NASCAR Cup Series

Bowyer case shows NASCAR stance

Published Sep. 30, 2010 1:00 a.m. ET

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Jeff Hammond

Clint Bowyer’s team has lost its initial appeal of a recent 150-point penalty, so where does it go from here? Obviously, team owner Richard Childress is appealing to the National Stock Car Racing Commissioner, but the team itself needs to focus on racing.

They’ve got to come up with a game plan right now to try to adjust the rest of their season.

They know the hole they’re in, it looks like a pretty hard one to dig out of, but I think what makes it really challenging for them is that based off of the ruling and nothing really getting changed, they’re going to lose their crew chief, they’re going to lose their car chief, and I think it just puts them all into basically a tailspin on that team.

I’ve got to believe it’s going to have an impact on RCR as a whole because Richard is spending a lot of time and effort to justify and vindicate what went on with the New Hampshire car, that was assessed the penalty, and again that could, with the closeness of the competition, that could really overall have an effect on his remaining two Chase for the Sprint Cup teams.

I think that you don’t quit, as a deal, you’re going to have to step back and realize that we’ve still got a lot of racing to do and you need to try to figure out how to turn it into more of a rallying cry than just throw up your hands and go on to next year. That would be the easiest thing to do and everybody would probably understand it, but I just don’t think that’s the message that Bowyer’s team needs to be sending out.

I wouldn’t. If I was the crew chief on that deal, I’d come up and figure out what’s my next plan. I’ve always been a big believer in "OK, it’s broke, now I need to fix it," so coming up with a plan to fix what is going on here is just as important as trying to vindicate or justify what went on at Loudon, not knowing how long this whole process is going to go through.

You don’t, for some reason, want to have a carryover on a penalty into 2011. I think that would be even more detrimental. So, I think you’ve got to figure out how to put some of this stuff behind you and go forward.

I think NASCAR had to do what they had to do. Wednesday’s verdict -- and I’m not surprised on NASCAR’s behalf because I feel like based off the information I was told at Dover, that they had considered all the evidence that Richard Childreess reintroduced, even with the independent study information, they had already rendered that information as part of the penalty that was handed down. They took all this stuff into consideration. So to reintroduce that and try to get the decision reversed off of that, I just didn’t think it was going to have any kind of meaning and I think NASCAR felt the same way because the sanctioning body officials had already done what they considered was their due diligence before handing down the penalty to begin with.

Still, the penalty has an impact beyond RCR.

I think it redefines where the line is. Based off of what happened, and I’ll go all the way back to whenever the new car came out and we were at Infineon Raceway the first time and NASCAR ruled against Hendrick Motorsports crew chiefs Chad Knaus and Steve Letarte for working in an area that it felt like was a gray area and not a part of the body shaping as they knew it. Even though the new car was in its infancy, NASCAR made a point then, we’re not going to have a gray area, it’s black and white; you want to work on a car, you raise your hand and get permission first and we’ll tell you if you‘re allowed to work in that area.

I think since Day One, NASCAR has made it perfectly clear we would not get close to the line. I would treat this thing a little bit along the same lines as the saying that close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Well, unfortunately, we’re playing with hand grenades with these guys and if you get too close, it’s going to blow up in your face.

I think there was a message sent very clearly early on in this new car’s development: You do not get close to the line. If you’ve been warned that you’re close to the line and you did not take enough of an evasive maneuver to back it down enough, then I guess it’s shame on you.

This should not have been a surprise to anyone on Bowyer’s team and, at the same time, it should not be a surprise to anybody in that NASCAR garage that the officials are not playing. Whether it’s engines or it’s the body location. I think what they did with Carl Long, who was assessed a massive points penalty for an engine infraction, was clear evidence that no matter who you are, no matter what the race is, no matter what the extenuating circumstances are, we will hold you responsible and we will hold you to the full letter and intent of the rule to make sure that everybody understands that this is not going to be acceptable.

I know as a former crew chief who enjoyed dabbling in the gray area, who enjoyed playing the hit-or miss-shell game that we a lot of times did while I was a crew chief, you would never, ever catch me flirting with this in any way, shape or form because I know beyond the shadow of a doubt this isn’t a game any more, this is definitely serious. Some of the things I used to get by with, I’d get the electric chair for them today.

What it does, it forces you to become a better manager of your race, a better strategist and an understanding that it’s going to take more precise calls from your vantage point on top of the pit box. It’s going to take more of a preparation from the shop through the engineers to get your car where it needs to be. And it’s also going to put a heightened need on having the best pit crew possible on pit road so you can take full advantage of trying to beat your other competitors in those areas.

Anything else, from what we’ve already see with Mark Martin having a mistake by one of the team members with too much air pressure in the shock for qualifying run to 60-thousands on a body location, this is just no time to be getting even close to that edge. Period.

The game has changed.
 

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