NASCAR’s latest penalties not the first time sanctioning body has cracked down
By Steve Waid
Thursday, June 12, 2008
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TURN ONE COMMENTARY
When it comes to the new car, NASCAR has made it abundantly clear it will not tolerate anything remotely close to, shall we say, cheating.
If teams continue to tamper with the new car, they can expect stronger penalties – and those to date have been harsh, indeed.
Consider the latest episode. NASCAR levied its harshest punishments ever when it nabbed Haas CNC Racing for improper wing-mounting locations, which it discovered May 24 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
NASCAR impounded both Haas CNC cars. They will not be returned.
Crew chiefs Robert “Bootie” Barker (No. 66) and Dave Skog (No. 70) were suspended for six weeks as well as car chiefs Derick Jennings (No. 66) and Thomas Harris (No. 70). Both teams were penalized 150 owner points, 150 driver points and fined $100,000 each.
Added together, the punishments for cheating are the most severe in NASCAR history.
Sprint Cup Series Director John Darby made it clear NASCAR’s tolerance has reached a breaking point.
So to send a stronger message, it ratcheted up the penalties for Haas CNC.
Until recently, NASCAR didn’t have a systematic pattern of increased penalties for rules infractions, which it clearly has for today’s car. It pretty much made its rulings on a case-by-case basis.
But even if it had no obvious system of punishment in the past, when NASCAR felt its rules had been blatantly ignored, it came down hard on the perpetrator.
For example, in 1974 at Ontario, Calif., Bobby Allison won the race in Roger Penske’s Matador. But in postrace inspection, it was discovered that the car was equipped with illegal valve lifters. The engine used unapproved roller tappets.
The team was fined $9,100 (the equivalent of about $41,000 in 2008). As a result, Allison earned $5,200 less than runnerup David Pearson. Allison was allowed to keep the victory, which did not sit well with many.
In 1978, independent driver/owner D.K. Ulrich was involved in an accident with Grant Adcox in the Southern 500 at Darlington. Ulrich spent two days in a hospital being treated for cuts and bruises.
But when he was released, NASCAR informed him that he would be fined $2,000 for having an illegal nitrous oxide bottle in his car.
Nitrous oxide provides an instant, huge boost of horsepower – which is illegal, of course. It’s one of the biggest fouls in NASCAR.
In addition to the fine, Ulrich was suspended for the remainder of the season’s eight races.
It remains the longest suspension NASCAR has ever imposed on a driver for a technical rules infraction.
It may be hard to believe, but Richard Petty was implicated in one of the most notable cheating incidents in NASCAR’s history.
He won the Miller High Life 500 in October 1983 at what was then known as Charlotte Motor Speedway. But in postrace inspection, it was discovered that his car had left-side tires on its right side and then, later, it was learned that his engine was nearly 30 cubic inches larger than the 358 cubic-inch limit.
It took hours for a decision to be made. Petty was allowed to keep his 198th career victory (which, again, raised controversy), but he was fined $35,000 – at the time the largest in NASCAR history. He was also stripped of 104 driver points.
There are other examples, but the point is that in the past, NASCAR did indeed hand out some severe penalties. But it seemed content to judge each situation on its own, which wasn’t always a popular procedure.
But with today’s car, the sanctioning body appears to have established a method. Which is, the more teams tamper with the rules, the harsher the penalties will be – the limits of which we have yet to see.
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