Gordon's appeal set for March 5 - Could his NASCAR teams future be riding on this appeal?

Robby Gordon gets his appeal heard by NASCAR on March 5th and it seems like he has a lot more riding on it than the 100 point penalty, $100,000 fine and his crew chiefs 6 week suspension.  According to Gordon, who has most of the season set as far as funding, it's the perception of cheating, being labeled as a cheater by NASCAR for something he, nor his team did.  He doesn't have a sponsor for next weeks Atlanta race and if he loses the appeal, he fears that it will be next to impossible to secure a sponsor since he and his team will be labeled as "cheaters" no matter how it happened.

He is actually considering doing double duty at Indy if this sticks and he's not close to being in contention for the Chase.  While many may think he is overreacting, that label and 100 point fine really does hurt a team, just ask Dale Earnhardt Jr. about last year and his fine, it puts you behind the eight ball so to speak and for Gordon, it wasn't of his or his teams doing, it was a manufacturers mistake.

The little guys like Gordon, that are single car/owner teams or even small teams have a hard enough time competing against the mega-teams of NASCAR, but this kind of thing doesn't help.  Could this make Gordon give up NASCAR altogether?  Make him just say screw it and screw you to NASCAR?  Maybe, according to this quote by Gordon...

"If this sticks, I don't know what our plan will be. I'll be honest with you -- I think open wheel got back together last week and I know I can drive one of those cars."

With the recent influx of open-wheel guys coming to NASCAR, do they really want one of their own going to open-wheel?  I wouldn't think so, but going by that quote, it could happen.  Gordon has always taken his lumps and moved on, from his numerous penalties from NASCAR, mostly about his behavior, but they're standing up to NASCAR this time.

It seems that intent doesn't mean anything anymore to NASCAR, Gordon gets nailed hard with something that wasn't their fault and could end up leaving the sport because of it, yet year after year offenders like Knaus get praised for their working in the gray areas.  It's just not fair, to the teams or fans.  It'll be interesting what penalties, if any, come down on the #88, #48 and #17 for their inspection problems on Friday, I guess we'll see how "fair" NASCAR can and will be.