Nascar Blog

Nascar handed down the penalties today for Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, and they are the same penalty that Dale Jr. got for using the wrong bracket. Each driver was fined 100 championship points, so, no big deal, probably, they both should still make the Chase. Both crew chiefs, Steve Letarte and Chad Knaus were fined $100,000, suspended for the next six races, or until August 15th, and both are on probation until December 31, 2007. Both Rick Hendrick and Jeff Gordon were fined 100 car owner points, as Rick owns the 24 and Jeff the 48.

Both cars — the No. 24 driven by Jeff Gordon and the No. 48 driven by Jimmie Johnson — were found to be in violation of Sections 12-4-A (actions detrimental to stock car racing); 12-4-Q (car, car parts, components and/or equipment used do not conform to NASCAR rules); 20-2.1E (parts or components of the car not previously approved by NASCAR that have been installed or modified to enhance aerodynamic performance will not be permitted); and 20-2H (fenders may not be cut or altered except for wheel or tire clearance which must be approved by the Series Director) of the 2007 NASCAR rule book. The violations were found during the initial inspection process last Friday. Source: Gordon, Johnson docked 100 points for violations

One would think Nascar would have a repeat offender clause, as Chad was suspended for four races last year for messing with the aerodynamics of the 48 car for Daytona. If they don’t, they should have one, how can they discourage “cheating” if the penalty is the same every time? I realize missing your crew chief for six races is big, but, he will be talking to them the whole time on the phone or radio, you know he will, Dale Jr. said as much when his crew chief was gone for their COT violation earlier this year.

I recently posted about Jack Roush complaining about teams testing at tracks the cup circuit doesn’t race on, Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing come to mind, because Nascar rules say you can only test so many times on the tracks they race at with the tires they race on. This allows teams to test at tracks that are similar to the tracks they compete on as long as they don’t use the same tires. Nascar appears to be rethinking this rule as teams test the limits in figuring out the car of tomorrow. The rule was put in place to make it easier on the teams with less funding, who could not afford to test anywhere and at anytime they wanted.

Currently, rules limit teams to seven tests on Nextel Cup-sanctioned tracks, and crew chiefs help NASCAR decide the venues and dates. NASCAR adopted that policy two years ago to help under funded teams keep up with big-budget organizations, who could afford to test anytime.

But as the Car of Tomorrow was rolled into competition, the top teams found ways to test it outside of the rules.

“It appears that we’ve got teams that want to test more and teams that want to test less, and teams that test on tires that are not made by our tire supplier,” Robin Pemberton, NASCAR vice president of competition, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

“So we’re going to start looking at a lot of different things, from eventually lifting the test ban completely, or get as restrictive as we cannot let teams test anywhere at any time, or land somewhere in between.” Source: NASCAR considers relaxing testing policy

It will sure be hard to find a happy medium on anything in Nascar, as the haves and have nots compete for titles and sponsorships. Teams are buying tires from Hoosier or BF Goodrich, and are even buying Goodyears from 2005 and earlier, so they do not violate the rules. But, running on different tires may not help these teams and could even hurt them, although, that certainly hasn’t happened to Hendrick Motorsports so far this year.

Whatever Nascar does, it needs to be fair for everyone and it needs to take into consideration the number of teams involved, which tracks, and how long they actually test the vehicles.

Jack Roush says that the Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing and Richard Childress Racing teams are not playing fair because they are testing more than the other teams. Those teams are going to tracks that the Nascar circuit does not run on and testing the COT cars with different Goodyear tires, because they can’t use the ones they race with, and they are getting a good idea on how it runs. Is this against Nascar’s rules? Nope. But Jack Roush says it’s not fair.

And that is not fair, according to Jack Roush, owner of the Roush Fenway Racing team. He says that Hendrick and others have ignored the intent of a Nascar policy to limit testing.

“They were going to start everybody on the Car of Tomorrow on an even basis, saying there’s four or five tests, whatever it was, that’s what you get, that’s what you got,” Roush said Thursday at Lowe’s Motor Speedway as teams began preparing for Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600, which is not a Car of Tomorrow event. “The teams that have been successful, and I’ll name names — the Hendrick organization, the Gibbs organization and the Childress organization — have been testing these cars multiple times a week on racetracks that were outside of Nascar’s control with tires that were not Goodyear’s.”

“I got behind on that,” Roush said. “But two weeks ago, I hired six people. I dedicated a tractor-trailer and I’ve gone public and said, ‘O.K., I’m going to get in the testing game, too.’ ” Source: Nascar’s Rules Tested by Tests on New Car

Now, I remember seeing teams testing at different tracks all of the time, like the one in Kentucky, and seems like there were a couple others in Virginia, or the Carolina’s, that they tested on. So, how would this be any different? As long as they are not going against Nascar’s rules, then there is nothing going on, so is Jack Roush mad because he didn’t think of it, didn’t think it would help, or just because they aren’t running very well and is looking for an excuse? Or all of the above? I have no idea, but he doesn’t seem to think it’s cheating or he wouldn’t have started doing it himself, would he? Robert Pemberton says,

“We can do a lot of different things; we choose to do things carefully and to not put ourselves in a box,” said Robin Pemberton, Nascar’s vice president for competition. He said that the Nascar policy limited the laboratory testing done with the tires used in competition, which was the goal.

“Even though they’re off-site and they’re testing vehicles, they’re not testing any particular track that we race at to get what would be probably a larger advantage,” he said.

So, what’s the problem Jack? Sounds like a whiny driver complaining he got rubbed a little and it’s not fair. If Nascar thought it was unfair, they would say no extra testing period. End of story.

Nascar announced yesterday that the COT will be full time in 2008, It’s official: COT will be used full time in ‘08 season, sparing all of the Nascar teams the burden of having to prepare two different cars at different race tracks over the course of the season. This will allow everyone to try to catch up to Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing, but why not the rest of this year?

NASCAR decided this week to run the Car of Tomorrow full-time in 2008, but at least one Cup driver says that’s not soon enough.

Kyle Petty says he thinks the COT should run in the second half of the current season. He says there are smart people in the NASCAR garage, and there are smart crew members, crew chiefs and smart drivers. They can make it work.

The bigger, boxier and, hopefully, safer car was introduced this season after seven years of development. The COT already has run five of 16 scheduled events this season. It was supposed to be phased into the full 36-race schedule in 2008 and 2009.

Instead, at the request of the teams, the schedule was compressed to save money and time. Petty says it’s a great move by NASCAR, but says the car needs to race more and more. Source: Kyle Petty: COT Should Run Rest of ‘07 Season

The only downer that I can see is it will keep the cup drivers from getting the extra practices by running a Busch series car, of course, that has the side benefit of the cup drivers not running in the Busch series and we can have an actual Busch series driver end up as champion, when was the last time that happened?