If Clint Bowyer doesn’t win his appeal to NASCAR after the No. 33 Cheerio’s team was penalized after their win at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway, the sport has far more problems than low ticket sales and poor television ratings. Bowyer was docked 150 points (sending him from second to 12th, 185 points behind leader Denny Hamlin) and crew chief Shane Wilson was fined $150,000 and suspended for six weeks. NASCAR had previously warned the Richard Childress Racing No. 33 team that their New Hampshire car, regardless of finishing position, would be taken back to the Research and Development Center after their Richmond car, where Bowyer finished fourth, was ‘close’ to failing inspection. While the team appeals the penalty, crew chief Wilson will be with the team at Dover Why would a team, already warned that their car would be taken back to R&D regardless of result, be stupid enough to bring a car to the track that would fail inspection? The answer is, they didn’t. The No. 33 successfully passed both pre and post race inspection before NASCAR took it back to North Carolina. How is it that while there it was found to be illegal when it wasn’t at the track during any part of the weekend? Bowyer came into the media center on Friday with guns blazing, first laying out a timeline of events starting with when NASCAR warned the team about the Richmond car to their “I’m still proud of that win,” Bowyer said. “I don’t think we did anything wrong,” going on to say that “I wouldn’t cheat to win in this sport.” NASCAR Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton did not address the teams concern that the wreck pushing Bowyer to Victory Lane caused the infraction, saying “I don’t think it’s for us to say the intent or anything like that.” But isn’t that exactly NASCAR’s job? Shouldn’t they thoroughly investigate whether it was a track vehicle that caused a car to fail inspection versus a team out right bending the rules? Shouldn’t a penalty to a team be based on those factors as well? NASCAR did, in a sense, get one thing right. The 150 point penalty for not passing inspection has been a consistent penalty from the sanctioning body for such infractions. However, they absolutely did not get this penalty right. If NASCAR wants to gain the trust of it’s drivers, teams and most of all fans back, they will re-investigate Bowyer’s penalty, re-examine his car, look at possible damage caused by the wrecker pushing the car to Victory Lane and then decide whether they were wrong or right in penalizing the driver. Bowyer’s Timeline: -Team was warned after the final race before the Chase at Richmond International Raceway that the car was too close to NASCAR’s tolerance. -NASCAR told the No. 33 team that no matter what they would be taking their Chevrolet after the race at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway, regardless of finishing position. -During the race weekend in Loudon, NH the No. 33 passed pre and post race inspection. -The day (Monday) following the win, Bowyer says rumors began to start circulating that the car was illegal and, in his words, “forced NASCAR’s hand to do something about.” -The team was penalized points, fined, and had the crew chief suspended this past Wednesday. -Bowyer says he’s “looking for answers, too” in regards to a wrecker pushing the No. 33 to Victory Lane after the race, possibly causing the damage to the car that caused it to fail inspection at the Research and Development Center in North Carolina. Watch video from Bowyer’s visit to the media center here.
You can read Patti Rodisch's rebuttle here.
Thanks to NASCAR.com, Racing Reference and the Virginia Pilot’s Dustin Long for the quotes, statistics and information used in this piece. Photo credit to Getty Images.
Written by:
