A salute to our service men and women who serve so we can celebrate America's birthday today!
Posted on 06/26/2007 9:11:42 PM PDT by NYTexan
I’m getting sick and tired of this brains guy!! He needs to go take a vacation himself or something and let the races run without his interference.
France vows to maintain the integrity of crew chief penalties
By David Newton
Updated: July 3, 2007, 4:58 PM ET
NASCAR plans to address the issue of suspended crew chiefs continuing to do their jobs from locations at the track but outside of the garage.
Crew chief Tony Eury Jr., for example, reportedly worked with Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s team last weekend from a motorcoach parked on a hill outside New Hampshire International Speedway as he completed a six-week suspension.
NASCAR chairman Brian France said that insults the integrity of the penalty.
“We just had a meeting about that,’’ France said during a Tuesday afternoon conference call. “We will be, if that all is accurate, addressing that shortly.’’
Crew chief Tony Eury Jr. didn’t just sit around after getting suspended for six weeks. He started really planning ways to improve Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s performance, writes Marty Smith. Story
France did not expand on what may be done. A crackdown could have an immediate impact on plans for the Hendrick Motorsports teams of Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson this weekend at Daytona International Speedway.
http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/news/story?seriesId=2&id=2924996&campaign=rss&source=ESPNHeadlines
There is a companion story now up on NASCAR.Com.
Where are the penalties for Shrub and Sauter? Tomorrow’s the Fourth of July. No announcements until Thursday when Daytona practice begins?
I was looking for it, maybe they’re all on vacation??? One would think the teams involved would want to know.
I did find this and it’s interesting regarding the sponsor....which made me wonder about the rest of his sponsors.
UPDATE 3: Been told that Reutimann’s Busch deal is not thru 2008, but thru 2007, same as his Nextel Cup deal. Plus on ESPN2’s NASCAR Now [July 2nd], Marty Smith reported that MWR General Mgr Ty Norris said MWR is committed to Reutiman and that it will be a month or two before the #00 sponsorship status is known for 2008 and until they know the status of those sponsors, they can’t know the status for Reutimann.(7-3-2007)
In reality, how can they stop it?
The banned CC will now have to go.......undercover!
Covert Nascar operations: CLASSIFIED.
LOL
Brian is brain dead.
So now they will have to sit IN the motorcoach instead of on top. ;)
Update on my car. It WAS the battery, they charged me $170.00 for that and the 02 sensor was out so my grand total was $387.00.... OUCH Mr Goodwrench!
Just because I have a crewchief ON the motorcoach doesn’t mean I have one IN the motorcoach!! :)
I’m going to bed and think about not going to the Chevy dealer next time.
LOL.
Nascar: Suspended CC's are hereby banned from using any technology to, in any way shape or form, communicate with the team while under suspension.
Chad, Steve and Tony's response, "Ok, we'll be good boys!"
And REALLY become a gearhead! :)
Sweet dreams!
ROFLMAO
Can you imagine the riots if Frenchie were to pull this BS on Sr.
I keep thinking someone will step up, but it ain't happenin'.
Yeee...
I’d best get the Daytona thread up before there’s a lynchin.
Well, tomorrow morning.
I’ll ping all y’all.
Tomorrow.
Tony Eury Jr. is among the most amicable, light-hearted, approachable guys in NASCAR. Very smart. Very well-liked. Hilarious. Patient as a newborn’s momma. It takes a lot to get him riled up.
So when the crew chief for Dale Earnhardt Jr. is ticked about something, you know with the utmost certainty he ain’t kiddin’.
And when it comes to the “new-sheriff-in-town” philosophy employed by NASCAR officials in policing the Car of Tomorrow, make no mistake, Eury is less than enthralled. And he sure-as-the-8-is-red ain’t kiddin’.
Tony Eury Jr. said he understands why he got some unplanned R&R.
Ten minutes into a lighthearted recollection of his recent six-week vacation from the No. 8 pit box Monday — including the assertion that it actually improved the team — Eury was asked his thoughts on the unprecedented measures NASCAR is taking to deter even the slightest finagling with the Car of Tomorrow.
Eury seems to be a worthy judge. He was, after all, the first man busted on the COT clock.
“The [rule] book’s there for a reason. The template’s there for a reason — to say, ‘Hey, here’s the line.’ If you’re walking down the street and don’t know where the line is, sooner or later you’re going to step across it,” Eury said.
“Everybody [in the garage] is scared to death, saying ‘Where do I cross the line?’ And there’s going to be guys that cross it. It’s like [Chad Knaus and Steve Letarte] — they didn’t know they were crossing it. They stepped out in the street and a bus hit ‘em. That ain’t right.”
Nextel Cup director John Darby isn’t apologizing. He said Tuesday the sanctioning body is merely following up on a promise.
“The problem I have with all [the criticism] is don’t act surprised,” Darby said. “We told the world where we were going. We told the teams what we were going to do before we did it. Now all we’re doing is backing up what we told everybody, and we’ll continue to do that.”
For the record, Eury understands and accepts his penalty, despite lingering frustration that, in his opinion, the illegal brackets placed on the No. 8 at Darlington were actually a disadvantage. The penalties levied against Knaus and Letarte, though?
“My deal? Yeah, I’ll take my six weeks and [$100,000] and go on,” Eury said. “That’s what I should’ve got. But what [NASCAR] did to the 24 and 48, I think [NASCAR] blindsided everybody and put everybody on pins and needles.”
Darby doesn’t feel NASCAR blindsided anyone. He said it’s simply part of the evolution into a new way of thinking.
“Everybody’s worked in a procedure that’s been one way for however many years and however many hundreds of races,” Darby said. “And when you hit the day where it suddenly is 180 degrees different, it’s real hard to understand — until somebody takes it to a level and NASCAR reacts so that you have to step back away from the situation and rethink it.”
Eury said teams were not given the interpretation of the rules NASCAR is using, especially the inability to work in open areas within the template structure. During COT development, Eury said, NASCAR’s chief focus was eliminating the offset, or curved, chassis line from the front of the cars to the rear, a tactic employed by teams to gain maximum aerodynamic efficiency with the old spoiler cars.
Eury said NASCAR never mentioned an unwillingness to let teams work inside the templates, as Knaus and Letarte did by fanning out the front fenders on Jimmie Johnson’s No. 48 and Jeff Gordon’s No. 24, respectively, at Infineon Raceway two weeks ago. The change violated the “spirit” of the COT template, NASCAR officials said.
” ‘Don’t be trying to move [hard template] points on it,’ — that’s basically what they said when they first started [with the COT],” Eury said.
“Now they’re coming back and telling you, ‘OK, this body has to look exactly like ours. There’s nothing you could possibly do in between the templates.’ That’s not what was said in the wintertime. So everybody’s on pins and needles now like, ‘I’ve moved this a quarter-inch, am I going to get in trouble? Are they going to notice it? Have I got to do something?’
“They’re trying to spell it out, but the way they’re going about it, I don’t think it’s right. It’s not right.”
Put simply, Eury said the teams need clarity.
Tony Eury Jr. said the No. 48, left, and No. 24 got a raw deal at Sonoma.
“You’ve got to give the teams a guideline and tell the teams, ‘This is what I want you to build the car by, this is the way I want the car to look,’ and the guidelines we have physically is what we’ll use,” Eury continued. “You can’t give us something and then say, ‘Well, I really just don’t like the way that looks.’
“We can’t play that game. There’s too much at stake. There’s too much of an advantage you can get in between [the templates]. You can’t just wait for them to say, ‘Well, we don’t like the way that looks. Take your six weeks off and, oh, by the way, here’s your $100,000 fine and 100 points.’ That’s not right.”
Darby said NASCAR still offers tolerances to its teams. They have no choice.
“Absolutely. We can’t manage this sport without tolerances, for the simple fact that these aren’t stamped-out bodies off of the same tool that goes to every shop. These are hand-crafted steel bodies by human fabricators,” Darby said. “Everybody’s making such a huge deal out this deal and we have tolerances just like we always have. But we’re not talking about tolerances. The fenders on the 24 and 48 were over an inch off.”
Eury said NASCAR should work more closely with the teams as the industry works to determine the dos and don’ts with the COT, not just dole out fines and suspensions for every discrepancy.
“What’s going to happen when the suspensions start overlapping and you have eight or 10 of your best crew chiefs sitting on the sidelines?” Eury said. “What does that look like for our sport? Before long the race fans are going to go, ‘You know, these guys are cheating so much [NASCAR] can’t control it. So why should it be fair?’
“The teams built this car for [NASCAR]. Nobody knows anything about it. We’re all trying to learn together. And then it’s like they’ve stepped in and put their foot down and said, ‘Look, we want this IROC car and you better not bring anything else that looks different.’ “
Despite the drastic difference in appearance, Eury said the COT isn’t much different than the spoiler car. The teams take a similar preparatory approach.
“They put that [template] grid down on [the COT], and all that did was take the offset out of the tail, the front nose and the roof. Everybody’s cool with that,” Eury said. “If you want a straight-line car, that’s fine. But then they go and tell you if you touch anything in between those templates [you’re in trouble]. Well, where’s the line?
“We use that template as a guideline. We know not to make it look stupid in between [the template], but if I move a fender up half-an-inch in between that template, you’re telling me that’s $100,000 and six weeks? Where’s that line cross? Does it cross at an eighth-of-an-inch? A sixteenth? Because your eye can’t see it.”
http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/columns/story?seriesId=2&columnist=smith_marty&id=2925137
Ping to very interesting rant by Tony Jr on the COT posted above.
A salute to our service men and women who serve so we can celebrate America's birthday today!
Hope yours is dry!
I think greed and paranoia have overwhelmed Frencie and he is back in his adolescent throwing fits and tantrums stage...
What time tomorrow...
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