Gordon, Johnson and teams about to taste the lash of NASCAR Justice
Doubtless you've heard that the Nextel Cup series point leader, Jeff Gordon, and the defending series champ, Jimmie Johnson were not allowed to qualify their "Cars of Tomorrow" at Infineon Raceway at Sears Point because the cars didn't pass NASCAR pre-qualifying inspection. Seems the Hendrick braintrust of Chad Knaus and Steve Letarte interpreted rules on the right front fender dimensions differently than did NASCAR. This situation got me thinking:
- When they first introduced the cars, the NASCAR powers-that-be bragged about having RFID (radio frequency ID chips) on the chassis, and that there were nine (count 'em) laser measurements that would insure uniformity. Are Hendrick Motorsports lasers less accurate than NASCAR's?
- Or is this a return to a historical use of the inspection process, to try to level the playing field? Throughout NASCAR history, the "room of doom" has been used to keep big-mouthed drivers quiet, and negate advantages found by team engineers worthy of the name (the late Smokey Yunick would have sided with both Knaus and Letarte), which might have tilted the balance of competition to those teams. Just to remind you, the Hendrick Racing team has won all of the Car of Tomorrow races except for Dover, where Martin Truex won. It is not called the "Room of Doom" for nothing.
- Or is this a way to generate publicity, by handicapping the series' most successful active road course driver?
- If in fact it was a violation of such epic proportion, than why weren't the teams banned from the NASCAR garage area, and told to go home?
A "smackdown" moment, to be sure.
