Crew Chief gets escorted from Bristol - screws team

Reed Sorenson, running for Rookie of the Year in the Busch Series, lost his crew chief today to stupidity.

Brian Pattie, pictured to the left with Reed Sorenson, was escorted from Bristol Motor Speedway, along with team tire specialist Brandon Stafford, for altering the tires that a NASCAR official noticed a crew member rubbing something on the tires.  Big no-no.

Penalties will be coming and I'm sure the fines will be hefty.  The worst part of the whole thing is that Reed Sorenson has to suffer for something his crew chief did or told someone to do.  Sorenson will have to start at the tail end of the field and will not be allowed to qualify at all.  The team was also forced to buy all new tires.

My biggest question is why?  I mean I know you want to try and give your driver an edge and help him, but why do something like this that can be detrimental to the team?  The team and Sorenson are the ones that have to suffer for this and it's just not fair.  I mean you have a driver that's third in points, is running for Rookie of the Year and now he'll probably lose points because of this, how Pattie thought this would help him is beyond me.

Hopefully, Sorenson can still somehow pull off a good finish and concentrate on the race instead of what happened earlier today.

Picture credit - Autostock and Nascar.com