Unruling behavior

Winston Cup rule book is no black-and-white matter

Leave it to NASCAR to play the role of spoiler in this year's Winston Cup championship race. Of course, it's nothing new that the sport's rule book would be called into question, since the book of specifics is as elusive as Osama bin Laden.

In case you missed it, here's the Cliff's Notes version: Rusty Wallace was penalized 25 points for an unapproved spoiler -- an action "detrimental to stock car racing," NASCAR claimed -- discovered before the first practice at Talladega Superspeedway. Wallace's sin, according to NASCAR, was "an inconsistent thickness" on the rear spoiler.

"The spoiler itself was fabricated to circumvent the required angle that the spoiler is supposed to be raced at," Winston Cup director John Darby explained. "That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

"There will always be a number of unapproved parts collected. There will always be a number of penalties that will go out in today's world that seem to be a trivial monetary penalty because there will always be parts that are outside NASCAR's specifications," he added. "But there's a huge difference in a part that's too long, too short, too tall, too square or too round. You've got that type of a part grouping. And you also have the type of parts that are fabricated purely for the intent of circumventing a specific rule that's in place, and that's the difference."

Talladega was not the first time this year NASCAR penalized a driver for failing inspection. Mark Martin won the Coca-Cola 600 with a car that failed the post-race inspection, and NASCAR fined Martin's team $50,000 but deducted no points.

NASCAR stiffened the penalties in July because fines had not stopped teams from bypassing the rules. Officials docked Jimmie Johnson 25 points at Daytona in July for an infraction found before the first practice session. And NASCAR has been consistent since the change, taking 25 points away from both Dale Jarrett and Jeff Green for post-race infractions.

Nothing wrong with tougher rules. But arbitrarily changing them during the season? That's akin to Major League Baseball saying in July that all of Barry Bonds' home runs after No. 50 are now ground-rule doubles.

Darby explained the reason behind the points deductions for Johnson and Wallace: "The 48 [Johnson] in Daytona, the bolts that were fabricated for that car were fabricated that way specifically for the intent of relocating one of our gauges to give us an incorrect data. It wasn't a bolt that was too big, too small. Same thing with Rusty's spoiler. It wasn't a spoiler that was too big, or too tall or too wide. It was a spoiler that was fabricated for the intent of circumventing one of NASCAR's rules."

There's an adage widely held in stock car racing that if you're not cheating, you're not trying. To that end, NASCAR has tried for the past 35 years to curb the enthusiasm of some team's underhanded tactics. Before the 1967 Firecracker 400 at Daytona, NASCAR introduced templates that cars must conform to in an attempt to cut down on illegal body tampering. Forty-nine of the 50 cars entered failed to pass the template inspections.

Since then, there have been many blatant attempts by crew chiefs to get ahead of the competition with more horsepower or better aerodynamics. Let's not forget Greg Sacks' moment in the sun; he won the 1985 Firecracker 400 in an unsponsored "research and development" car for Gardner Racing. His crew chief was Gary Nelson, who later became NASCAR's Winston Cup series director. And although it was never proven that his car was illegal, this much is fact: Sacks never won another Cup race.

Each week memos are circulated on the latest taboos unearthed by the NASCAR inspectors. Crews dissect these directives and find other ways to tweak their cars for optimum speed and handling. The next week, the same scenario plays out: more NASCAR no-nos, more crew chiefs tinkering.

"There's a small part of it that's judgment calls," Darby said of inspections, "but I think in today's world, when penalties are issued, there's no judgment about it. It's black-and-white."

If only it were that easy. Maybe a black-and-white rule book would be a good first step. And that's pretty much it in a nutshell.

B. Duane Cross is a senior producer for CNNSI.com.

 

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