Roush drivers settle differences with Kvapil
By NASCAR Scene Staff
Thursday, June 12, 2008
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SCENE ON THE CIRCUIT
Roush Fenway Racing’s Greg Biffle and Carl Edwards were a little frustrated at Dover on June 1 when they thought that Yates Racing’s Travis Kvapil was holding them up. The odd thing was that Kvapil, whose team has a marketing and technical partnership with Roush Fenway, didn’t realize he was holding them up, something that is occurring with the current aerodynamics of NASCAR’s new car.
“They’re somewhat teammates of mine with the alliance we have and we share a little bit of information, and those guys I want to take care of,” Kvapil said June 7. “I didn’t really think I was holding them up at all.
“Once they did get closer, I let them go. I heard their comments the next day and I said, ‘Oh, no.’ I just wanted them to know my side of it. … They were two, three car lengths behind me and I didn’t think I was holding them up. I guess that is the way these cars are.”
Biffle said the new car places even more importance on working with teammates – although if a driver’s teammates are strong, the breaks are going to be minimal.
“What happens right now is we’re five, eight car lengths back and we’ll say, ‘Hey, give us a break.’ And the guy that’s driving the car looks in the mirror like, ‘Well, you haven’t even gotten to me yet,’” Biffle said. “Well, that’s all the further we can get. The old car I could have gotten up to a car length-and-a-half and he would have looked in the mirror and there I would have been … ‘Oh, he’s caught me.’
“Right now it’s hard to look in the mirror and say, ‘He’s caught me.’”
Kvapil was a lap down at the time but to give up more than five car lengths to the guy in front of him would be tough for any driver, Biffle said. With Roush and Yates the top Ford teams, they had all seven cars in the top 16 at Dover.
“The competition is so close that if you can get somebody to cut you some slack, that’s worth a lot right now, especially if they are a lap down,” Edwards said. “Last week, I was trying to catch Kyle [Busch] and anyone that could help me, I was begging for it.”
Haas CNC To Appeal Penalties
Haas CNC Racing has appealed its penalties for unapproved wing-mounting locations discovered during the race weekend at Charlotte with an appeal date scheduled for June 9, NASCAR confirmed.
NASCAR penalized the No. 66 and No. 70 teams and drivers 150 points as well as issuing six-week suspensions to the crew chiefs and car chiefs for both cars. In addition, the crew chiefs were fined $100,000.
The 150-point penalty was the most for a violation of the template rules for the new NASCAR model being used in the Sprint Cup Series. The suspension for car chiefs also was unprecedented.
The team did not ask NASCAR to allow its suspended personnel to attend the June 6-8 race weekend at Pocono.
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