Pemberton: JGR penalties warranted to keep competitive balance
By Bob Pockrass - Associate Editor
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
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BRISTOL, Tenn. – NASCAR sent a message to its competitors Wednesday that trying to circumvent its testing and inspection process will not be tolerated, NASCAR Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton said Wednesday evening.
NASCAR suspended seven Joe Gibbs Racing crewmen after the No. 18 and No. 20 cars were found to have magnetic spacers underneath the gas pedal during chassis dynamometer testing following the Nationwide Series race Saturday at Michigan International Speedway. The intent was to keep the engines from providing maximum horsepower.
JGR crew chiefs Dave Rogers and Jason Ratcliff, car chiefs Dorian Thorsen and Richard Bray, engine tuners Dan Bajek and Michael Johnson and crew member Toby Bigelow were all suspended indefinitely.
The crew chiefs also were fined $50,000 and the team and drivers docked 150 points.
“I hate it for Joe Gibbs and J.D. Gibbs that they were put in that situation by their team,” Pemberton said prior to the Craftsman Truck Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway. “We take everything pretty serious. When we’re trying to do a postrace inspection and evaluate things that have implications long term, we really feel like we need to get everybody to give us a fair shot at that.”
NASCAR this year has often suspended at least two individuals per team for a major rules violations.
“Crew chiefs and car chiefs are responsible,” Pemberton said. “You’ve seen our penalties escalate through the last year or more with taking more than one person out. In this particular case, crew chiefs and car chiefs [were suspended] and we feel because of the situation relative to engines, we felt like the engine tuner probably had something to do with it.
“And also the seventh man [suspended] was a mechanic identified as someone who did it.”
Pemberton would not say if NASCAR discussed parking the team for any races and would not elaborate on the length of the suspension.
“It just gives us a flexibility on the time, how long it needs to be,” Pemberton said.
Joe Gibbs Racing won’t appeal the suspensions. The horsepower testing occurred less than a month after NASCAR implemented rules to cut down the Toyota engines by about 15 horsepower. It was the first test under the new rules.
“When we do these tests, whether it be dyno tests – there was a time when we went to the wind tunnel quite a bit – and other things that we do to evaluate the competition in the garage area, we take that very, very serious,” Pemberton said. “I can’t tell you how serious we take it. It’s serious because we’re trying to give everybody a fair chance.”
NASCAR still has the two engines involved. The fines were lower than in Sprint Cup because it was the Nationwide Series, Pemberton said.
Comments
4 responses to "Pemberton: JGR penalties warranted to keep competitive balance"
Kim Palmer said:
Aug 21, 2008 at 11:25 AMWouldn't you all love to know the specifics of the crime. Who, what, when, where and how it was all done. Who hatched to plan.. (close circle of techies), When the magnets where implanted and of course who REALLY knew about it. I seriously doubt anyone other than a small group of a couple guys took it upon themselves to shoulder this one. Anyone higher up would have understood the ramifications of getting caught and how bad it would be for JGR.
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» Confirm Abuse ReportAnonymous said:
Aug 21, 2008 at 4:40 PMThrowing a race is the real no no here. Trying to circumvent the test results also resulted in Tony Stewart losing the race.
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» Confirm Abuse Reportotis gleason said:
Aug 22, 2008 at 10:07 AMAnonymous The magnet was after the checkerd flag da....When we get results from latest dyno tests,You will see why tony lost.My guess 99# car 630HP 20#car 620HPNascar went too far .025 Should have been .012 right now ford and dodge are stronger.
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» Confirm Abuse ReportTwyla Whitesel said:
Aug 23, 2008 at 8:54 AMWhy didn't Kyle Busch get fined ? There are people who complain Nascar favors Dale Jr what about the deal of Busch not getting fined and the other team did that is not right cheating is cheating and if you fine one ALL should be fined.Thank goodness Tony is leaving.
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