Richard
Childress Racing will appeal a series of penalties levied by NASCAR for
allegedly altering tires in a race at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California last month.
Tires confiscated
from the No. 31 Chevrolet driven by Ryan Newman following the event were
examined by an independent third party and found to have been altered in an
attempt to release excess air pressure during race runs.
Crew
chief Luke Lambert was fined $125,000, placed on probation through December 31
and suspended for the next six championship races; along with the NASCAR Sprint
All Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway in May. Newman and car owner Richard Childress were docked 75 championship driver and owner points, and the team’s
tire technician and engineer were suspended for six races and placed on
probation through Dec. 31.
The team has asked that those suspensions be postponed pending appeal, and NASCAR has approved that request. The point penalties will remain intact.
No
date for the appeal has been announced.
I'm glad to see that RCR is appealing this... the biggest problem I have with this whole deal is NASCAR could put a lot of this crap to bed if the brain trust would take a couple of basic PR classes at the local community college and learn how to be a lot more transparent and consistent when it comes to stuff like this.
ReplyDeletePerfect example... the NFL and their own little deflategate... hell I don't even know if they've handed down their penalties yet... but everything they know so far in their investigation for the most part WE know... and why? Because they have been open, transparent, and TOLD us throughout every step what's been going on... it wasn't all vague and wishy washy crap about third party this and tampered foot balls that... it was specific... air pressures... chain of custody... the science was presented to us for scrutiny... hell even Bill Nye the Science Guy was given a chance to weight in... EVERYTHING has been completely open and transparent... and NASCAR needs to be the same way... chain of custody, who had those tires the moment they came off the truck?... why wasn't there an official watching them at all times?... who was the third party doing the testing?.... what methods did they use? ... was it one tire that turned up bad and thus possibly a fluke or the whole batch? ... All of this stuff needs to be put out there. If they are worried that the public wouldn't understand, no problem, that’s why we have guys like Ray Evernham, Jeff Hammond, Steve Letarde (sp?), Larry Mac, and others working for the media now to help the lay person understand this stuff.
The second they decided on this penalty they should have called a press conference and gone into detail explaining exactly what it is they found and why they handled it the way they did and then they should have taken questions. They haven't done that... and now here we are dealing with all of this crap... This is ridiculous. I'm a lead engineer with a construction management and engineering firm. We deal with stuff like this all of the time in the realm of materials Quality Control/Quality Assurance testing. There are VERY specific and VERY transparent guidelines involving sampling, testing, and verification of materials that are used on construction projects. We do this ALL OF THE TIME because it's smart business, it leaves no wiggle room, it results in full communication, and everything is fully understood. All NASCAR does 90% of the time is throw a press release out there with a pile of general information about “actions detrimental” and leave a whole lot of unanswered questions and then you get the black helicopter crowd out there spooling up their turbines and rotors ready to fill in the gaps.
Now you told a caller this wouldn't be fair to RCR because they haven't had a chance to review the data first and present their side of the story…. Dave…. fair went out the window the second they announced all of this… That bell has been rung already... You already have fans screaming for CAT and Quicken Loans and others to end their sponsorships of the 31 and suspend not just the crew chief etc. but Newman himself.... I'm sure you may remember Raymond J. Donovan the Sec. of Labor under Pres. Reagan who was once charged with larceny and fraud and was later exonerated… he was afterward famously quoted "Which office do I go to get my reputation back?" RCR is now facing the same situation even if they win this…. They have been “arrested” and done the proverbial NASCAR “perp walk” as a result of this so that image is now burned in everyone’s mind and damage is done... NASCAR needs to pull their headquarters out of their hindquarters on this stuff or they are going to find themselves in a bind real quick when it comes to credibility… they already have enough people flying the black helicopters around their trailers at the races as it is.