Click Here To Find Cool Nascar Items!

TC had an interesting conversation on our twitter account this week about pit road speeding penalties and just how much transparency NASCAR needs to provide. He said:

Absolutely no reason #NASCAR needs to make pit road speeds public. The teams are informed where they were speeding and by how much.

Needless to say he stood alone in his opinion among those who responded. His overarching point to that tweet and the many that followed was that the people who need to know the information have access to it. And therein lies the problem with most fans and the sport’s media.

There’s a ton of transparency in NASCAR, in many cases more so than in other sports, but only for those who need the information – i.e. the drivers, the crew chiefs, the team owners, etc. If you have a stake in the sport, NASCAR’s pretty crystal clear. Even the media is allowed a ton of access to information.

Consider, NASCAR never issues secret fines like the PGA (with Denny Hamlin last season, just because they didn’t put out a press release, doesn’t mean it was secret); inspections are done out in the open in the garage every weekend; if there’s an inspection done at the R&D Center, crew chiefs are free to come watch; a rulebook is provided to every license holder; and if teams/drivers want to know what their speeds were on pit road, NASCAR is more than happy to provide them.

With a serious distrust for the sanctioning body though, I suspect knowing that a bunch of other people have access isn’t enough for most fans. And I completely understand the want to know more and the desire to keep the sanctioning body honest.

From NASCAR’s perspective though, there has to be a threshold for withholding information. And though it would certainly be wonderful, it’s just not feasible for them to have complete transparency. At some point they would have cameras everywhere, telemetry for everything, but none of us would have the expertise to know what we were seeing. The truth is, some information is going to be proprietary, and even though you see drivers complaining about this, something tells me their bosses feel differently.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all about openness and transparency, but I’m a realist when it comes to this stuff. NASCAR is not a publicly traded company, and they’re not a federal/state/local government – they’re a privately owned sanctioning body. And that means they’re under no obligation to do even the things they do.

Lucky for us, there are some checks in place. They do have a rulebook that they abide by (that everyone in the sport has), they allow teams and drivers a chance to check their work, and if those teams/drivers don’t like a ruling they can appeal it to a semi-independent appeals body (find that in another sport).

NASCAR is far from perfect, and they have a long way to go in improving relations with fans. And maybe in the not too distant future they will provide access to more information. In the meantime though, there is transparency, it just depends what side of the fence you’re on.

Happy Birthday to Us!

Well, we forgot last year’s birthday so we vowed not to do it again. And kudos to us, we remembered. Today is our third birthday. In celebration, we want to thank you for your participation and support. The fact is none of this would be possible without you! May we have another successful year!

TheNASCARInsiders.com

Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!

Click Here To Find Cool Nascar Items!

Why is it when a driver cries foul they’re always correct (drivers are of course the pinnacle of impartiality and infallibility)? And why is it so many people think NASCAR has an agenda with every call they make (after all this is the WWE right)?

Take Saturday night. Kyle Busch wins in the closest finish in Truck Series history and what’s everybody talking about? Him having a tire, or two, below the yellow line as he crossed the start-finish line. That of course means he should lose the win (or maybe not).

NASCAR’s position was that Kyle was forced sideways due to contact, which was why he went below the yellow-line, and why they wouldn’t penalize him.

“He wasn’t forced down there because of a lack of room,” NASCAR Vice-President of Competition Robin Pemberton said. “He got down there because of the door-to-door contact…We looked at it two or three times. We had three or four camera angles and there was absolutely no question whatsoever.”

After watching the video of the final laps over and over and over (and over) again, Kyle was in fact a bit out of control as he went below the yellow line. On top of that, it appears to me Kyle may have had the lead before he crossed below the yellow line (here is the video).

Did Almirola get ‘hosed’? I don’t think so – and I think the video backs that up.

I have to wonder though if the situation were reversed, would people be screaming as loudly about Almirola winning? Or is this just a side effect of Kyle-fatigue? I tend to think no in the former and yes for the latter.

You are of course free to disagree, but the fact is, no matter what you feel, the sanctioning body had to make a ruling on the matter. And as with a lot of on track rules, there has to be discretion. From the beginning, the yellow line rule has not been (and can’t be) a black-and-white rule. There are absolutely incidents where a driver shouldn’t be penalized for crossing below the yellow line.

Now before you jump on me for being a NASCAR homer I will say I haven’t always agreed with NASCAR’s yellow line rulings. Case in point, Regan Smith. I thought he was forced below the yellow line, NASCAR didn’t. To be fair though to the call in the Regan Smith incident, he crossed below the yellow line (why that happened is of course under debate) and continued under the line to pass Tony Stewart. That didn’t happen here.

Just like in any other sport, there are going to be rulings you agree with and rulings you don’t. That doesn’t mean they’re wrong or there is some vast conspiracy to put away a driver, or to let a driver win.

As I said here a couple of weeks ago, you can please some of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all the people all the time. This is definitely one of those situations.

*COMMENT DISCLAIMER: As usual, no name calling, vulgarities, personal attacks, or offensive speech. If we decide your comment contains one of those it will be deleted. If you intend to comment, we ask that you be respectful of your fellow posters and positively contribute to the discussion.*

TheNASCARInsiders.com

Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!

Click Here To Find Cool Nascar Items!

When NASCAR announced today that they were dropping the hammer on Clint Bowyer and his team for violations following his win at Loudon, they showed the teams and fans that nobody is above the law.  Big team, small team, in the Chase, or just trying to qualify, the rules apply to everyone.

Both myself and Journo have not been afraid in the two-plus year existence of this blog to both criticize and defend NASCAR.  If we’ve thought one way or the other, we’ve said so.  And in the process, we’ve often been called homers, kool aid drinkers, and worse.  One very glaring example of such a case where we were accused of being homers was the infamous Carl Long incident.  Over and over we had commenters who claimed that NASCAR was trying to hold the little guy back, and that they never came down hard on big teams (search Carl Long in the search box to the right to see the many posts and comments).  We gave example after example that proved otherwise, but it didn’t matter.  “If the same would have happened to Jimmie Johnson, the penalty would have been less severe.”  So I have one question haters, where are you today?

In a statement from the team, Richard Childress said the measurement in question was off by 60 thousandths of an inch.  So in effect, NASCAR just poured gasoline on Bowyer’s Chase chances (with the 150 point penalty) over the thickness of 15 sheets of paper (Thanks Dr. Diandra).  Still think NASCAR only bullies the little guys?

It was very interesting today to follow this story as it developed and all the discussion via Twitter.  We had everyone from drivers, to the media and the fans reacting as this story happened.  For those upset by the penalty, it appears that the overwhelming reason is that NASCAR wouldn’t give exact details about what was illegal.  I did see too the theory that NASCAR was doing this to Bowyer just to help out Jimmie, which I think is great, because dropping Bowyer from second to twelfth in the standings doesn’t benefit Johnson in any way.  He’s still 92 points out of the lead regardless.  What I didn’t see were any comments about the fairness of the penalty based on the status of RCR as a team in the sport.

I also want to point out that this penalty was announced on the same day as a penalty levied against little Whitney Motorsports for engine valves that did not meet weight requirements.  They were fined $50,000, lost their crew chief for six races, and lost 50 driver and owner points.  I sure didn’t see anyone piling on NASCAR for penalizing this small team.  And they claim that it wasn’t their fault because the engine was worked on by Arrington Engines, which sounds awfully familiar to the story Carl Long gave about his illegal engine.  Yet still no comments.  Why?  Because it’s tough to hate on NASCAR for being unfair on a day when they showed that it doesn’t matter who breaks the rules.

Over the last few years we’ve been fed all types of reasons why something was illegal on a race car.  We’ve heard rogue crew chiefs, rogue engine shops, and rogue crew members were to blame.  But a rogue tow truck driver?  Now that takes the cake.

TheNASCARInsiders.com

Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!