Consistent? Not so much

By Dan Sipocz

Well, so much for consistency. Carl Edwards loses 100 points and his crew chief for six weeks after Vegas when his car was found to be missing the oil lid. Then Ryan Newman’s car fails post-race inspection and he loses 25 points and his crew chief is placed on probation until the end of the season.

Something’s not right here.

I don’t care that comparing these two penalties is like comparing apples to oranges because there isn’t any consistency here from NASCAR. Newman’s car was found to be too high in the right rear, indicating that the team made some sort of adjustments to the car to gain an illegal advantage.

For the record, typically when a car is found to be too high in the right rear, as in the case of Newman’s car after the race at Texas, it means the car had more down force. The extra down force really could have made a huge difference at a track like Texas where even the draft comes into play just the slightest bit (the trucks in the 90s used to have drafting packs to get around the track during races).

In any event, both teams were found to have an illegal advantage per the NASAR rule book. Throw out intentions here, because NASCAR does. Things happened and both Edwards and Newman’s cars were illegal. Nothing could be clearer. So why the discrepancy in the penalty?

Let’s go back to Darlington last year. Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s car had different types of nuts holding the wing on his car, thus making his ride illegal in NASCAR’s eyes. The penalty there was 100 points and crew chief Tony Eury Jr. was kicked out for six weeks. Seriously, the nuts were different. There wasn’t any competitive advantage. There weren’t any safety concerns. It just didn’t fit NASCAR’s rules and that made the car illegal. There is no denying that, after all, it is NASCAR’s domain.

Now, back to my question, where is the consistency? If Earnhardt and Edwards are hit with this penalty of 100 points and the loss of their crew chief for six weeks, why wasn’t Newman hit with the same penalty? Wasn’t his car illegal too? Didn’t his car have some sort of advantage to it having more down force (no matter how small of a difference it made)?

Typically I don’t care about the penalties NASCAR hands down. It’s part of their job. They have to regulate the sport the best they can based on their rule book and they do. Heck, often times I agree with what ever penalty they levy. This time though, I ask why the penalty wasn’t as severe. I thought teams are NOT to monkey around with his COT platform car what-so-ever. Well, whether the 12 meant to or not, they did monkey with it and if NASCAR followed precedents set in the case of Earnhardt, the 24 and 48 teams penalties from Sonoma, and Edwards’ penalty Newman would have been hit harder. He should have been harder.

Playing back and forth like this on severity of penalties NASCAR is proving once again that they don’t get it right all the time. How could they, they’re human after all. But come on, if you’re not going to get it right, at least follow the precedents you have set in the COT platform with the cases I’ve mentioned above.

Enough of that though. NASCAR offficials work hard and tries to regulate and enforce rules as best as they can. They deserve a lot of credit for doing the job they do. It’s not easy keeping tabs on all the cars that come through the garage. I’m glad that they try so hard and that they are able to do as well as they do, but frankly they missed the mark this time. Good for Newman that he got off light and shouldn’t be too affected by the penalty, but wow, if I were Jack Roush, Carl Edwards, or Bob Osbourne I’d be upset.