Commentary: No. 48 car penalties? Check your shock and outrage at the door

Commentary: No. 48 car penalties? Check your shock and outrage at the door

March 1, 2012

By Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

Shock? Outrage?

If those are your reactions to the penalties NASCAR imposed on the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports team for the "C" Post infractions at Daytona -- get over it.

If you view the fines, suspensions and point penalties as excessive, you simply haven't been paying attention.

Equally unsupportable is the argument that NASCAR came down harder on crew chief Chad Knaus than the sanctioning body otherwise would because Knaus is a repeat offender.

For the record, NASCAR confiscated the "C" Posts of Jimmie Johnson's Daytona 500 car on Feb. 17, deeming them outside the car-building specifications NASCAR provides to its Sprint Cup teams.

Specifically, the "C" Posts that connect the rear of the roof to the deck lid were flared beyond allowable tolerances, in a configuration that could give the car an aerodynamic advantage by taking air off the rear spoiler.

On Wednesday, NASCAR issued penalties for the violations -- a $100,000 and six-week suspension to Knaus, 25-point deductions to Johnson and owner-of-record Jeff Gordon and a six-week suspension to car chief Ron Malec.

So why are you surprised? Those penalties are completely consistent with so-called new car crimes that have cropped up periodically since the introduction of NASCAR's new-generation racecar in 2007.

Knaus and Steve Letarte, then Gordon's crew chief, were fined $100,000 and suspended for six weeks after the 2007 Sonoma race for bringing cars that were out of bounds in a 10-inch area between the templates that measure the front fenders.

The 100-point penalties issued to drivers and owners in that instance are the functional equivalent of 25 points under the scoring system NASCAR introduced last year -- slightly more than half the maximum number of points a driver can score in a Cup race.

On the day the Daytona violation was discovered, NASCAR Sprint Cup Series director John Darby characterized the "C" Post violations as a rough equivalent to the modifications at Sonoma in 2007.

"I think it kind of falls in line with other body violations that we've seen in the past," Darby said. "Somebody mentioned Sonoma. It's typical to that."

Darby also affirmed that the No. 48 car violations constituted work between the templates that measure that area of the car.

"In the old days, teams used to work in between the templates, and that all stopped in 2007, and that's ultimately where the violation of this one lies," Darby said.

The specifications NASCAR provides to its teams cover all areas of the car. Templates used in the inspection process at the racetrack don't cover all areas, but it's understood that the entire car must conform to specs.

The Hendrick Motorsports organization certainly knows that.

"We felt we understood fully the rules," Hendrick vice president of development Doug Duchardt said after the cars of Gordon and Johnson failed inspection at Sonoma nearly five years ago. "We felt that we could work between the points on the template and it became clear to us, and I think to everyone, that that is not acceptable."

Did Knaus not get the memo?

The points penalty to Johnson actually is less severe than the 150 points levied against Clint Bowyer when the rear of his car was found to be 60-thousandths of an inch outside of tolerance after Bowyer won the first 2010 Chase race at New Hampshire.

From day one, NASCAR has said that infractions involving the bodies of the new cars would be treated severely. For the past five years, enforcement has been entirely consistent.

Hendrick has announced plans to appeal the penalties. From the organization's statement, we can infer that Hendrick will hang its hat on procedural issues, specifically that the car was busted before it actually went through the inspection line.

NASCAR will argue that a car is subject to scrutiny from the moment the hauler rolls into the garage until the moment it leaves.

The sport prides itself on an open garage. Competitors have been known to "rat out" rivals to protect the field. It's equally possible that a NASCAR inspector saw something obviously untoward with the "C" Posts and put a gauge to them.

The bottom line is that Knaus brought a car to the track with body modifications outside NASCAR's guidelines and intended to race it.

What the appeal does is keep Knaus at the racetrack until the National Stock Car Racing Commission holds a hearing, and that may be the point.

With Johnson now 23 points to the negative, after a 42nd-place finish in the Daytona 500, he'll need all the help he can get to climb out of that hole.