Kenseth's win shows current penalties aren't enough

	Matt Kenseth won at California Speedway without crew chief Robbie Reiser, who was suspended for cheating at Daytona. Donald Miralle/Getty Images for NASCAR
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FONTANA, Calif. -- Maybe NASCAR needs to impose stiffer fines on crew chiefs that are found in violation of technical rules.

The evidence is mounting that either a team will work harder to regain the level of cooperation and excellence that makes it a winner, or that a missing crew chief on a race weekend is highly irrelevant.

Don't take this as a knock against Matt Kenseth's crew chief Robbie Reiser, or for that matter Chad Knaus, Jimmie Johnson's crew chief -- both of whom were suspended for the first four races in different years (Knaus' penalty was last year).

Still, how can you argue that Johnson's win in the 2006 Daytona 500, without Knaus, and now Kenseth's victory at the Auto Club 500 at California Speedway on Sunday, without Reiser, had the intended effect of a penalty? A win is a win with or without your crew chief.

Last year Johnson added a victory at Las Vegas and finished no worse than sixth with Darian Grubb filling in for Knaus in the first four races.

Both drivers praise their respective crew chiefs to the moon, yet they still won very high profile races with the team's second-string coach.

Consider this fact: in six races run without top crew chiefs there have been three victories with a substitute.

Don't think for a minute I'm saying crew chiefs are not important to the team, quite the opposite. Some of the first words out of Kenseth's mouth, in what appeared to be a moment of high emotion were that Reiser built this team.

Last year NASCAR's John Darby talked about ramping up penalties for violations. That begs the question, are the penalties having the intended affect? The answer has to be, no. Not by the number of wins recorded by the penalized team.

Yes, having your crew chief with you is about team morale, good pit calls and more than an ordinary person can imagine. Since the top teams have great depth in personnel one might have to go down the employee chart and suspend two or three key people to really put a hurt on a team.

Let's take a different view of the depth of top teams. When Ray Evernham left the job as Jeff Gordon's crew chief the naysayers said that Gordon was done. They didn't count on Robbie Loomis coming over from Petty Enterprises and rallying the team. And when the magic went away with Loomis, Steve LeTarte moved up from within the Hendrick Motorsports operation and put Gordon back on track.

So as bad as it is for team morale to lose a crew chief who is a tactician, psychologist for the driver and, probably, super cheerleader for the team; the temporary loss of a crew chief has a minimal effect on the performance of top teams.

It's clear that if NASCAR means business they have to find a stiffer penalties to discourage bending the rules beyond the breaking point.