Daytona penalties, JJ hit hardest

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HardScrabble

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NASCAR officials levied fines Wednesday against seven Cup crew chiefs and one BGN crew chief for infractions discovered during this past weekend's races at Daytona. Chad Knaus, crew chief of the #48 Chevy, was fined $25,000 and his team was also penalized 25 NASCAR Winston Cup Series Championship driver points as well as 25 NASCAR Winston Cup Series Championship owner points. Knaus' NASCAR Winston Cup team was penalized under Section 12-4-A of the 2002 NASCAR Winston Cup Series rule book: "Actions detrimental to stock car racing: offset mounting bolts for the front of the truck trailing arms."

Other NASCAR Winston Cup Series crew chiefs fined for various infractions following this past weekend included: Scott Eggleston, crew chief of the #33 Chevy and Jimmy Elledge, crew chief of the #55 Chevy were fined $500 and penalized in accordance to Section 20-2-E: "Underpans will not be permitted";

Newt Moore, crew chief of the #36 Pontiac, James Ince, crew chief of the #10 Pontiac and Lee McCall, crew chief of the #40 Dodge all received $500 fines and penalized under Sections 12-4-Q and 20-12-1A: "Any determination by NASCAR officials that parts and/or equipment used in the event do not conform to NASCAR rules; Section 20-12.1A (3); Unapproved jacking bolts."

Chris Carrier, crew chief of the #4 Chevy, was also fined an $500 and penalized under Sections 12-4-Q and 20-10-6J: "Any determination by NASCAR officials that parts and/or equipment used in the event do not conform to NASCAR rules; Section 20-10.6.J: Magnetic rear axle heating pads."

In the BGN, crew chief Jason Ratcliff of the #27 Pontiac, was fined $2,000 and penalized under Section 12-4-Q in the 2002 BGN rule book: "Any determination by NASCAR officials that parts and/or equipment used in the event do not conform to NASCAR rules; Unapproved rear spring."
 
I will never understand why they won't let these guys do what they can to make their cars better. If the changes they make render the car unsafe to drive that's one thing. But unapproved rear springs?!! Unapproved jacking bolts?!! Such nonsense.:kaioken:
 
Ok, question for HS and all, are the points technically taken from the race where the infraction occurred or just overall. I know that for WC drivers it doesn't really matter, but for fantasy purposes I wonder.

I'm the "commissioner" of my league and we agreed to go by NASCAR rules in matters such as this. It makes a huge difference to standings if we deduct the points from that race.

Any suggestions?
 
Interesting question HH,

Can't recall ever having heard the issue discussed, like you said it doesn't hold any meaning in the WC points chase. So we will have to venture into unprecedented waters unless someone else has knowledge of any ruling.

Off to sea then. This may be a case where the commish (that being you) is going to have to step to the plate and make a call.

Technically I would think in order to deduct points from a specifc race, the finishing order of the race would have to be altered. The rules state that finishing in X postion results in the accrual of y number of points. To deduct from that y total would signal that the driver had finished at position z. If that were done then all drivers finishing ahead of the postion z would have to move up the post and would be entitled to a greater number of points than were originally accrued. This can of worms is better left unopened on the pantry shelf.

What I don't know is how fantasy scoring works. If the overall point toatl of a given driver has little or no effect on the outcome, I would opt to let it ride in that manner . If the effect is noticeable, then an examinationof the scoring system will be needed to make a judgement call.

Dem, that got long winded for no reason, you're the commish, you call it!!! :D
 
WOW!!!!!!!!!! points deduction, it must be ole Mike Helton's time of the month.lol..........:D 25 points is not much but, it sends a message i guess:rolleyes:
 
It does indeed seem as if NASCAR is sending a "message".

"Apparently, the money fines don't work too well, so we've been saying that points were an option, and this was a serious enough offense to warrant taking away points," NASCAR vice president for corporate communications Jim Hunter said. "Our president, Mike Helton, and (Winston Cup director) John Darby -- our competition team -- felt this would be an excellent way to evoke a point penalty. I guess we'll see if this gets anybody's attention or not.


"Any points taken away is serious business. It could have been worse. The last time we took away points it was 100. I think the competition team felt 100 was too many for this infraction. They felt like in addition to the fine for the crew chief, they needed to do some kind of point penalty."
 
At least Michael Waltrip's car passed inspection, height and all.
 
HS, the more I've thought about it, the more I think NASCAR has to have a rule on it. I mean let's take Johnny Benson for instance and say this happened at Chicago while someone else is in his car. If the fine happens, it happens at that race, to the owners points for the race, so my choice is to penalize for the race the infraction occurred. After all, the point is that a driver got ahead of the game at that race b/c of something illegal.

Thoughts???


I think this will be the ruling unless I hear a really good argument against.

Otherwise, I think I will take the amount of races that player has used the particular driver (JJ in this case) and make it a percentage factor.
 
Thoughts, yes. Answers???Hmmm

From the point of view of a fantasy leaque you will probably have to do it that way.

But to use your case in point of JB, the substiute driver would lose the points for his season and JB would be unaffected since he was not in race. The owners points are independent of the driver. If JB starts the race and is relieved, the points or penalty would assessed against him. Still affecting the sesaon, but in neither case does the penalty affect his finshing spot in the race. If the driver finished first and earned 180 pints and was then penalized 50 points, he would earn a total of 150 points but still be credited with a win. This has happened more than once. Most recently with Jeremy Mayfield.

So my suggestion is that if assessing the points for this race does not effect finishing postion for the race then you would be following NASCAR's ruling to the letter.
 
The only thing I don't like about this is that some people (and I have already seen some on other boards) are going to take this as Jimmie and or Hendrick has done some thing really bad, they have broken the rules but it isn't as bad as if it was traction control. I do think it is about time that they have started to fine points, it is long overdue.
 
Unavoidable LTR,

I've even seen it somewhere claimed that the team let themselves be caught at this to take the focus off of their TC use.

Give me a large economy size break!!
 
Originally posted by LooneyToonRacer
The only thing I don't like about this is that some people (and I have already seen some on other boards) are going to take this as Jimmie and or Hendrick has done some thing really bad, they have broken the rules but it isn't as bad as if it was traction control. I do think it is about time that they have started to fine points, it is long overdue.
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i agree. i think. i also wonder about inovation? must all the cars be exactly the same? when is it cheating and when is it just making the car better? is that spelled out in the rules? not being smart, i just don't know.

(BTW hiya POD:) )
 
HiYa Trish,
Were the violations found before qualifying? I didn't catch that.

Part of the points deal is that NASCAR stated plainly and publicly that monetary fines were not having the impact necessary on the teams. The promise of points deductions was plainly stated and JJ and the team were the first up.

If violations which the committee feels are of a nature which seems to be an attempt to deliberaely circumvent the rules and gain a significant competitive advantage occurr in the future, points will probably be deducted again.

Fair Warning to the teams. IMHO
 
Originally posted by HardScrabble
HiYa Trish,
Were the violations found before qualifying? I didn't catch that.

Part of the points deal is that NASCAR stated plainly and publicly that monetary fines were not having the impact necessary on the teams. The promise of points deductions was plainly stated and JJ and the team were the first up.

If violations which the committee feels are of a nature which seems to be an attempt to deliberaely circumvent the rules and gain a significant competitive advantage occurr in the future, points will probably be deducted again.

Fair Warning to the teams. IMHO
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I pilfered the following from Nascar.com:

Dave Rodman, Turner Sports Interactiven (writer)

Scott Eggleston, crew chief of the No. 33 1-800-CALL ATT Chevrolet and Jimmy Elledge, crew chief of the No. 55 Square D Chevrolet were fined $500 each in accordance with rulebook Section 20-2-E: "Underpans will not be permitted."

How many times have we heard of people using underpans? Here it specifically says they are not permitted, yet they seem to show up in inspection. Why were points not deducted for this repeat offense? What Chad Knaus did was something new. Sure, NA$CAR saw it as circumventing, but it was not an outright violation. It was just creative engineering.:booya: :D
 
They gotta start taking points from others.So when they take points and rob Martin of another cup it won't look so one sided.:mad:
 
Unfortunately we don't yet know what these "underpans" were exactly. For that reason we can't assume that were for a performance advantage. They may have been in place as a heat shield, cooling dflector or some other innocuous purpose.

The same might be said of the unapproved jacking bolts. We simply do not know for what reason they are unapproved, nor if they materially improve the performance of the car.

The deal with the offset mounting bolts is much clearer. There is one reason and one reason only to for their use. To improve the performance of the car outside the rules. Nor do I believe it can interpreted as a misunderstanding of what is allowed.

NASCAR could help itself by releasing a little more detail on some of these violations, but that has never been their SOP.
 
Originally posted by pbunch
They gotta start taking points from others.So when they take points and rob Martin of another cup it won't look so one sided.:mad:
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I'm not a conspiracy theorist (sp), but I have been thinking the same thing.:headshake
 
Originally posted by HardScrabble
Unfortunately we don't yet know what these "underpans" were exactly. For that reason we can't assume that were for a performance advantage. They may have been in place as a heat shield, cooling dflector or some other innocuous purpose.

The same might be said of the unapproved jacking bolts. We simply do not know for what reason they are unapproved, nor if they materially improve the performance of the car.

The deal with the offset mounting bolts is much clearer. There is one reason and one reason only to for their use. To improve the performance of the car outside the rules. Nor do I believe it can interpreted as a misunderstanding of what is allowed.

NASCAR could help itself by releasing a little more detail on some of these violations, but that has never been their SOP.
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I'm still looking for more verification on that, but it seems unfair that he was the only one deducted points. And it should not make any difference if it improved performance or not. If he did not use them in the race, he should have only received a monetary fine. Or, the other culprits should have had points deducted also. As I said before, there is clearly a rule regarding "underpans". In my thinking, it is more serious a violation.:hyper:
 
NASCAR had to make a statement reinforcing Their ability to take away points from an driver/owner,think They made an error in this particular case but the #48 team was just the scapegoat,it'd have been another team down the line at some point anyway,IMO!NASCAR shud have taken points away far earlier from Matt Kenseth's team & Mark Martin's team 4 failing post-race inspections due to being found 1/8" too low in height,JMO!
 
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