So if you haven’t heard, this past Wednesday, NASCAR handed down a heavy penalty against Robby Gordon for an unapproved nose piece that was discovered on opening day during the inspection at Daytona, the penalty is 100 driver points and 100 owner points, the crew chief is suspended for 6 races, fined $100k and put on probation until December 31st.
Robby Gordon is saying on his website that: This was an innocent mistake made by someone not even on my team. They accidentally supplied us the new Dodge noses that NASCAR hasn't yet approved because of what amounted to a clerical error. It was discovered during technical inspection and corrected before the race. It was not even close to being an intent to create some competitive advantage, and the mistake was not even made by my team. This penalty is way out of proportion when you compare it what happened last year when a team was penalized 100 points for adding a substance to the fuel, or when a team deliberately changed the bodies of the COT. To penalize my team the same amount when we didn't even make the mistake, and the mistake was nothing more than inadvertent human error by someone else is just not fair. Other teams who have had similar issues to what happened with the nose on my car were only penalized 25 points. (Read More)So is there really something bigger here and did NASCAR make the right call? Basically, like I said in the beginning, it is a simple question and while I feel for Robby Gordon that he did get the wrong nose after switching manufacturers late on from Ford to Dodge, it’s still Robby Gordon’s responsibility for everything that not only he does, but everything that is on his car and that’s it. Its not NASCAR’s fault nor responsibility otherwise, so I still believe that NASCAR made the only call that they could and it is the correct one, at least they stayed consistent.
In the past NASCAR has issued the same size penalties for unapproved parts or illegal parts or anything relating to the COT and the message has been clear, if you mess with the COT you will be penalized heavy and the average penalty has been 100 driver/owners points, crew chief suspended for 6 races, fined $100k and on probation for the rest of the year.
This is not the first time that NASCAR has handed down a penalty such as this, last year after the Darlington race, Dale Earnhardt Jr, was penalized the same for an unapproved rear wing mounting brackets. (Read my previous post here.)
I really don’t see that there is anything else that NASCAR can do at this point, its all up to the appeals process which looks like it will happen somewhere around the Atlanta race since Gordon lives on the west coast.
In reply to a comment from Johnny:
I understand what you are saying, however the way that NASCAR has issued penalties in the past, they have backed themselves into a corner and the only fair thing that they can do is hand out 100 driver/owner points, 100k fines and crew chief gets suspended for 6 races to anyone who messes or has a wrong part on the COT regardless of what caused it.Do I like the penalites no, do I agree, no, so I am interested in seeing if Gordon's penalty is overturned or reduced.
- Racedriven
2 Comments:
I really disagree with you on this one for a couple of reasons. Primarily, there was no intent to either use an illegal part or modify an existing "untouchable" part. This was an off the shelf part from Dodge that he used here, not Chad Knaus finding some kind of loophole in the body jig. Dodge had a valid part # and tag for it, and Robby was just the victim of their bad information. I think Dodge will likely pay his fine for him, but for his situation, this was devastating because the points loss will knock him way back, maybe into "go or go home" status while he is desperately looking for sponsors.
The punishment should fit the crime here. There was no attempt to gain illegal advantage nor was there a safety hazard from using that nose. A hefty fine is logical because Dodge will pay it and be more careful about their operations in the future. 25 points might have made Robby more careful, but 100 will cripple his operation and they should be more sensitive to that, although getting rid of one of their more vocal personalities may be something they want to do.
Hi Johnny,
I understand what you are saying, however the way that NASCAR has issued penalties in the past, they have backed themselves into a corner and the only fair thing that they can do is hand out 100 driver/owner points, 100k fines and crew chief gets suspended for 6 races to anyone who messes or has a wrong part on the COT regardless of what caused it.
Do I like the penalites no, do I agree, no, so I am interested in seeing if Gordon's penalty is overturned or reduced.
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