Jul 9, 2007

NASCAR Needs a Lesson in Discipline

If NASCAR were running the Los Angeles County criminal justice system, Paris Hilton wouldn't have spent any time in jail. Instead, her personal assistant would have done time for her. And the personal assistant would have served her sentence in a deluxe motor home parked with a view of county jail, rather than actually being in county jail. Come on, fellows, this is getting absurd!

What prompts this rant is the recent story that NASCAR officials have vowed to get tough on Nextel Cup crew chiefs who are serving suspensions after it was learned that Tony Eury Jr., who is Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s crew chief, performed many of his duties for the team during the Loudon, N.H., race from a motor coach on a hill overlooking the track. NASCAR chairman Brian France was quoted as saying that Eury's actions insult the integrity of the penalty.

Let me go on record right now as also insulting the integrity of the penalty. Because, up until we see something different, the penalty to Eury, and those recently handed down to Chad Knaus and Steve Letarte, who are crew chiefs for Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon, respectively, are hard to picture as penalties at all. Penalties are supposed to be dire consequences of bad actions that will motivate better behavior in the future. But the six week "suspensions" of Eury, Letarte and Knaus seem only to provide their teams with minor logistical problems. We've got to believe that in all the upcoming races in which Gordon and Johnson will compete during the "suspensions," their crew chiefs will still find a way to call the important strategic shots.
Now there is a great deal of debate over how many championships points should be docked for an infraction like the ones committed by the Gordon and Johnson crews. Is 100 points enough? Are 200 points too many? All of which is just so much baloney anyway. As long as Gordon and Johnson are comfortably in the top 12, and they are, 100 points or even 200 points means darn little to them. It's not really a penalty at all; it's more of an annoyance, like a pimple on their...well, supply your own body part. 

As we have said in this space before, if NASCAR really wants to punish bad behavior, like tampering with the shape of the Car of Tomorrow racecar, then it should suspend the teams for a race. Just prevent them from competing for a week -- that would cure them. But otherwise, all-powerful NASCAR doesn't seem to have the will to do that. Could sponsor money mean that much to them?