Prism car impound not out of line
Bob Pockrass
Bob Pockrass began covering NASCAR in 1992, primarily covering short-track racing and events. He has worked for Street & Smith's Motorsports Group since 2003.
Some fans are a little riled up over NASCAR impounding the No. 66 Prism Motorsports car of Dave Blaney following the race at Auto Club Speedway in California.
NASCAR took the car as one of its “random” selections following the Auto Club 500. After each race, NASCAR officials typically take the winning car and select others for further inspection at its research and development center in Concord, N.C.
“Random” is not a good word for NASCAR to use because NASCAR has a rule that no car can leave the race track without its release. So NASCAR doesn’t need to make these decisions at “random” – it can do as it pleases.
Because of the time frame of the California–Las Vegas swing, NASCAR officials will inspect the Prism Motorsports car Friday morning and give it back to the team, which might have enough time to get the car ready for practice or it might have to use its backup car. The race-winning car of Hendrick Motorsports driver Jimmie Johnson won’t be inspected until next week and then given back to the team.
Is this a case of NASCAR harassing an organization that has traditionally start-and-parked and is now trying to qualify two cars for every race? Blaney’s teammate, Michael McDowell, has qualified for both Cup events this year.
Or is the fact that Blaney qualified fifth-quickest at California the reason his car was chosen?
The truth is we’ll never know. What we do know is that NASCAR can take cars at any time for any reason. And we also know that racers find a way to race. Considering that Prism Motorsports found a way to get Blaney to qualify so well at California, it should be able to find a way to get Blaney to beat three of the other go-or-go-homers in the field at Las Vegas, even with backup car.
Some will celebrate this move – anything that makes the lives of start-and-parkers more difficult is a good thing to some fans. Others will say that in the free enterprise system NASCAR promotes, it shouldn’t target the guys just trying to make a little coin or the guys who come to the track without the funding to run the entire event.
The bottom line is that all teams – from those at the front end of the garage to the back – need to be able to overcome adversity, whether it comes from a NASCAR call on pit road, a new NASCAR rule that makes months of research worthless or a NASCAR decision to take a car as it sees fit.
If Prism Motorsports can’t handle NASCAR taking a car from it (and we’ll find out soon if it can), it doesn’t belong in the garage anyway.
