NASCAR officials have penalized Clint Bowyer and his Richard Childress Racing team 150 Sprint Cup points for violations on the driver’s race-winning car from New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Bowyer led the most laps and won the race, but an Associated Press report Wednesday morning said the car was undergoing more review at the research and development center.
Bowyer and his team were warned earlier that their car from the previous race at Richmond International Raceway was close to the tolerances. Although reports of that warning surfaced Tuesday, NASCAR officials say discussions were held prior to the race at New Hampshire.
The penalty drops Bowyer from second in the standings to 12th, 185 points behind leader Denny Hamlin.
The No. 33 Chevrolet was penalized for “car body location specifications in reference to the certified chassis did not meet NASCAR-approved specifications” of the 2010 NASCAR rule book.
Crew chief Shane Wilson has been fined $150,000, suspended from the next six NASCAR Sprint Cup events, suspended from NASCAR until Nov. 3 and placed on probation until Dec. 31. Car chief Chad Haney has also been suspended from the next six NASCAR Sprint Cup events, suspended from NASCAR until Nov. 3 and placed on probation until Dec. 31. Team owner Richard Childress has also been penalized with the loss of 150 owner points.
Richard Childress Racing plans to appeal the fine. Team sources say competition director Scott Miller will be the interim crew chief.
During a national teleconference following the announcement of the penalty, NASCAR Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton said that the penalty was not the same as that from Richmond, but was in the same area. He also explained how a car could pass initial postrace inspection at the track, then fail at the research and development center.
“It's really two different styles of inspections,” Pemberton said. “And here's what I think I can relate it to the best: As everybody is a probably a lot more familiar with the engines before the race, the best we can from the external atmosphere of the engine or the environment, we have some gauges and machines we do. But to inspect the engine as thoroughly as we do in postrace is very intrusive. And what I mean by that is the engine has to be disassembled to allow us to measure the internal components of the engine.
“The car today is much that same way. The big claw or the big grid that everybody has seen us use on the exterior of the car ensures us that the fenders are the right shape, the roof is the right width and the length and the construction of the body from a shape aspect is correct. But it's much, again, just like an engine; it's too intrusive to run the rest of the inspection in the field because to do that you have to disassemble so much of the race car. The engine has got to be out, certain crush panels have got to be out, a lot of interior components have got to be out to be able to set the car up and accurately measure the car like we do at the tech center. And that's why we do it here and that's why we don't do it in the field.”
Pemberton said it did not play into the penalty whether the team gained a performance advantage with the infraction or not. He did say, however, that NASCAR did not consider taking the win from Bowyer.
Pemberton added that the penalty falls in line with other penalties of this nature that have been awarded in the past.
“We haven't had a penalty like this in a while,” he said. “But I think it was nearly two years ago we had a penalty that was this big as it related to the body by the Red Bull team, and that was 150 points, 150 grand, and that was a postrace infraction. So you know, it just follows suit of that type of penalty. We don't look at backing down. We ride it flat for a while, and then at some point we ratchet the penalties up.”
Fellow Chase competitor Tony Stewart seemed to agree with that. Appearing on SPEED’s NASCAR Race Hub on Wednesday, he was asked about the penalty shortly after it was released, but prior to the NASCAR officials national teleconference.
“Until we find out what the penalty was for, as far as the severity of how far it was off, you don’t know, but NASCAR has been consistent with saying as these penalties keep occurring, that they are going to keep raising the level – and I’m not even sure if they raised the level – but the timing is terrible for this team,” said Stewart, who is also co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing. “To see these guys race their way into the Chase, go out and have a weekend like they had at Loudon and now have this happen, it makes my weekend at Loudon not look so bad now.”
When asked, Pemberton added that there have been no issues found when inspecting the cars of Bowyer’s teammates and fellow Chase drivers Jeff Burton and Kevin Harvick. While he did not detail the specifics of how the car was off, he did add that NASCAR officials did not feel any race damage could have caused the issue.
“We looked at a lot of different things, and we feel like we have a lot of documentation from cars for the last four years or so, and we understand that we have had cars with some severe body damage and cars without, and we don't feel that the incidental contact from a push from a wrecker helped push this car out of tolerance at all,” Pemberton said.
Richard Childress Racing plans to appeal the fine. Team sources say competition director Scott Miller will be the interim crew chief.
In a statement, team owner Richard Childress questioned the potential damage the car incurred and said that the car left the shop within NASCAR's parameters.
"First of all, I'd like to apologize to our sponsors, our fans and everyone at RCR for the situation that has resulted from this ruling," the statement read. "RCR has a long-standing reputation of integrity on and off the race track. We pride ourselves on working within the rules established by the sanctioning body.
"NASCAR informed us after the Richmond race that we were very close to their maximum tolerances. They also told us they were going to take our New Hampshire car to the NASCAR Technical Center after that race. It doesn't make any sense at all that we would send a car to New Hampshire that wasn't within NASCAR's tolerances. I am confident we fixed the area of concern and the New Hampshire car left the race shop well within the tolerances required by NASCAR.
"We feel certain that the cause of the car being out of tolerance by sixty thousandths of an inch, less than 1/16 of an inch, happened as a result of the wrecker hitting the rear bumper when it pushed the car into winner's circle. The rear bumper was also hit on the cool down lap by other drivers congratulating Clint on his victory. That's the only logical way that the left-rear of the car was found to be high at the tech center. We will appeal NASCAR's ruling and take it all the way to the NASCAR commissioner for a final ruling, if need be."
At an appearance shortly before the penalty was announced, Bowyer said that he had only recently been made aware of the situation and did not have any idea exactly what was going on with the car.
“I have no idea. I show up on Friday, I bring my helmet and HANS and get in the car," he said. "Anything that happens Monday to Friday, I don’t know. I’ve been working on my dirt cars all week. I know we won the race this weekend, and it was a lot of fun. We led the most laps and won the race. The guys work hard in the shop to build fair, fast race cars. Besides that, I don’t know what’s going on.”
