NASCAR SHOULD LET UP ON REINS
A piece of tape on spoiler costs Elliott spots in standings
Among the more interesting moments of the first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series playoff race at Chicagoland Speedway was a camera pan.
The view, beyond Chase Elliott’s left shoulder, showed an extremely guilty looking member of his crew stationed behind the spoiler of his No. 24 Chevrolet.
Except no one really noticed until the Reddit community elevated the clip into an industry discussion, which apparently became the basis for a substantial penalty announcement Tuesday.
Face vacant and gazing forward, the firesuited Hendrick Motorsports crewman resembled an assassin exchanging the king ’s chalice for the one with poison in it.
What he appeared to be doing was removing something from the spoiler, which, according to anecdotal reports and photo evidence, could have been a piece of tape that could have added downforce and extra handling through turns. Officially, the team was ruled to have had an illegal “modification of components to affect the aerodynamic properties of the vehicle” in a later inspection.
Elliott’s runner-up finish was encumbered, meaning it cannot be used as a tiebreaker for playoff advancement. The team was sanctioned 15 points, crew chief Alan Gustafson was suspended — as was car chief Joshua Kirk — and fined $15,000. So they won’t be around for the ISM Connect 300 (Sunday, 2 p.m. ET, NBC Sports Network) at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Elliott fell from sixth to eighth in the standings with two races remaining before four of the 16 playoff drivers are eliminated.
This chicanery and jurisprudence provided the memorable moment, albeit in postscript, of a race in which the most successful driver of the season — regularseason champion Martin Truex Jr. — won for the series-best fifth time.
So if a little bit of tape is necessary to enliven things, here’s to more of it and a relaxation of the rules that have seemingly cornered NASCAR in a situation where a very limited number of teams are highly competitive at the same time.
Undoubtedly, NASCAR and racing in general have less disparity than in earlier decades when margins of victory were
In an era when a sliver of tape can have such an impact on such aerodependent Cup cars, let them have tape.
larger and the amount of leadlap cars fewer. That simply wouldn’t be tolerated in a modern, television-driven racing product.
But in an era when a sliver of tape can have such an impact on such aerodependent Cup cars, let them have tape.
Teams spend halves of seasons retracing missteps. The Toyota camp, specifically Joe Gibbs Racing, required most of the regular season to regain footing after dominating the first 26 races last season. Team Penske has labored in finding speed since NASCAR negated an area it was plumbing in a successful spring. Hendrick and Stewart-Haas Racing have flickered.
There is credit due to Furniture Row Racing and crew chief Cole Pearn for expanding its footprint from 2016, when Truex won four races. But in FRR there also is an example of why it could be beneficial in loosening some of the aero rules NASCAR has spent years and iterations of car designs hardening.
In Denver, well beyond the edge of the NASCAR world, an affiliate of JGR that has grown into its superior performancewise, FRR has shown how innovation and talent can create advantages that win races. There just needs to be more of this phenomenon.
This is no revival of the tired “if-you-ain’t-cheatin’-you-ain’ttryin’ ” mantra. Gustafson’s team was beyond current parameters and was punished for it.
This is no advocacy for mayhem. The traditional off-limits areas of manipulation should re- main: tires, engine, fuel.
And this is not suggesting that a team mount one of those dashboard Hawaiian dancer on the roof for sideforce — unless it worked. But let the guys with the laptops make racing better.
Teams with more of these guys figure to jump ahead, but they can no longer test these hypotheses for days on end, expending money other teams don’t have. But in allowing for greater innovation, there is a chance that someone out there somewhere, maybe at a JTG Daugherty Racing or Front Row Motorsports, can hit on something and create more Furniture Rows in miniature. And then it’s on to the next idea and who hits it first.
But if the couple of bucks in tape that appeared to be trailing off Elliott’s spoiler Sunday actu- ally made that much of a difference, good job to whoever figured that out. Hopefully it didn’t cost a couple of million dollars in wind tunnel time.
And unless it creates an immediate and identifiable safety concern, NASCAR should let Gustafson have his roll back. Because there’s no doubt every one of his counterparts has a little gimmick in the toolbox, too.
A series with its roots in clandestine enterprise has taken great pains institutionally to assure fans it runs a square deal. And that’s noble. But part of the charm fans derive from nascent NASCAR is the spirit of wrenching on something and making it better than what the other guy has. In modern NASCAR, that’s letting the smart guys be smart and letting the racing have a chance to be more interesting.