Posted on 07/07/2003 11:07:39 AM PDT by Wolfstar
Well, it's about that time of the year for me to write one of those articles that gets me in trouble. I don't try to do this, but sometimes it just happens. If you have read my stuff before you know that I write what I see and I hold nothing back.
Dale Earnhardt Jr's dominance in the Busch series continued this weekend. He led wire to wire and took the win at Daytona.
Anytime Dale Jr wins, the conspiracy theorists come out in full form and make up the craziest stories as to how NASCAR let Dale get away with it and how they favor him. I am always one to say that the rules are the rules and NASCAR can not fix the outcome of a race.
I still believe that.
However, I saw something on Friday that shocked me. Not only did Jr's crew do something so blatantly obvious during inspection, but the NASCAR officials let it go, and to top it off they laughed and joked about it.
[SNIP]
This weekend I was at Daytona with garage/pit credentials courtesy of NASCAR. After this, it'll probably be the last time.
Inspection finally opened up prior to the race and the cars were sent thru a maze in the garage area consisting of about 5 or 6 different areas that the teams pushed the cars thru. One checked body templates, one checked under the cars, one checked the weight, etc. I found it odd that they would move the cars to several different locations to accomplish this, but a NASCAR official escorted each car from station to station to ensure that no one did anything illegal.
When Dale Jr's car was going thru the station that checks the roof height and the valance heights and others, I walked over to that station and snapped off a couple pictures...
[SNIP]
Jr's team pushed the car up on the scales.
The NASCAR officials were having the teams disconnect and reconnect the sway bar at the scales. So, the 8 team, as others, lifted the hood and went to work on the sway bar. Then it happened.
One of Jr's crew members walked over to the passenger side and while the inspectors were looking at the computer to see the numbers and the other one was watching the guy wrenching on the sway bar, the crew member grabbed the hood in the area where it goes over the right front tire and bent it severely upward away from the fender. I sat there for a second thinking, "Why did he do that?"
Then the officials told them to close the hood and move on to the next station, they had passed this portion of inspection. At this point the same crew member closed the hood and now it didn’t fit with the fender anymore. So what did he do? He grabbed the fender and yanked it up at least an inch and a half to meet the newly shaped hood. As he yanked it up, the rest of the fender, above the tire twisted and contorted to this new shape. He closed the hood and it still wasn’t right, so he opened it and adjusted the fender some more until he got it where he wanted it. Then he closed the hood.
This was a major modification to the shape of the fender at a place where the templates are checked very closely.
To make it worse, there were 3 NASCAR inspectors watching this. One Winston Cup inspector and 2 Busch series officials.
They looked at each other and one said to Jr's guys, "That was a major adjustment there guys, I think you need to go back thru the templates."
I thought, "Ok, they are going to do the right thing."
Then they all laughed. The crew guy said, "OH, they never check that anyways." And they laughed some more. The main inspector looked at the obviously tweaked fender and shook his head and said, "I knew we couldn't trust you guys." And they all laughed again.
They pushed the car over to the next station and that was the end of it.
How could these officials let this team make such a blatant adjustment to a critical part of the car and not make them go back thru the templates?
[SNIP]
Now, I am sure all the Jr fans will write in and tell me that I am jealous of Jr or that I need to get a life. But I want you to seriously consider what happened. The rules specifically state that no adjustments can be made to the body of the car after it goes thru the templates or else you must go thru the templates again. A major reshaping of this fender was done and the officials just laughed it off.
I watched several other teams get sent back thru the templates and other stations for far less minor infractions.
Jr fan or not, a rule is rule and it must be enforced evenly. I place the blame here on the NASCAR officials and not on Jr's team. They did what they had to do and they got away with it. The officials did not do their job properly. I personally would like to see an investigation into this and find out why it was allowed. I have the names of all 3 NASCAR officials if anybody wants them. And, I actually had one person say that post race inspection would have found the infraction if there was one. They do not template the car in post race inspection. The cars bump each other during the race.
[SNIP]
If you look at the...photos you can see...the area where the fender was adjusted.
[END EXERPT]
(Excerpt) Read more at insidethepitbox.com ...
As I suspected we've already given the author more fame than he's entitled. Surprised that he has a history with DEI though, I figured he was just trying to get more hits to his website by juicing up something that is normal procedure. Nice to see that these small adjustments are commonplace too, I figured that had to be the case and obviously it wasn't moved an inch and a half, that's just crazytalk.
Glad that you're going to be rewarded for this. :^)
I agree. ESPN was way better.
Wow, that's something I didn't know. I bet he feels terrible about it, Petty was always fan-friendly.
Yeah DJ, I share #3Fan's congratulations on your reward.
Tell ya what...for that Bristol race only, I'll (shudder) pull for Dale Jarrett to win. ; ^ )>
Stop, you're killin' me.
'Twas fun.
This was nothing more than me fleshing out a story that I thought (and most of you thought) was bogus.
Maybe I should be a reporter. *grinning widely now*
15 yards, personal foul :-(
Speaking of "puke", I read an article in a magazine called, "In Touch" who named the 10 Top Divas. Katie Colon was #2. Here's a snip from the magazine and then a quote from the little RAT herself:
"Katie once admitted her nice girl persona is all an act: 'I try to be as charming and ingratiating as I can without making myself vomit'."
Gee whiz, Katie....I vomit every single time I see you on tv. It's only fair that you should vomit, too. You're so selfish. Oh yeah, one more thing: I never bought the nice-girl persona to begin with...I pegged you right off the bat. It wasn't that hard, either: afterall, with all the snarling, teeth gnashing, dagger eye looks and slams you get in at the president, it was kinda hard not to catch on, stupid.
You're always going to get some crap about liking these drivers:
Jeff Gordon
Tony Stewart
Sterling Marlin
Jr.
Robby Gordon
These drivers are never going to have middle-of-the-road fans---you either love them or you hate them.
If Dale Earnhardt was still alive, he'd be on that list, too. These are the people fans love to hate. :-) Deej
Sorry, but...I'm kinda biased about Joe Nemechek. I know is family, so I have to remove myself from that subject. :-)
Dale Jr went to Dale Jarrett last year to help him get through the concussion so they're pretty friendly with each other.
Maybe I should be a reporter. *grinning widely now*
You did more investigative reporting than the author. :^)
I take particular note of the fact that the essentials of what that Faillo guy wrote did happen, but that the spin he gave it was that the modifications were illegal. After all the harrumphing on this thread about how it couldn't possibly have happened at all, you'll forgive a small smile from me, I hope, over the irony.
He didn't move it an inch and a half. I said small modifications were probably the norm the whole time on this thread. But an inch and a half?...no. Regardless, we were all right, the author of this is a liar and you were a fool to believe him seeing as how he couldn't even keep his story straight.
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