Cheating & Smoking: Back From the Track

Originally Posted on February 20, 2006 on Foxsports.com.

Daytona races generate cash, crashes and controversy.  This 500 was no different, and since I attended my first Daytona 500, here are my thoughts on what happened at the race.

Jimmie Johnson's Car:  Yes, this team has a history of hovering their foot over the black areas of the rule book (think Dover, Las Vegas etc).  And Crew Chief Chad Knaus tried a new trick and got caught.  So, the team was penalized - the team kept the car,  passed inspection and  won the race.  Knaus watched the 500 from home while his team celebrated all last night and most of today.  It is expected that a harsher additional penalty will be levied tomorrow (Read - more weeks to get caught up on his at-home projects for Knaus). 

It is interesting to me that the team got to keep the car - Nascar has taken cars for less.  In 2003, at Texas, Tony Stewart's car was seized by Nascar because it didn't fit the back window X template.  Stewart had to run a backup car - the car wasn't returned until much later - although nascar kept the sheet metal body  (and still has it in its impound shop).  Some speculate that Nascar suspected traction control, couldn't find anything and kept the car to save face.  Rumor has it that Stewart and Zipadelli got the engine and chassis of the car back months later after they mentioned to a reporter that Nascar took the car to provide an engine to toyota.  The reporter published the story, Nascar adamently denied it, and immediately turned over the majority of the car.  Nascar similarly impounded Kyle Busch's busch car a couple years ago.

So, should Johnson have gotten to keep the car?  Well, if the parts that were in violation were removed by Nascar, then why not?  That is typically how the situation is handled (and the illegal parts are set out for the rest of the teams to get a look at).  The complaints arose mainly because Johnson won - otherwise, this would be a non-issue.  By the way, Johnson gets to take home approximately $1.5 million for this one race.  Second place (Casey Mears still gets over $1 mil).

Tony Stewart's Daytona Daze:  Smoke may be an appropriate nickname this week - Stewart was on fire about the bump drafting going on at the track.  Apparently, the on-track antics during the Shootout continued to smolder in Stewart's mind, because he was not in the mood to put up with anything on Sunday (or Saturday).  Stewart is an aggressive driver - given a half-way competent car, he'll find a way to get it to the front.  On Sunday, Stewart had several near spins, passes through the grass, and bumps to and from other competitors.  He was upset about the bumping and banging that was going on. 

First, he had an incident with Gordon.  Gordon slipped up the track in front of Stewart and hit him.  Stewart had given him room, but the room stops at the concrete wall - Gordon (or his spotters) lack of clearance of Stewart's car damaged 2 potentialy winning cars.  After that, Stewart had problems with McMurray and Kenseth.  Kenseth bumped Stewart and Stewart then drove him down on the grass, resulting in a penalty for Stewart.  Kenseth then retaliated by driving up on Stewart as they left pit road.   Kyle Busch was later penalized for rough driving to Stewart - after Stewart complained to his crew chief about it.

Was Stewart wrong to run Kenseth onto the grass?  Yes.   Was Kenseth wrong to retaliate?  Yes.  Could there be more penalties tomorrow?  Yes.  Will this generate more drama for the next race thereby increasing ratings?  Absolutely.  I mean, did you know that Matt Kenseth had this much personality, let alone a temper?  First, he names his cat after the lead singer in Metallica, and now picks a fight with Stewart?   He may actually get an interview next week instead of Junior!   So much for just being a quiet cheesehead from Wisconsin...    Throw in the Kurt Busch-Jamie McMurray feud and things get really interesting. 

Note to Nascar:  Why not run a short track race immediately after Daytona - that way, the drivers can make things look "accidental" and, heck, we're going to have a car crash war regardless what track is next - why not do it when we expect we'll be wrecking the cars anyway, and are only driving 60-80 mph?