NASCAR has yet to officially take a win away from a driver due to post race inspections, but they have come awfully close to doing just that with Carl Edwards and now Clint Bowyer. Clint won the NASCAR Sprint Cup race last Sunday at the New Hampshire Speedway. His car passed the post race inspection at the race track, but after his team had been warned the week before about the car, they took his #33 machine back to the Technical Center and there it failed its final inspection.
While NASCAR did not levy a penalty that strips Bowyer of the win, the punishment is most severe. He has lost 150 drivers points, which dropped him from 2nd in the points to 12th. They suspended his Crew Chief and his Car Chief for six races, and they were both hit with momentary fines as well. In baseball terms that means Bowyer will be without his manger and bench coach for the majority of the chase races remaining.
Now Richard Childress, Clint’s car owner, is planning on appealing this ruling. He maintains that the variance in the car, which is being report as less than 1/16th of an inch outside accepted NASCAR parameters, was caused by a tow truck pushing Bowyer into victory lane. He also speculated that many other drivers hit Bowyer’s car as a way of congratulating him after the win.
So we really have two issues here, the first two Sundays ago NASCAR warned Bowyer’s team that their car was very close to be outside the rule book. Then at New Hampshire the car was found to be out of tolerance by a minute amount. Some may say that is to close a tolerance to worry about, but in both of these races Clint either won, or finished sixth. So a little out side the rules may have been the difference.
Related Links:
- The Business of NASCAR
- MTR Auto Racing
