I don't personally know any curses off the top of my head that involve monkey skulls, but the most basic rule of magick is that if it works, it works. I'm thinking that if Harvick wants to turn his luck around, he should probably find his own sorcerer to cast counter-spells on his behalf.