Wow
Hot off the wires:
Crew chiefs suspended, drivers docked points in Daytona cheating scandalDAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — NASCAR took its strongest stance against cheating Tuesday, suspending the crew chiefs for Matt Kenseth, Kasey Kahne, Scott Riggs and Elliott Sadler and docking all four drivers points before the season-opening Daytona 500.
Kahne, Riggs and Sadler are teammates at Evernham Motorsports. Kenseth, the 2003 series champion and runner-up last season, drives for Roush Racing.
Robbie Reiser, crew chief for Kenseth, and Kenny Francis, crew chief for Kahne, were kicked out of Daytona International Speedway and suspended four races.
Rodney Childers, crew chief for Riggs, and Josh Brown, crew chief for Sadler, were suspended two races. All four will miss the Sunday's premier event.
In toughening its penalties, NASCAR also made the unprecedented move of taking points away before the season has even started. Kahne and Kenseth were docked 50 points apiece, while Riggs and Sadler lost 25 each.
Reiser and Francis also were fined $50,000 each, while Childers and Brown were fined $25,000 each.
If Kahne and Kenseth finish 40th or so, they'll go into next week's race at California with negative points. Consider my mind blown.
Comments (5)
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I think Robby Gordon went into California with negative points 2 years ago, so it has been done before. My take is, if you know what you're doing is illegal and you do it anyway, you deserve the penalties.
Posted on February 13, 2007 5:26 PM
I'm with you Matt. Like Baretta used to say on his TV show, "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time."
Posted on February 13, 2007 7:12 PM
Actually, Matt, Gordon didn't start in negative territory. Gordon got busted before the Daytona 500 for an unapproved intake manifold. He ended up not making the 500. After the race, NASCAR penalized him 25 points. But he had zero, and apparently didn't lose any or go negative.
He then scored 58 points in the second race of the season, at California, and the post-race report for that race shows Gordon with ... 58 points.
Weird, but true. And it's more proof that NASCAR just makes it up as it goes along.
Posted on February 13, 2007 8:26 PM
My take is this, NASCAR needed to do something like this! All last year, NASCAR had been accused of giving special treatment to the more popular teams...changing the rules to benefit themself. Here, some top teams were hit, and hit hard. Now, lets see if this continues for the rest of the year or if this is just a show because the world is watching. Lets see what happens at places like Bristol or Talledaga or when the Gordons and Jr's or Stewerts are caught doing something suspicious.
Posted on February 14, 2007 12:31 AM
Ah... didn't know that John. Thanks for clearing that one up.
Posted on February 14, 2007 3:04 PM