I know we’re all getting sick of the Front Row Motorsports penalty discussion, but I wanted to give it one last word.
A lot of the discussion this week has centered around NASCAR penalizing yet another team who can’t afford it. Lest I start a discussion, Carl Long’s name has been brought up. How could NASCAR penalize another team that likely didn’t gain an advantage (or necessarily mean to do it), but still broke a rule? No matter your feelings on the Carl Long situation (and please let’s not start a discussion of it here), I’ll tell you the situation Front Row finds itself in was completely earned.
Team owner Bob Jenkins and team GM Jerry Freeze have been quoted quite extensively defending their team and the team’s actions (before you ask if I was surprised, of course I wasn’t). Freeze says he doesn’t know where the caps came from, and went on to say:
“We’d be the most inept crooks to do this with rain coming down and the car sitting under a car cover for an hour-and-a-half,” Freeze said. “Certainly there was no intent to do it. Somehow, these valve caps got in our system.”
While I certainly can’t disagree with some of the statement, I can tell you where the caps came from. They came from the toolbox of the #38 team (or #34?).
I know it’s hard to conceive a crew chief putting his team in a position like this. And I’m willing to concede this may have even been a mistake, as Freeze and Jenkins have said it was. The fact remains though that someone grabbed those bleeder valves out of the #38’s toolbox (probably the new – that weekend – tire specialist), which means someone put those very illegal bleeder valves in that toolbox.
It may have been a mistake, but the bleeder valves should have never been there in the first place. And forgive me, but I don’t buy the line that the #38 team came across these caps accidentally. I do however understand the politics of the situation.
In the end, this wasn’t a conspiracy, or anything of the like. It was an honest, stupid mistake (whether purposeful or unintentional). The team got caught this time.
I think through this whole thing though Front Row came out in a pretty good position. They’ll have to have one team qualify on time, but their points deficit isn’t necessarily insurmountable (especially with Robby Gordon in a precarious money situation, and the #71 team starting and parking), and thankfully the monetary fine doesn’t look like it’s going to put them out of business.
What the #38 team did was against the rules. They unfortunately deserved the penalty that was sent their way. Still, I’m rooting for this little team that could – I just hope, for their sake (and the sake of the two other teams, and dozens of employees), they can overcome this big setback.
TheNASCARInsiders.com
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