RCR loses appeal to overturn Bowyer penalty
By The Associated Press
September 30, 2010
07:42 AM EDT
CONCORD, N.C. -- A NASCAR committee denied Richard Childress Racing's appeal to have Clint Bowyer's championship-ending penalty reversed, and the team owner vowed Wednesday to fight the decision to the organization's highest level.
The NASCAR-appointed panel of former driver Lyn St. James, former crew chief Waddell Wilson and former USAC chairman John Capels voted unanimously to uphold Bowyer's penalty at 150 points with six-week suspensions to crew chief Shane Wilson and car chief Chad Haney as well as a $150,000 fine to Wilson.
Childress said last week that the car was knocked out of compliance by contact from another race car or from a wrecker that pushed the car after it ran out of fuel following Bowyer's victory at New Hampshire on Sept. 19. Childress said that NASCAR ruled that the way the body sat on the frame was too high in the left rear by 130-thousandths of an inch -- 60-thousandths of an inch beyond the 70-thousandths of an inch tolerance teams are permitted in that area.
"We know without a shadow of a doubt that that car left [our shop for the New Hampshire race] within the tolerances, well within the tolerances," Childress said last week.
Childress on Wednesday emerged from NASCAR's research and development center after a nearly 5-hour hearing fighting the 150-point penalty.
"After so many hours of whatever you want to call this, the ruling stood," the team owner said. "I gave them the check and an appeal notice to the commissioner. We're very disappointed."
Childress said he paid the $150,000 fine issued to Wilson, and made a formal request to appeal Wednesday's decision to NASCAR chief appellate officer John Middlebrook, a former General Motors executive.
Sprint Cup Series director John Darby said it was a fair hearing. He said he answered many questions from the panel after presenting how NASCAR came to make the decision on the penalty.
"They're very informed people," Darby said. "And they were definitely on track to collect all the information they could before they rendered a decision. ... I think [the appeals] are all fair.
"They're very tense. You get nervous when you go to one of these deals. It's not just a mocked-up party. It's serious. You have to be very exact, you have to be very precise, you have to be very direct, you have to be very honest."
Bowyer and his RCR team were penalized last Wednesday, three days after his win in the opening race for the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. The victory ended an 88-race winless streak and pushed Bowyer from 12th to second in the standings, 35 points behind Denny Hamlin.
The penalty dropped Bowyer to 12th in the standings, and he currently trails Hamlin by 235 points with eight Chase races remaining.
RCR has maintained that when Bowyer ran out of gas at the end of the New Hampshire race, a tow truck had to push him to Victory Lane and the contact caused the damage that contributed to a failed inspection.
Childress brought an accident reconstruction specialist to the hearing, but Dr. Charles Manning of Accident Reconstruction Analysis in Raleigh said the three-member appeals panel was not interested in his presentation.
"We ran into it, we pushed into it with a wrecker that was the same as Loudon," said Manning, who joined Childress, Wilson and RCR competition director Scott Miller in their presentation. "We measured it. ... It tells you clearly it wasn't out of specification before he burned out, ran out of gas and then got pushed.
"That's exactly what caused [it]. We gave them scientific reports and we testify all the time and they paid no attention, which says something about what was going on in my opinion."
Childress made his presentation to the appeals committee, then moved to a conference room while NASCAR made its case. During the lengthy delay, he posted a sign on the window of a conference room asking reporters outside to "bring pizza." He later tapped on the window to point out he had updated the sign with "and Budweiser."
Childress could be seen with his feet up on the conference room table, and when a pizza delivery driver showed up with four pies, he opened the door of the R&D Center to let him in.
But the relaxed mood quickly changed when the RCR group was called out of the room. He exited the building minutes later, clearly angry with the decision.
"We have shown proof that the wrecker knocked the back of the car up," Childress said.
The panel did not agree, and noted that car was actually high in both the left and right rear.
"[RCR] presented an accident reconstruction specialist to demonstrate that a wrecker might bend up the left rear strut in the trunk under certain conditions," the panel wrote in its statement. "The specialists, however, indicated that such an occurrence would strictly affect the left rear because of the matchup between the wrecker pushbar and the angle of the race car's rear bumper.
"He went on to say that the corresponding right rear measurements should not be affected, in his view, nor the frame member deformed as a team representative had alleged. ... Claims that the wrecker caused the infraction were negated by the telemetry from the car which did not show a sharp impact spike; by the fact that the rear template still fit snugly across the entire rear of the car; by a visual inspection of the rear of the car which showed nothing of note in the way of damage; and a visual review of the videotape of postrace assistance tendered by the wrecker which appeared as relatively gentle pushing.
"Of significance to the Panel were some additional facts which came to light during the hearing. Particularly of note were the facts that both rear hard points, left and right, were high, and that the rear of the body was offset on the frame. The Panel found that the penalties were consistent for infractions of this magnitude."
Manning, who said he's been in the accident reconstruction business 45 years, said he recreated a tow truck pushing in the back of a Cup Series car to show how it could have damaged the frame.
NASCAR officials have refused to talk about specifics of the infraction because of the appeal but have said they do not believe contact from the wrecker had anything to do with the car being out of compliance. RCR was warned that the No. 33 car Bowyer raced at Richmond was close to being illegal.
The appeals committee has not overturned a penalty in any of the seven appeals it has heard concerning national series teams this year. According to NASCAR, in the past decade there have been 132 appeals heard:
• 92 decisions were upheld;
• 28 penalties were reduced;
• 10 penalties were overturned;
• 2 penalties were increased.
No cases this year have been taken to Middlebrook, who is in the first year in his role as chief appellate officer. Middlebrook replaced Charles Strang, whose title was "commissioner."
Middlebrook spent 49 years at GM before retiring in 2008 from his position as vice president for global sales. Middlebrook was involved in General Motors' NASCAR programs and drove the pace car during the pace laps for the 2008 Allstate 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Wilson and Haney likely will be permitted by Middlebrook to continue in their roles this weekend at Kansas Speedway pending a decision by Middlebrook, Darby said.
Middlebrook will get a transcript of the appeal from Wednesday and then make a decision of who gets to testify before him at his hearing. He has not set a date, but NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton speculated it would be early next week.
Sporting News Wire Service contributed to this report.
Then, Wednesday rolls around and it's determined @ the R&D facility that Jimmie Johnson and crew's car is out of spec and is now facing the possibility of a 150 pt. reduction. What happens then?
Right ..and what have they done with those late race cautions???
