It looks like there are two stories the media is focusing on this weekend, one is the return of the D word, Danica Patrick, to the Nationwide Series, which will be the subject of another article, but the other story just won’t. go away, these are the sanctions inflicted on Clint Bowyer, Shane Wilson, Chad Haney And Richard Childress this week for rule violations in the No. 33 Chevrolet Cheerios/Hamburger Helper.
The fallout from NASCARStocks simply refuse to go away.
Wednesday evening, after the announcement of NASCAR, the legend of Stock Car racing Darrell Waltrip said in a Tweet, “I think the ‘box’ is too narrow and too small when you have to take a race car back to the lab to determine that there is something wrong! He’s right, but surely the point of having rules governing the dimensions of cars and their components is that, through simple measurements, you can establish whether the car complies with the regulations or not. It’s legal or it’s not. It’s inside or it’s outside. If that means bringing cars to NASCAR’s R&D center to establish it, so be it.
Waltrip must know that if NASCAR gave a spec of plus or minus 1/8 inch, the sharper teams would start taking that measurement at 0.126″ and, if they got away with it, at 0.128″, etc. For this reason, NASCAR must give tolerances such as, say, plus or minus 0.125″. The finer the tolerance specified, the less chance there is of bending the rules and the more likely it is that all cars will perform the same. Should be. The nature of this particular beast is that race car engineers will always try to stretch the interpretation of the rules to the absolute limit and, often, just beyond. The downside of having such precisely defined tolerances is that you will need very precise measuring devices to verify them and it is simply not possible to carry all of these measuring devices on every lane.
According to NASCAR’s vice president of competition, Robin Pembertonthe tolerance in question on the #33 RCR car was 0.070″ and actually turned out to be 0.060″ beyond that, hence the penalties imposed.
Pemberton also stated that car number 33 which Richard Childress Racing intending to use this weekend at the Monster Mile track in Dover was taken to the NASCAR R&D center on Wednesday to verify before the meeting that it complied with the regulations and was considered ok.
There’s a delicious irony in this week’s main story: Pemberton is a friend of Clint Bowyer and the two are planning a motorcycle trip together. Wouldn’t you like to listen to this conversation?
This morning, Shane Wilson showed up in Dover on business as usual, as he succinctly announced in the Tweet, “Dover, here I am.” He can continue to work while the appeal process is underway – according to Pemberton, the appeal is expected to take place next week – and will therefore be on the track as crew chief to oversee Bowyer’s race. And that begs the question: how does Clint Bowyer drive this race? Does he attack hard for victory in order to recover as many deducted points as possible? Or is he driving conservatively to protect his second place in the standings if he wins his appeal and reclaims the points? Sunday evening we will know the answer.
