Here we go again. For those of you that don’t know, after the Nationwide Series race at Michigan on Saturday, the Joe Gibbs Racing Nationwide Series teams were discovered to have put magnets under the accelerators so NASCAR inspectors wouldn’t be able to get an accurate read on horsepower on the chassis dyno. If you’ll remember a few weeks back, NASCAR changed the rules in the Nationwide Series for the Toyota teams to hopefully level the playing field in terms of horsepower. This was obviously an action taken by a team to hide any more horsepower gains they’ve made.
You can be sure that NASCAR will levy some serious penalties against the #18 and #20 teams this week, along with crew chiefs Dave Rogers and Jason Ratcliff. It was a very blatant attempt to foil NASCAR, and it has made some people very angry, including David Poole.
In his post, Poole mentions the commonly used saying “if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.” While I understand his dislike for the saying, it is true. The level of competition has become so high, that working in those “gray” areas has become necessary. But even saying that, what Gibbs did was not them working in one of those gray areas. It was about as blatant as cheating gets.
I do agree with Poole on the fact that the crew chiefs are ultimately responsible for their cars. They, along with their car chiefs make the final decisions about what happens to their racecars. If something is found to be illegal, they need to be ready for the heat.
Another element to this story I find interesting is the public statement made by the team. Michael Waltrip Racing attempted to take the same stance last year at Daytona as JGR has this time around, blaming an individual or a few individuals. Do they really expect the public to believe that?
You can be certain that putting magnets on not one, but two cars was not the act of some rogue employee in the engine department. Moves like these and Waltrip’s fuel episode at Daytona last year are made with the knowledge of many. Maybe J.D. and Joe Gibbs didn’t know about it, but I promise that others with authority at JGR had knowledge of the situation.
More then anything else going forward, it really is a shame for the Gibbs organization and what they’ve been able to accomplish this season. Now every bit of success they’ve had this year will be scrutinized and people will say they only won because they cheated. JGR is a strong enough team that they didn’t need to do something stupid like this to gain an advantage. They have one of the smartest engine builders in the game in Mark Cronquist and they would have been able to recover from any small loss in horsepower.
So if you hear a loud crashing sound tomorrow or Wednesday, don’t be alarmed. Its only NASCAR lowering the boom on JGR.
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on Aug 18th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Unlike with MWR last year, I think Gibbs, Joe and J.D., are embarassed that it happened, not that they got caught. I expect that when they find out who was responsible, they will fire them.
on Aug 18th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
I blame JGR top brass,remember when the GM teams said they didn’t want them at the GM meetings because the deal was already done with Toyota?…they kept denying it while going to the meetings but it was true.
La Cosa Nostra… Gibbs style
The top guys know it but you’ll never be able to finger them.
on Aug 19th, 2008 at 5:39 am
I might be a little uneducated on this topic, but can you explain how the magnets would effect the dyno test? Is it that they wouldn’t allow the gas pedal to go all the way to the floor board? Again I apologize if this is a really stupid question.
on Aug 19th, 2008 at 7:01 am
AJ: That’s not a stupid question at all. The answer is yes, that is exactly what they were trying to do. They put the cars on a chassis dyno to find out how much wheel horsepower they’ve got. By putting magnets on the throttle, they couldn’t be pressed all the way to the floor. It’s a very simple thing to do, but NASCAR has some very smart officials, and they caught them.
on Aug 19th, 2008 at 7:48 am
Ummm, I have a question. Why aren’t engine builders allowed to extract as much HP from an engine as they can? Also, why does NASCAR take hp issues into their own hands? Since they want to legislate HP, maybe they should just hand everyone an engine & say here’s your motor for the race, like it or go home. If the engines are legal, NASCAR needs to butt out. Altho I am not a Toyota fan, NASCAR let them in, so that’s their problem. They have already gone to extremes with the chassis part.In my opinion these people are getting the wrong message, and watching their boring racing is getting really old!!! Even Bristol dose’nt seem to be the same since the repaving.
on Aug 19th, 2008 at 8:03 am
The effort that Fox Sports has put into making Gibbs look good in this mess is incredible. Lee Spencer wrote an article praising Gibbs for the hones way he was handling this situation. I’ve heard several JGR fans suggest that the magnets were put on the car by another team before the race. The idiocy of this whole thing is mind numbing. Gibbs is cheating, spin it any way you want to, this is still what it comes down to . This story is the first one I have read that doesn’t read like it was written by the Toyota PR department. Keep it up.
on Aug 19th, 2008 at 10:36 am
“JGR is a strong enough team that they didn’t need to do something stupid like this to gain an advantage. ”
And Richard Nixon didn’t need to do unscrupulous things to win his second term, he won by a landslide. Still, to some, it ain’t worth winning if you don’t win big and greed is a natural human tendency. Also human nature, not showing one’s hand unless absolutely necessary.
on Aug 19th, 2008 at 11:12 am
If a team is gonna cheat, at least do something exotic like a hidden NOS injector or traction control! But to risk the rath of NASCAR to hide a horsepower advantage on a NNS car!?
Dumb, Dumb Dumb!!!
What next? Will this lead NASCAR to issue sealed, spec-crate motors to the teams?
“IROC - We have arrived!”
on Aug 19th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I’m not advocating turning Nascar into IROC Sr, but the best car race I have ever had the pleasure of watching was the IROC race at Texas in ‘05. Frank Kimmel rolled his car and the race was filled with all the passing, bumping and banging you could ever hope for, from the very start. Tony Stewart held off Martin Truex and five other cars for the win and we got to see him climb the fence. Way better than any of the Cup races I have ever watched at the track. Real good time.
on Aug 19th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Ok, Boys and Girls, Let ge a grip. There is not a team in the NASCAR garage that dose’nt cheat in one way or another. Each and every team will push their luck with the big boys at NASCAR. Now being dumb enough to put a shim that is magnitic under the throttle stop or on top of it is pure stupidity. Did Management know? Think about it, If you were a car cheif, would’nt you know what was going on with your race car. Yes they have lots of employees, but I’m sure they knew. They just didnt want to have to work another 70 hour week trying to figure out how to get back the horsepower NASCAR was going to steal from them. Think about this not all JGR drivers have been winning, maybe they needed that horsepower just to win. Remember the grey areas from years ago, they are still there, just in different areas of the car. The sad thing is that JGR was dumb enough to get caught. Now thats really dumb.
on Aug 20th, 2008 at 7:25 am
In this case it’s clear the drivers played a part in the cheating.
What about other times? Like when Johnson and Gordons’ cars were taken last year. Drivers always deny any knowledge. Do they know what is going on or do the crew chief’s keep them in the dark so they can absolutely deny and wrongdoing?
on Aug 20th, 2008 at 10:21 am
I just read on Jayski the penalties handed down to JGR by NASCAR. Wow, are they severe!!!
But what seems unfair to me is that the crew chiefs, car chiefs and engine tuners (the 70 hour-per-weekers) are taking the brunt of the punishment. Meanwhile JGR, Inc. is getting off pretty lightly - docked 150 owner points per NNS team, but neither team is running for the points championship.
If NASCAR really wanted to send a message to the team, why didn’t they DQ JGR’s NNS entries for Bristol?
Uh, wait! Let me guess……it would hurt “The Show”?
on Aug 20th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Steve C. & Zieke,
NASCAR put the regulations on the Toyota teams specifically because they were extracting more horsepower out of their engine than the other teams. This was done in an attempt to “level the playing field” as NASCAR calls it.
Back in the day they were allowed to extract all they could out of a motor provided they used the approved parts, but in the “New Age NASCAR” equal is what they desire. Which I might add, I don’t agree with either. I believe in the old adage of “Race what you brung”. Equal cars leads to racing in big packs, big wrecks (which goes against NASCAR’s safety program), and overall boring racing in my opinion.
Teams spending 70 hour weeks trying to get “more HP’s” out of the motor will do them no good and prove to be a wasted effort. If they get more horses out of the motor, NASCAR will just put another (and bigger) restriction on them again. Those teams that are still looking for more horsepower are spinning their wheels and missing the point of the “level playing field” entirely. They’d be better off spending the time working on spring packages and car setups instead.
They may be super smart when it comes to building engines but they seem to be missing the Big Picture…
For J.T.
NASCAR has already hinted at the possibility of a universal engine. The COT was just the beginning and forcing teams to switch over to a generic car and motor package all in the same year would be too expensive. If memory serves me right, I believe 2010 was when NASCAR said they would begin to introduce the Universal Engine program.
on Aug 20th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
JT if NASCAR were really interested in fairness cup drivers would not b in the Nationwide series at all!!
On a brighter note I will be attending the forst Nationwide series race next year at my home track, Iowa Speedway, it’s a great track ya’ll!!!
on Aug 20th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Sure there are gray areas in sports–all sports not just racing. Nobody’s going to say you’re cheating if you try to get a little advantage by moving early on a faceoff or exaggerate a fall in the penalty box a little bit. The thing is, this was not in that gray area. If you’ve got an NBA ref taking bribes, it undermines the integrity of the sport. In this case, there is no common engine, so NASCAR does have to play a role in ensuring the basic package is fair from make to make–just like they used to do with the bodies before the common template. Tampering with their ability to do so does, it seems to me, undermine the integrity of the sport just as much as soaking tires or traction control. It’s not gamesmanship. It’s not gray area. It’s cheating. Imagine you’re a Chevy team trying to catch these guys, and you spend a ton of time and money trying to catch up because you “know” you’re not getting beat on horsepower when in fact you are. It’s just wrong. I’m all for pushing the rules to the limit, but there is such a thing as cheating, and this is it.
on Aug 20th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Bobby, how is it clear that the drivers played a part in the cheating?
on Aug 20th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Eric, it’s not so clear anymore. The first reports said the drivers put the magnets in place before exiting the car. Now different stories are coming out. Nobody knows for sure. I am sure though that the team would sacrifice a team member to make sure their driver did not take the fall.
on Aug 21st, 2008 at 7:25 am
I have a hard time believing that Smoke would want to go out of his way to help JGR at this point, especially when he is going to be competing with them as an owner. If anything I wouldn’t be surprised if Tony wasn’t the one that told Nascar to look under the pedal. I did not see the reports that the drivers were suspected of doing this but that isn’t even one of the more ridiculous things I have seen reported about this story. Fox and ESPN have been really awful in their coverage of this story and sadly thats where most other media outlets go to get their information. Thanks for answering my question. Peace.
on Aug 21st, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Ok All, I was listening to Sirrus NASCAR tonight. They had Ballash the Nationwide head man on. Buddy Baker asked him to explain how the magnets got there and if the drivers had anything to do with the cheating. He answered that NASCAR has a real good idea who put the magnets in the cars. He stated that there is no possible way the drivers could have put them there. Both drivers were talking with the media when the magnets were put into the cars. The real sad thing is that Ballish said that the magnets were useless, when the cars were run on the dyno the horsepower was what they expected without the magnets, all engines were equal. No additional changes will be neccessary at this time. the saddest part is it has caused 7 people to be suspended from NASCAR and has cost JGR $100k and it has put the name cheater in from of JGR. For nothing, what a waste of time and money. It goes to show you how far teams will go to beat the system. Ballish also said that NASCAR feels this was far more serios than MWR and the fuel issue at Daytona.
on Aug 22nd, 2008 at 8:59 am
Some have said the penalties against JGR are to harsh because what they did did not affect the outcome of the race.
I agree, but it could have affected the outcome of several races hereafter.
“Mike the cry baby hater”
on Aug 25th, 2008 at 5:16 am
If it’s a team sport does that mean the team pays the financial penalties?
on Aug 25th, 2008 at 8:21 am
CVT: I don’t know about this specific situation, but I do know that in a lot of cases the teams have picked up the tab for fines levied on crew chiefs. NASCAR will not let you into a track if you have not paid any outstanding fines.
In this specific case, as mad as Joe Gibbs was, he might make these guys pay their own fines. And I know that he even added some fines of his own.