Childers: Other teams were cheating first

AVONDALE, Ariz. — Kevin Harvick’s crew chief said Stewart-Haas Racing modified the spoiler on Harvick’s car because other teams were already doing similar alterations.

Rodney Childers is suspended for the final two races of the season and working at the race shop in North Carolina as Harvick tries to overcome a penalty issued this week for what NASCAR determined was a blatant case of cheating.

Harvick won last weekend at Texas. When the spoiler was removed from his No. 4 Ford during an extensive inspection in North Carolina, NASCAR discovered the part had been altered.

It is NASCAR’s belief that SHR built its own spoiler and tried to pass it off as one distributed by the vendor. The spoiler was offset to the right and NASCAR said the altered part gave Harvick an aerodynamic advantage.

SHR did not appeal the penalty and acknowledged “NASCAR determined we ventured into an area not accommodated by its rule book.”

Childers elaborated in a series of tweets early Friday morning in which he said SHR made the decision to move the spoiler after other teams shifted their decklids and spoilers to the right in the previous 1.5-mile race at Kansas Speedway. Childers said it was too late for the team to move the decklid for the Texas race.

“This year there isn’t a number or officiating on the offset of the decklid and spoiler together on the car. And at Kansas we noticed people we were racing had the spoilers and decklids further to the right than ours. And it was too late to move the decklid over more,” Childers posted on Twitter.

Additional posts claimed the downforce advantage was “4 counts. That’s 0.04% of the total downforce of the car. If you think 4 counts is the reason we won, you’re way wrong.”