Posted on 09/13/2013 7:28:46 AM PDT by Doogle
It's supposed to be a week of celebration, a time where NASCAR's best drivers prepare for the 10 most important races of the year.
Instead of focusing on the opening Chase for the Sprint Cup event Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway, however, the attention this past week has not been on the playoff chances of Dale Earnhardt Jr. or whether Jimmie Johnson can win a sixth title.
"The integrity is intact and I wouldn’t question it going forward"-Dale Earnhardt Jr.
The sport has instead been entangled with teams blatantly fixing races, forcing NASCAR to respond by leveling record fines and even going as far to boot a driver of the Chase. Even with Chicago just days away, the madness is not over as officials continue to investigate whether Penske Racing brokered a deal with another team to benefit Joey Logano's entry into the playoffs.
(Excerpt) Read more at sbnation.com ...
Perhaps I am wrong, but what specific rule did MWR break? Is it written in the rule book that you can’t sandbag and let your teammate pass you to gain points? I don’t think it is in the rules. Teams do that every week. Teams conspire all day everyday to effect the outcome of the race.
I think the mistake NASCAR made was they decided based on their feelings, not on the rulebook. They would have provided much more entertainment had they let the teams and drivers work it out themselves.
As far as I see it...it’s like intentionally walking a batter, throwing a pass out of bounds or fouling someone to stop the clock.
I believe they concluded that Bowyer spun out intentionally to bring out a caution flag. That allowed his teammate to pit under caution, giving him an advantage over other drivers that had already made green-flag pitstops.
The problem is this idiotic race to the chase format.
It didn’t bother me a bit when a driver clinched a championship several races before the end of the season. This race to the chase crap leaves things too open to manipulation with things like team orders.
Yours is an interesting point. If their mantra, “Anything goes on the track... let the drivers work it out.” they should be more laxed about a lot of decisions. They are conflicted often times because of safety. They throw out cautions for debris (water bottles included). But they let driver’s fear of retaliation be the only deterent for intentionally wreck other drivers.
Interesting. I don’t know what the answer is. But Nascar seems to paint itself in a corner every now and then for sure. They want the competition to be more intense but get confused when that level of competition drives some to extremes to win.
They should make team owners and Team GMs sit in an isolated room at the track during the races, watching the raes on CC TV. Don’t let them communicate to teams during the race. And only specific car team members can spot for the driver or communicate over the radios.
That would likely fix the “team order problems”. Anyone caught cheating has to ride a bycicle around the middle of the track at Talledaga with headphones and blinders during a long green flag run.
I guess we would have to apply that to Jimmy Johnson's team too. They've been caught and suspended a few times.
Your right, if a driver had the ability to lock things up so be it. They all went through dry spells. PLUS when it wasn’t decided early, it made for terrific races and anticipation week to week. As far as the remaining races, they could always raise the purse structure to draw both crowds and teams...gawd only knows NASCAR rakes it in.....
Ya wanna know WHAT is the PROBLEM w/ “Modern” “NASCAR”? THIS “Soft-Handed” PUSSY:
http://www.nascar.com/en_us/news-media/articles/2013/09/13/nascar-chairman-ceo-brian-france-10-years.html
NASCAR’s biggest problem is limiting what they can do to build faster cars. They banned the Dodge Hemi, the Ford SOHC engines in the late 60’s and then invented the restrictor plate to limit the Ford engines in the 80’s.
Anyone notice a pattern here? That’s right you don’t see them doing anything to Chevy/GM cars!
Smaller cars with limited engine sizes to equal boring races. If the drivers want to faster with the known risks then I say go for it...
It was the intentional spin-out to bring out the yellow by Clint Bowyer that's the fuss.
Actually, wind tunnel testing showed that when cars exceed 200mph, they have a stronger tendency to go airborne when air gets underneath them.
This was proven again recently when NASCAR added the wings to the backs of the COT in the 2009 season. When these were used on super speedways and the cars got turned around at speed, the wings designed to hold the backs of the cars down suddenly became lifting devices that pulled the cars into the air.
See: Wild Crash! Carl Edwards goes airborne and into the fence just short of the finish line at Talladega
No penalty for the spinout. The penalty had to do with pitting on green to change the race order.
So we expect all to strive for the letter and spirit of the rules when the sport was created by a bunch of bootleggers. I for one like to see it when someone puts their thumb in the eye of the rule makers.
Its certainly changed over the years. I remember one of the Allison brothers talking about sitting on the wall watching the last 11 laps of the race he won. I personally like closer finishes but it does display the fact that NASCAR used to be a game of seeking advantages.
In that case I believe Allison’s team had done something to pack something like 2 extra gallons of fuel into the car and managed to skip some 2 extra pit stops. He wasn’t penalized because there was no rule against it but it wasn’t long before there was a rule.
I understand the safety reasoning but I hate pit road speed limits too. (at least under green flags)
How about any penalty cannot be imposed without a vote of the majority of the Crew Chiefs?
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