NASCAR Promotes Cheating

Thursday, February 16, 2006, 12:13 AM

If I thought for a second that Chad Knaus was the only NASCAR crew chief cheating, I would be first in line screaming "Get rid of him!" But everyone cheats in NASCAR. It's a way of life. It's what they do. Except they call it "playing in the grey area," or "we read the rule a little differently." As it is, if I were Hendricks, I would fire Knaus solely on the principle that he gets caught much too often. He's not bright enough to be a crew chief.

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, in 2004 there were 73 instances of fines being dished out totalling nearly $400,000, though some of those were acts of aggression during or after races - and that's just Nextel Cup, that doesn't include the Busch Series or Craftsman Trucks. It's not unusual at Daytona or Talladega to have as many as 10 teams fined for infractions, though many are small and insignificant. The problem is, this isn't Saturday night at the local bullring, this is big dollar... no, make that HUGE dollar - racing. If you're partial to keeping your job, you better start winning, or, at the very least, you better run up front for some premium camera time to keep your sponsors fat, rich and happy.

To do this, teams resort to "Secret Squirrel" stuff. When the crew chief of team "A" screams to NASCAR that team "B" is using an illegal knuten valve, you can rest assured that while NASCAR is checking team "B's" car, team "A" is already back in the garage trying to figure out a way to use the same cheat without getting caught. The best part though, is that at the end of the season, all the fines levied are then cut up between the top 25 teams!  So, it would seem to me that NASCAR is promoting cheating!   Lets face it. The teams lower than 25th are either not cheating or not doing it well enough to go faster.

So, let me get this straight, if you cheat you go faster, if you go faster you accumulate more points, if you accumulate more points you finish in the top 25, and if you finish in the top 25 you receive a piece of the fine that you paid out because you were cheating to go faster! According to that same Wall Street Journal article the fines are paid back on a pro-rated basis according to points. In 2004, Nextel Cup Champion Kurt Busch's team received $84,000 for its cut of the fine fund - of course they only paid out $21,000 in fines. So for their cheating efforts they ended up $63,000 to the good and scored a Championship. Not bad, not bad at all.

NASCAR is the only major sport that doesn't turn over their fine pool to a charity of some sort. Guess they don't make enough money as it is. Of course, on the other hand, if they are going to give it to the teams, how about giving it to the teams that need it? Say...the bottom 20 teams. So, as I said, all things considered, it looks like NASCAR not only approves of cheating, but finances it.

NASCAR...you gotta' love it.