Whatever it Was, It Wasn't Cheating

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Whatever It Was, It Wasn't Cheating
TONY FABRIZIO

One NASCAR team defeats the spirit of a rule without actually breaking a rule. Smart thinking or cheating?

Those "trick" shock absorbers that helped Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Busch finish 1-2 Sept. 25 at Dover are responsible for renewing the debate.

With their special rear shocks, Johnson and Busch were able to ride around the bumpy Dover track with the rear of their cars sitting 2 or 3 inches higher than the others. That gave them more downforce, hence faster cornering speeds.

The cars failed inspection for maximum height, then passed after being given some 30 additional seconds to settle. Some competitors thought there should have been penalties.

"I didn't realize they had a 24-hour period they could wait for these damn things to settle down," a livid Dale Jarrett said last weekend at Talladega, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "I'm fired up about this."

NASCAR confiscated the shocks, dissected them and found nothing illegal, so that wasn't an issue. And series director John Darby ruled there was nothing unusual about the cars getting extra time to settle.

The only action taken was a technical bulletin from

NASCAR that's supposed to keep Hendrick Motorsports from using the same trick shocks this weekend at Kansas.

That could hurt Johnson, who is racing for the championship, and Busch, who has become one of the drivers to beat most weeks.

"Frankly, I hope it does," said Kurt Busch, Kyle's older brother and still a championship contender. "They've run it all year long. It's been a matter of time before things were revealed."

Busch, like Jarrett, believes Hendrick got away with one at Dover.

"It seems like each of the wins with the 48 [Johnson] this year, there's been trouble passing tech," he said. "It's just interesting to see how it's all playing out."

In fairness, though, it's hard to argue that Hendrick wasn't at least working in a gray area. The five-car team has 30 engineers, and their job is to look for advantages that don't break the rules, but might bend them.

It's called ingenuity, and if that's taken away, we're left with IROC sameness. Nobody wants that -- certainly not Jack Roush, who actually seemed a bit impressed by Hendrick's innovation.

"On the face of it, I'm cheering for them for going out and finding something with the same parts the rest of us are running and making it work better, which they did," Roush said.

Jamie McMurray would like to see more creativity at Chip Ganassi Racing, the team he's leaving for Roush Racing as soon as his contract expires.

"That's stuff that any driver in here [would want] … a set of shocks that makes his car ride three inches higher in the back," he said.

CUP SHOT FOR REUTIMANN? Zephyrhills' David Reutimann will test a Michael Waltrip-owned Nextel Cup car at Atlanta today, and if all goes well, Reutimann will try to qualify it for the UAW-GM 500 Oct. 15 at Charlotte.

Reutimann, ninth in the truck standings, hasn't raced in Nextel Cup. He failed to qualify for the 2003 Brickyard 400 in a Morgan-McClure Motorsports car that wasn't very good.

Waltrip's No. 00 car came from Dale Earnhardt Inc.'s short-track stable. It didn't test well at Charlotte recently, but Waltrip's team has made some major changes to it.

Reutimann already races for one Waltrip (Darrell) in the truck series and hopes to have a future with his younger brother, too.

"I tested Michael's Busch car for him a couple of times this year," Reutimann said. "I told him a while back, if he ever had an opportunity, I would love to drive for him. He asked me to test some of his stuff, and this is just another opportunity."

OWNING UP: It was obvious to everyone at Talladega on Sunday that Johnson caused the early eight-car pileup. But Johnson deflected blame at the time, saying he got pushed from behind by Earnhardt and that he wasn't even sure he hit Elliott Sadler.

But Tuesday, Johnson admitted he was at fault and made no excuses.

"I started a wreck and took out a lot of good cars," he said.

"That was the last thing I intended to do, and I feel horrible for it."

Chase driver Mark Martin as well as Earnhardt, Michael Waltrip and pole-sitter Sadler were eliminated in the wreck.

STOP THE BUMPING: Rusty Wallace wants to see an end to bump drafting, the nose-to-tail ramming that caused many of the biggest wrecks at Talladega and Daytona this year.

"When you just go straight down the straightaway and ram somebody in the back when they're turning, that's just crazy," Wallace said Tuesday. "It's not one individual doing it, it's the whole damn field, and NASCAR has just got to make a rule [outlawing it]."

HOT LAPS: Wallace's youngest son Stephen, who turned 18 in August, will try to make his Busch series debut Oct. 22 at Memphis. … Tony Raines, Ward Burton and Mike Wallace are the names being mentioned in connection with the Roger Staubach-Troy Aikman car that will debut next year.