philemmons
02-17-07, 05:50 AM
You ain't tryin' if you ain't cheatin'
You can see the nervousness every time a racecar is put through the inspection bay at Daytona International Speedway. It's in the way the crew guys bite their nails, fidget around, pace back and forth, and intently watch as a team of white-shirted NASCAR inspectors picks over every inch of their car with the patience and diligence of a doctor trying to diagnose the most complex of medical problems.
The NASCAR inspectors have been busy during this historical week of cheating at Daytona. Five crew chiefs have been suspended, one (David Hayder of Michael Waltrip Racing) was hit with a record-setting fine of $100,000, and one driver (Waltrip) narrowly escaped being booted off the Daytona premises after a mysterious Vaseline-like substance was found in his fuel.
Thing is, there's been a culture of cheating in NASCAR ever since the green flag dropped at Charlotte Fairgrounds short track in the summer of 1949 for the first race in the series' history. Teams have always looked for loopholes in the rulebook that can exploited. The old saying -- You ain't tryin if you ain't cheatin' -- underscored that bending the rules has always been a tacitly accepted mode of operation in NASCAR.
In the past, the best policemen of the sport were the competitors themselves. This is why, for instance, the garages in NASCAR are all open; in theory, everyone can see what everyone else is doing. But what's changed in the last decade is that the number of NASCAR inspectors has swelled. "Just 15 years ago you maybe had 15 inspectors," says veteran Ricky Rudd. "Now you've got 200 inspectors. Of course they're going to catch more guys."
This week another element has contributed to the over-the-top attempts at swindling the inspectors: A sense of desperation. The Toyota Camrys of Michael Waltrip Racing had been down on speed ever since January testing at Daytona. One or more members of that team obviously felt that something extraordinary had to be done to generate more horsepower so that they could be competitive with the Chevys, Fords and Dodges in the field. To that end, they dumped that mysterious foreign substance into the fuel cell, believing that the potential reward was worth the risk.
So will the cheating stop after this week? Well, historically NASCAR has levied most of its penalties and fines on teams during the Daytona Speedweeks. There's two reasons for this. One, in the 500 it's extremely important to have a car that's as aerodynamically sleek as possible, so teams try to tweak tiny things here and there on the body that can easily blur the line between ingenuity and cheating. Second, before the first race of the season NASCAR usually tries to send a message to everyone in the garage that even the most minor infractions won't be tolerated, and usually it works.
I imagine the same thing will happen this year, that you won't see many violations in the coming weeks, but the cloud over the sport that was generated at Daytona won't go away anytime soon. Michael Waltrip especially will be watched closely for the rest of the season. As for the crew chiefs, they'll no doubt continue to push the envelope when it comes to the rules -- just not as far.
source (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/lars_anderson/02/16/cheating/index.html?cnn=yes)
You can see the nervousness every time a racecar is put through the inspection bay at Daytona International Speedway. It's in the way the crew guys bite their nails, fidget around, pace back and forth, and intently watch as a team of white-shirted NASCAR inspectors picks over every inch of their car with the patience and diligence of a doctor trying to diagnose the most complex of medical problems.
The NASCAR inspectors have been busy during this historical week of cheating at Daytona. Five crew chiefs have been suspended, one (David Hayder of Michael Waltrip Racing) was hit with a record-setting fine of $100,000, and one driver (Waltrip) narrowly escaped being booted off the Daytona premises after a mysterious Vaseline-like substance was found in his fuel.
Thing is, there's been a culture of cheating in NASCAR ever since the green flag dropped at Charlotte Fairgrounds short track in the summer of 1949 for the first race in the series' history. Teams have always looked for loopholes in the rulebook that can exploited. The old saying -- You ain't tryin if you ain't cheatin' -- underscored that bending the rules has always been a tacitly accepted mode of operation in NASCAR.
In the past, the best policemen of the sport were the competitors themselves. This is why, for instance, the garages in NASCAR are all open; in theory, everyone can see what everyone else is doing. But what's changed in the last decade is that the number of NASCAR inspectors has swelled. "Just 15 years ago you maybe had 15 inspectors," says veteran Ricky Rudd. "Now you've got 200 inspectors. Of course they're going to catch more guys."
This week another element has contributed to the over-the-top attempts at swindling the inspectors: A sense of desperation. The Toyota Camrys of Michael Waltrip Racing had been down on speed ever since January testing at Daytona. One or more members of that team obviously felt that something extraordinary had to be done to generate more horsepower so that they could be competitive with the Chevys, Fords and Dodges in the field. To that end, they dumped that mysterious foreign substance into the fuel cell, believing that the potential reward was worth the risk.
So will the cheating stop after this week? Well, historically NASCAR has levied most of its penalties and fines on teams during the Daytona Speedweeks. There's two reasons for this. One, in the 500 it's extremely important to have a car that's as aerodynamically sleek as possible, so teams try to tweak tiny things here and there on the body that can easily blur the line between ingenuity and cheating. Second, before the first race of the season NASCAR usually tries to send a message to everyone in the garage that even the most minor infractions won't be tolerated, and usually it works.
I imagine the same thing will happen this year, that you won't see many violations in the coming weeks, but the cloud over the sport that was generated at Daytona won't go away anytime soon. Michael Waltrip especially will be watched closely for the rest of the season. As for the crew chiefs, they'll no doubt continue to push the envelope when it comes to the rules -- just not as far.
source (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/lars_anderson/02/16/cheating/index.html?cnn=yes)