Seven Days of Daytona: Day 2

Suck it up, folks. We’ve got plenty of days left of this kind of stuff.

Well, we might as well call this installment of our countdown to Daytona “Cheaters: When NASCAR Drivers Go Wrong”. It’s all about the cheating today, baby! Four crew chiefs got the boot from Daytona on Tuesday, with varying degrees of penalties dealt for various infractions. Those infractions, which can be read in more detail at NASCAR.com, are as follows:

– Steve Francis, crew chief for Kasey Kahne (Evernham Motorsports) and Robbie Reiser, crew chief for Matt Kenseth (Rousch Racing) were suspended for four races and fined $50,000 for keeping air ducts on the car uncovered, giving both Kahne and Kenseth unfair aerodynamic advantages for Sunday’s traditional qualifying session. Both Evernham and Rousch were docked 50 Owners’ Championship Points for the infractions, while Kahne and Kenseth will each be docked 50 Championship Points.

– Rodney Childers, crew chief for Scott Riggs (Evernham) and Josh Browne, crew chief for Elliott Sadler (Evernham) were each suspended for two races and fined $25,000 each for improperly securing caps over the same air ducts that were highlighted in the Reiser and Francis infractions. Evernham was docked 25 Owners’ Championship Points for each driver, totaling 50 for these two (100 Points altogether), and both Riggs and Sadler will take a 25 point hit in their Championship Points standings.

– Michael Waltrip, driver of the #55 NAPA Toyota, had his car impounded after qualifying on Sunday when an unknown substance was discovered in the intake manifold of the car. The actual car itself was shipped to the Research and Development Center in Concord, North Carolina (just outside of Charlotte) for further testing, although no official penalty has been handed down as of yet to Waltrip or his team. Waltrip will most likely be forced to use his backup car in the Duel 150 event on Thursday, barring the return of his primary car (or drastic penalties if the substance is indeed illegal).

Daytona is something of a hotbed for cheating, and although I have a great deal of respect for all men involved here, there is a large degree of probability that every driver had some kind of knowledge about what was being done to “doctor” the cars up. Michael Waltrip in particular is kind of glaring, in that his practice speeds were two MPH slower than his qualifying speed on Sunday. It is a bit disheartening, but nothing new exactly for Daytona. It was a year ago at this very race where the eventual 500 winner (and Cup Champion in 2006) Jimmie Johnson’s crew chief, Chad Knaus was suspended for four races and fined $25,000 for approving an illegal read windshield setup to help boost qualifying speeds.

The lust for a win at the hallowed… pavement of Daytona is what largely drives crew chiefs (and drivers, as the case may be) to “bend” the rules a bit. “A bit” turns into blatantly breaking rules for an advantage in most cases, which begs the question: are penalties in NASCAR stiff enough for people who are caught cheating? This is where the problem gets compounded by the nature of the beast. In any other professional sport, “cheating” is almost always meant to indicate performance enhancing drugs, where the only person hurt (physically) is the user. Of course, you can get into baseball’s cheating dictionary, which includes corked bats and spitballs, but let’s forsake those for the moment. NASCAR is somewhat unique, in that cheating in stock car racing can potentially pose a safety risk to the driver and/or other drivers. Granted, no crew chief is going to blatantly set up a car that is dangerous to his driver or others, but the simple fact of the matter is that crew chiefs are going to use illegal setups for one reason: to go faster. Using illegal setups or parts on cars, especially at restrictor-plate monsters like Daytona and Talladega, increases speeds and dilutes the functionality of the restrictor plates. It may not seem like much, but peddling with more speed at the super speedways not only proves unfair to others, but really is an unnecessary risk with open valves, ignitable substances and the like being used.

Are penalties, then, stiff enough? Yes and no – getting fined $25,000-$50,000 is pretty stiff for crew chiefs, and a little less stiff for the drivers. Still, salaries in NASCAR are lower than in sports like the NBA, and with Cup teams being so expensive to run, fines are really not the true solution. The best available option is to start disqualifying cars flat out, with drivers and their crew chiefs sent home for the weekend. This actually costs the teams money in the long run if they continue to miss races, which provides the emphasis for NOT CHEATING. There is a very slim window for viable punishment options in a sport like NASCAR. Taking away championship points only leads to controversial moments later on, and really only serve to add drama if one driver ends up losing out on a spot in the Chase because he got docked 50 points instead of 25.