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February 20, 2008
Penalties Announced For Robby Gordon, Dale, Jr. and Others
Kind of interesting the way things worked out - the infraction that was downplayed in the media as being accidental resulted in the biggest penalty and one of the infractions that was made out to be a big deal resulted in a minor penalty. The biggest first - for being found to have the wrong nose on the car Robby Gordon was penalized 100 driver and owner points and his crew chief, Frank Kerr, was fined $100,000 and suspended for the next six races. For the infractions found after inspection on the #5 Nationwide car, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. was penalized 50 driver points, Rick Hendrick 50 owner points and the crew chief, Chad Walters was fined $25,000 and suspended for the next six Nationwide races. Five other Nationwide teams lost 25 driver and owner points and their crew chiefs for six races for having an oil reservoir tank cover that wasn't securely fastened. Lastly, Jerry Baxter, the crew chief of the #99 was fined $5,000 and placed on probation until July for an infraction with the carburetor, something many thought would result in a major penalty but didn't.
More than a few people thought that Robby would get off lightly because the team said that in changing the cars over from Fords to Dodges they simply put on the noses they were given from Gillett-Evernham Motorsports/Dodge and had no idea that they were the wrong ones. However, I suspected that Nascar wouldn't feel that was an acceptable excuse. For one thing the team and especially the crew chief is responsible to make sure that the car they show up with to the track meets the parameters set forth in Nascar's rule book even if they are changing manufacturers. If Nascar allowed Robby Gordon Motorsports to get off for accidentally and unknowingly putting the wrong parts on then any team could claim the same thing even if they were deliberately trying to get away with something. In addition, it was a COT violation and Nascar's made it clear that the penalties are going to be very harsh when it comes to COT violations.
Since Robby is locked into the field for the next four races because of the 2007 owner's points, there's no worries about him possibly missing races due to the loss of owner's points... right now. Odds are Robby will finish well enough over the next four races to be high enough in the 2008 owner's points to where he'll still be locked in when the 2008 points come into effect, but the team can't afford any mistakes. If they finish poorly in several races they could find themselves in trouble. Losing Frank Kerr for six races is probably what will hurt the team the most. Of course he can still work on the cars in the shop, but he won't be able to work with the team at the track, and Robby will have yet another crew chief just when he was starting to get used to working with Frank (again). Any failures to communicate as has sometimes been a problem for Robby with his crew chiefs could be costly if it effects performance.
As for the penalties for the #5 Nationwide team, the driver points are meaningless to Junior since he's racing only a few races. The owner's points are more costly but a few good finishes will take care of that. Losing the crew chief for that team for six races will hurt more but since Nascar talked about how blatant the violation was, they're probably lucky they didn't lose him for longer. Hendrick Motorsports has never penalized Chad Knaus (that we know of) for getting caught cheating numerous times on the Cup side but both Junior and Rick Hendrick had expressed their displeasure about Walters messing around with the spoiler so it will be interesting to see if they take any additional action against him.
Michael Waltrip Racing - and David Reutimann - must be breathing a major sigh of relief. After last year's mess at Daytona the last thing they needed was to be tagged again for a major rules violation even if it was on the Nationwide side. In addition, since David is racing for the Championship every point is important so a loss of points wouldn't be a good thing. Nor would losing Jerry Baxter be good either since he and David seem to work very well together. I'm not sure why the #99 team got off so lightly as it had been said that the infraction to the carburetor was considered a major violation that could give them an areodynamic advantage. But maybe it was determined that there wasn't actually as much of a rules violation as originally though. I'm just glad that the penalties were so little.
Posted by silverdsl at February 20, 2008 03:46 PM