NASCAR: Gibbs teams face penalties for manipulating Nationwide dyno
BROOKLYN, Mich. – Joe Gibbs Racing’s Nationwide Series teams will be penalized for attempting to manipulate the throttle so NASCAR would not get a true horsepower reading when putting their cars on the chassis dynamometer following the Carfax 250 at Michigan International Speedway, NASCAR spokesman Jim Hunter said Saturday night.
Both the No. 18 and No. 20 teams face penalties for what was a blatant attempt to interfere with the inspection process. NASCAR has confiscated the engines and it will determine whether to test them further, NASCAR Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton said Sunday morning.
Pemberton would not speculate on what the penalties would be.
“We were in the middle of an inspection process,” an obviously perturbed Pemberton said. “[Penalties coming] would a pretty fair assessment. … This is interfering with a NASCAR inspection process, and I will leave it at that.”
Horsepower in the Nationwide Series is a sensitive issue. Last month, NASCAR changed the spacer that limits air flow through the carburetor for Toyotas after it determined that the Toyotas had an advantage over the other manufacturers. The Toyota teams reacted angrily to the change.
NASCAR put 10 cars on the chassis dyno to test horsepower following the race Saturday. The last two times it had tested Nationwide engines (at Milwaukee in June and Chicagoland in July), it had taken the engines out of the car and used an engine dyno.
Pemberton said he did not know if JGR had manipulated dyno numbers when the engines were last tested on a chassis dyno in March at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
“You just never know,” Pemberton said. “You can’t look back and speculate. We just need to go forward and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
The tampering had no impact on the outcome of the race, Hunter said. Tony Stewart drove the No. 20 to third place in the race, while Joey Logano drove the No. 18 to seventh place. The No. 20 team, which has used several drivers this year, currently leads the owner standings by 318 points over the No. 2 Richard Childress Racing team.
“What they did was not in effect during the race,” Hunter said. “They didn’t have an illegal part or engine during the race. They tried to do something involving a magnet so that we wouldn’t get a true reading on the dyno.”
Joe Gibbs Racing spokesman Mike Arning would not comment specifically on what happened during the postrace dyno process.
"The parts and pieces that were on our cars [in the race] adhered to the rulebook," Arning said. "There was nothing out of the ordinary."
But the rulebook does require teams to follow NASCAR directives after a race.
“From time to time, NASCAR may determine, in the interest of competition, that it is necessary or appropriate to undertake an analysis of the performance capabilities of a car, car part, component or equipment,” the rulebook states. “The Competitor shall take whatever steps are requested by NASCAR Officials for this purpose.”
Pemberton said it was too early to tell if there would be more rule changes resulting from the horsepower figures gathered Saturday. NASCAR re-ran the Gibbs cars unadulterated to get accurate numbers after the violations were found, Pemberton said.
“We will have to sit down,” Pemberton said. “There are a lot of numbers to evaluate.”
