Friday, July 05, 2013

31 Teams Caught With Illegally Modified Roof Flap Spacers

NASCAR’s inspectors stayed busy on a stifling hot day at Daytona International Speedway yesterday, discovering unapproved roof flap spacers on 16 Sprint Cup Series and 15 Nationwide Series cars during opening day inspection.

The violations cut a wide swath through the Sprint Cup Series garage, with three manufacturers and eight different teams feeling the wrath of NASCAR’s rules enforcers. The list of violators included the Roush Fenway Racing Fords of Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle and Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas of Matt Kenseth, Denny Hamlin and  Kyle Busch; the Penske Racing Fords of Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano, the Michael Waltrip Racing Toyotas driven by Clint Bowyer, Michael Waltrip and Martin Truex Jr.; three Richard Petty Motorsports Fords driven by Marcos Ambrose and Aric Almirola, as well as the Earnhardt Ganassi Racing Chevrolet of Jamie McMurray, Trevor Bayne’s Wood Brothers Racing Ford and the Germain Racing Ford of Casey Mears.
All were all apprehended with roof flap spacers that had been illegally machined in an effort to reduce weight.  Roof flaps and their associated installation hardware are sold to teams as a kit by a company owned by Roush Fenway Racing majority owner Jack Roush. A number of teams reportedly machined the spacers to reduce their weight and lower their cars’ centers of gravity. They are not believed to have altered the aerodynamic footprint of the cars.
NASCAR spokesman Kerry Tharp said yesterday that inspectors found one team with the altered spacers Thursday, before widening their search throughout the Sprint Cup and Nationwide garages.
 "When you find something in one garage, you communicate to the other garage," said Tharp. "We looked into it and this is what we found."
Penalties, if any, are expected to be announced Tuesday.

12 comments:

  1. Doug S10:46 AM

    Wait what.... No Chad Knaus? No Hendrick cars? But they are the most cheatinest team in the garage! In my most sarcastic voice!

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    1. Anonymous11:18 AM

      Nice try Doug but now we see all the Fords and that other brand cheating.

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    2. Sorry to burst your bubble Doug, but ha, ha, ha, seems this kind of thing seems to be happening all through the Nascar garage!!!!!!

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  2. I'll be very interested to see how NASCAR reacts to this. I don't know if there has ever been a situation like this that has hit so many teams.

    One thing is for sure, the black helicopters will be circling Daytona this weekend given how no one from HMS and in particular the 48 team were not caught in this.

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    1. Obviously not Rob, they didn't do anything wrong, lol. Only the teams that did got caught. Looks like Gibbs is getting a little confused about Nascar's rules now!!!!

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  3. Anonymous1:39 PM

    How sad is life when you're reduced to weighing spacers? That sounds like a miserable job...
    Ocrainaugh@aol.com

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  4. Anonymous4:50 PM

    Chad Knaus had to be laughing hysterically about this.

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  5. Mike S.6:00 PM

    Well, since they were caught at the same relative time (pre-qualifying) as the 48's illegal C-posts were last year, expect the same kind of penalties to be handed out. And then possibly the same appeals process that the 48 team used last year to escape most of the penalties.

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  6. finally this will be a chance to see if "probation" has teeth. Will the crew chiefs on probation get a stiffer penalty than those who are not?

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  7. Cue the "there's no advantage gained" extended play single. But with 31 teams having them machined, there's definitely an advantage. Sounds to me like lowering the center of gravity would go a long way to increase mechanical grip. And by "long way" I mean enough to make it worth it to do it.

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  8. Anonymous1:06 PM

    Would like to see a close-up view of a spacer and see how it goes together with a flap. As long as there is no safety problem, I don't see why there is such a fuss over them.

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  9. Anonymous2:17 PM

    It will be interesting to see if the teams that are on "probation" are penalized any differently than the teams that are not. NASCAR has made a joke out of their rules & penalties. If a team is already on probation and get in trouble for something else, they should be penalized worse than teams not on probation! We'll see what happens, but it's no wonder NASCAR is losing fans left & right.

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