Random Thoughts

Mulhern goes on to say later in his column,

And there are reports that NASCAR inspectors may have noticed similarly curious manifolds at several Truck races last year with a pale-blue greasy substance on the inside.

Of course Toyota has a number of teams in the Truck Series. So it's natural to wonder if the other teams that were caught with a unknown foreign substance on their manifolds were also Toyota teams. However, these "reports" are completely unsourced. Mulhern's information could come from someone in the garage area making up stories to make Toyota look bad. But in light of some of the rumors that seem to be floating around, I think it's plausible that Nascar might be trying to protect the manufacturer since that would further taint their entry into the Cup Series. I have to admit that while I don't think Toyota had any direct involvement in this incident, I have been wondering since Toyota Racing Development provides the engines and technical support to MWR, if at any point anyone from TRD noticed anything that wasn't quite right with the #55 car, or whether anyone from the team asked anyone from TRD any questions that now might be suspicious in light of what's happened. It seems to me that even if Toyota was in the dark about all of this, if there's anything that could open them up to speculation about what they really knew and when, it creates a whole host of problems.

Another article that raises some questions is one by Marty Smith in which he writes that David Hyder is continuing to maintain that he's innocent. Smith wrote,

Michael Waltrip Racing vice president Ty Norris told ESPN.com Thursday that the company offered crew chief David Hyder an opportunity to come clean about the illegal additive found in the fuel system of Waltrip's Toyota following qualifying for the Daytona 500.

Hyder didn't do it.

In fact, he claims he can't.

Norris said Hyder maintained his innocence -- even with the company promise of no termination in exchange for information.

Norris said Hyder continues to say he has neither information nor answers as to what the substance is, how it was introduced into the fuel system or, ultimately, what it does.

So if Hyder didn't do it, who did, and how did they do it without him knowing about it? After all, as crew chief he's responsible for the car and oversees what gets done to it by the crew. If I'm understanding the little information that Nascar has released about the fuel additive correctly it was some sort of gel-like substance. I could be completely mistaken if I misunderstood what Nascar said at their initial press conference to announce the penalties, or because I'm not very knowledgable technically, but that doesn't sound like something that could just be dumped into the fuel system quickly. Instead it sounds as if this was something that had to be smeared inside parts of the car. How could Hyder not notice that happening?

As I'm sure I've discussed already in a previous entry there's quite a few conspiracy theories making the rounds. The most common, that someone from outside the organization sabatoged the car, or that another team or manufacturer planted someone inside MWR to sabatoge the car, I think are highly unlikely. I would guess that it would be hard for someone from another team to get access to the car without being noticed by the team. That would be especially true if whatever was specifically done to the car was more complex than just throwing something into the fuel quickly. As for planting someone inside of MWR, it seems to me that would require so much time, effort, planning and money, that it doesn't seem likely that another team or manufacturer would go through all that trouble when they have their own race efforts to concentrate on. Especially since the consequences for getting caught doing something like that would be far worse than what Michael and MWR are dealing with right now. I would also think that regardless of how much other teams and manufacturers dislike Toyota's entry into the Cup series that they would want to beat them on the track via winning more races than Toyota, rather than beat them by sabotaging their teams.

So then you have to go back to one or more people internally at MWR putting the fuel additive in themselves. And there's really only two possible reasons for why they would do something like that. One, because they were hoping to enhance the performance of the car. Or two, because someone within Michael's own company is out to get him and decided to deliberately sabatoge his car. Neither scenario is good, but I hope that the first one is the situation that occured, that someone was making a misguided attempt to help. Otherwise, there's the possibility that if MWR doesn't find out who was responsible, the guilty party could strike again.

It's likely we'll never know the answers to all the questions. Maybe Michael and MWR will never know all the answers either. That's unfortunate because I think for Michael to gain some closure on this incident he needs to know who was responsible and why they did what they did, because this person or persons seriously damaged his reputation and that of MWR, something he's worked hard to build for a long time. I continue to feel terrible for Michael. Some have speculated that Michael's been pretending to be upset to gain sympathy and cover-up that he really knew what was going on with his team. I couldn't disagree more. I don't think there's any faking the hurt in Michael's eyes or the general sadness that's been about him since this situation first came to light. I hope things go well for him at the next few races because it will go along way towards helping him put all of this behind him, though I'm sure it will never be fully forgotten.