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September 22, 2006
Bob Dillner Speaks...
... and what he said wasn't particularly satisfying in my mind in terms of shedding any light on the Wheelgate controversy. Just a few minutes ago on The Speed Report Dillner said that he continues to stand by his report and that he did in fact check with Nascar about "the inspection process" for the #29 and #31. First, of all if Dillner's going to say that he stands by his story he should explain why, if only for his own sake, so he doesn't look like he's being stubborn and can't admit to having reported something in error. If he's that convinced there's truth to the story and he should stand by it, produce some sort of evidence based on his investigative reporting or clarify what kind of a source he got the original information from. Something, anything to indicate his line of thinking about why this story is true! Because you've got people like Jim Hunter from Nascar and Jeff Burton saying that it was a complete fabrication. While being careful to say that he doesn't think Dillner was the one who made the story up, Burton had strong words about the story itself. He said today,
"We know the story is not true. We know that Bob Dilner was given the information. We know that Bob didn't create the story; he was given the information and we know the information is not true. So Bob's sources are Bob's sources and I'm not going to get into that because it's not fair to Bob. If a team did that it's highly unethical, if anyone, well, someone did it and it is unethical. It is unethical to lie - when you're 5 years old and you tell a lie you get your hand smacked. You're taught at an early age that it's wrong to lie. And without a doubt, someone was lying to Bob Dilner, no question about that.
So why then, is Dillner so insistent about standing by his story? If there's truth to it, produce the proof that his source wasn't off base. If it's a lie, then admit to it, apologize and move on.
As noted, Dillner also claims he asked Nascar about the inspection process. I'd like to know what he asked and what he was told. Because to my knowledge he didn't report anything that Nascar told him. Was it because the answers didn't fit with his story? Or because he didn't ask questions that had anything to do with the actual story, but rather general questions about the inspection process those cars went through? Not to mention, what did Nascar tell him? Did they say yes, there was an irregularity or did they deny that there was any truth to his story. And why didn't he report what they told him? An additional problem for Dillne, Monte Dutton says that Nascar gave the media the "all-clear" in terms of the post-race inspections before Dillner's report aired. So did Dillner get that report, and if so why didn't he include it in his story, or did he ignore it because it conflicted with his story?
In addition ,Burton, who spoke with Dillner this morning said,
"In retrospect, though, I think that Bob could have gone the next step, after he reported it, to figure out if it was reported correctly or not. Being that NASCAR and the teams were both saying it didn't happen I think Bob could have gone the next step and done an investigation of where are our wheels; do we have the same wheels, and to my knowledge, that didn't happen."
Indeed it doesn't seem to have happened, considering Dillner was unable (or unwilling) to produce anything that supports the story he reported. It's really disturbing to me that Dillner and Speed seem to think that it's acceptable for them to simply report what they hear, rather than doing any kind of follow-up to determine the accuracy of their story, particularly when it gets called into question in such a strong way.
Unfortunately the end result of this sorry mess is that a lot of people are going to be suspicious of any success that Richard Childress Racing has for the rest of the season, believe that there's Nascar cover-up underway, and some people like me, are going to have second thoughts about giving much weight to what Dillner reports.
Posted by silverdsl at September 22, 2006 02:15 PM