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I
would have never guessed
Joe Gibbs Racing would
be at the center of what
I consider to be the
most blatant cheating
scandal in NASCAR
history. Not for a
minute. Papa Joe is the
guy whose picture is
probably in Webster’s
dictionary beside the
word integrity. I’ve
watched him for years,
first as coach of the
Washington Redskins and
later in NASCAR. Like I
say, I would have never
guessed.
Everyone now knows what
happened. When both
Gibbs Toyotas went to
post-race breakdown,
someone had put magnetic
shims under the throttle
pedal on both the No. 18
and No. 20 cars to try
to disguise how much
horsepower they had.
Those cars had dominated
the Nationwide Series
all year, and NASCAR was
going to keep a close
watch on them. They got
caught and the penalty
will be and should be
huge.
The
question that keeps
going through my mind is
“what were they
thinking?” Cheating (or
circumventing he rule
book as Junior Johnson
would say) is as old as
the sport. Johnson was a
master at it in the old
days as was Smokey
Yunick and others, but
not once did they try to
rig a sanctioning body
test. That has to be the
closest thing to suicide
I can imagine. J.D.
Gibbs has basically said
that heads will roll at
JGR, and I believe him.
This
incident does one other
thing. It now tarnishes
the accomplishments of
the JGR cars and drivers
in not only the
Nationwide Series, but
also the Sprint Cup
Series. If they’ll cheat
one place, they
certainly would cheat
another, so the line
goes. And in this case,
the whole blame goes on
JGR because only their
cars had the illegal
device.
Jack
Roush, long a critic of
Toyota, believes that it
all began when NASCAR
approved a new engine
for Toyota in the
Nationwide Series, while
leaving the other three
manufacturers with
obsolete powerplants.
Many fans are tired of
Roush’s constant battle
with Toyota in the
press, but he had
company on Sunday.
Richard Childress flat
out said the guilty
should be “kicked out of
there,” as in banning
them from further
competition the rest of
the season.
So,
the ball’s in NASCAR’s
court. Childress said he
was surprised that the
Gibbs teams were even
caught and called them
“shiftless” for even
trying such a thing.
Roush said he was
watching to see how
NASCAR handles the
problem. I have a few
thoughts on it.
First,
I hope NASCAR doesn’t
penalize the drivers,
which they almost surely
will. It’s fairly
obvious that both
drivers had full
throttle on the track
and a crew member placed
the shims in there after
the race. The penalties
should go the car owner
and crew chiefs. In
fact, both crew chiefs
should be suspended for
the rest of the season.
Gibbs’ teams should lose
massive points, making
sure they have no
possible chance of
winning the car owner’s
championship. The crew
members involved should
be dealt with by JGR.
We’ll
soon see, as Tuesday is
penalty day in NASCAR.
One has to hope that
NASCAR treats this as
they should. If not, it
puts the entire series
and its sister series
right alongside
professional wrestling
as a fake. And don’t
expect two of NASCAR’s
most successful owners
to keep quiet about it.
You can
contact Ron at
ron.fleshman@verizon.net
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