Racing News Digest

Or Why would they? I think a lot of times things that seem minor to me, get penalized way to hard in NASCAR. And of course there are things that seem like a big deal to me but the offending party gets a slap on wrist. So, what do I know? Well, when it comes to the technicalities of a race car or NASCAR’s rule book…..I know very little.

From what I am reading it sounds like after Jimmie Johnson’s win last week at Dover and Mark Martin’s second place finish that both car’s past post race inspections. Good news for them. NASCAR also hauled the cars off to the R&D Center in Concord, N.C.

I guess there was some big buzz about the #5 and #48 cars not passing the inspection at the R&D Center. At least that seemed to be the buzz. I think from what I have read that Mark Martins car was just fine. It may have been pushing a limit but as long as it is legal, then it is legal.

I guess there was a little more of an issue with Jimmie Johnson’s car. NASCAR has a tolerance of NASCAR allows a tolerance of 0.070 for a car to be off center from the center line of the car. If you ask me that is pretty tight to start with. Supposedly Jimmie Johnson’s car was 0.006 further than the tolerance.

So yes, it was outside the tolerance level which deems it “illegal”. But 0.006 is what….nothing right? NASCAR seems to think it is nothing as they are giving Chad Knaus a slap on wrist and telling him that he is dangerously flirting with the tolerance.

But how many times have we heard something like “we have a tolerance. When that tolerance is broke we have to penalize the crew chief, driver, owner and team”.

I am just wondering if there is consistency here. And to tell you the truth I don’t know. I wish I had this magic memory like some people do and be able to remember past infractions but I don’t. In fact I have a very bad memory on almost all subjects.

So I ask you, is this fair for the #48 team to only get a slap on the wrist?

I don’t necessarily think it is unfair and we know NASCAR is not unwilling to penalize the #48 team, or more specifically Chad Knaus. So that alone lends me to believe that his is probably a fair judgement.

But other Crew Chiefs don’t seem to think so. Below is a quote from the article that I was reading at FoxSports.

“You can get through inspection with quite a lot,” said a crew chief who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “You can skew the grid. Back at the tech center is a whole different deal. You’re busted. There’s no way around it. So you just don’t do it. It just seems weird that two cars from Hendrick Motorsports were questionable. If it had been me, I would have been suspended for six weeks.”

You can’t help but also agree with this Crew Chief. It’s hard to argue that if a team is found outside the tolerances that they would not be penalized.

Now, NASCAR claims both cars were with in the tolerances.

“The 48 and 5 were brought back to the (Research and Development Center),” according to a NASCAR statement. “We’ve been doing this since the inception of the new car as a part of routine post-race inspection. We bring the winner and a random pick back to the R&D Center after each event.

“While both cars passed postrace inspection, we informed the 48 and 5 they were extremely close on some of the tolerances.”

And of course, what NASCAR says is what goes.

Once again, I don’t see the real big deal here except that I think I agree with the quoted Crew Chief. Also with some of these numbers like 0.07 of an inch, I don’t know how all the beating and banging on the track doesn’t knock a lot of these tolerances out of whack.