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by Art Weinstein
Dude, where’s my car?
February 20, 2008
More blog postings from Art Weinstein
Who got the stiffest penalty of any driver at Daytona Speedweeks?
It might have been Ryan Newman.
A day after Newman’s thrilling, unexpected victory in the Daytona 500, he surrendered the winning car, for one year, to be put on display at the Daytona 500 Experience in Daytona USA. That’s been standard operating procedure in recent years, but it still doesn’t make it right.
It would be hard to imagine an equivalent penalty being levied on a team that had just won the biggest event in another sport. Granted, it might not be as severe as the NFL asking the Super Bowl champion New York Giants to give up one of their starting linebackers for a year. But it might be the equivalent of the league barring the team from calling a certain play for a year (no screen passes, or post patterns).
Yes, it’s just one car, and it’s a car that might have been used only when the teams return to Daytona in July. But it was obviously a good car – good enough to win the biggest race of the year. Would it be good enough to win again at DIS in July? We’ll never find out. What if the Daytona 500 car were good enough to finish fifth, and the car that crew chief Roy McCauley and his team prepare for the July race is good enough only for 10th? That’s a difference of 21 points. What if that margin was enough to knock Newman out of the final Chase For The Sprint Cup slot?
That’s a lot of “what ifs,” but in a sport where a good race car is so important, and fractions of a second can make a big difference, it seems unfair to put the winning Daytona 500 team at a competitive disadvantage, however slight, in the name of fan entertainment.
It might have been Ryan Newman.
A day after Newman’s thrilling, unexpected victory in the Daytona 500, he surrendered the winning car, for one year, to be put on display at the Daytona 500 Experience in Daytona USA. That’s been standard operating procedure in recent years, but it still doesn’t make it right.
It would be hard to imagine an equivalent penalty being levied on a team that had just won the biggest event in another sport. Granted, it might not be as severe as the NFL asking the Super Bowl champion New York Giants to give up one of their starting linebackers for a year. But it might be the equivalent of the league barring the team from calling a certain play for a year (no screen passes, or post patterns).
Yes, it’s just one car, and it’s a car that might have been used only when the teams return to Daytona in July. But it was obviously a good car – good enough to win the biggest race of the year. Would it be good enough to win again at DIS in July? We’ll never find out. What if the Daytona 500 car were good enough to finish fifth, and the car that crew chief Roy McCauley and his team prepare for the July race is good enough only for 10th? That’s a difference of 21 points. What if that margin was enough to knock Newman out of the final Chase For The Sprint Cup slot?
That’s a lot of “what ifs,” but in a sport where a good race car is so important, and fractions of a second can make a big difference, it seems unfair to put the winning Daytona 500 team at a competitive disadvantage, however slight, in the name of fan entertainment.
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