March 7, 2012
By Chuck Abrams
Before the race started at Phoenix this week, NASCAR announced penalties for the No. 48 team that included fines, loss of points and suspensions.
Of course, all of that will be appealed so it may take another week or two for all this to settle out.
Suffice it to say, the allegedly illegal C-posts on the No. 48 car upset the folks at NASCAR quite a bit. No one has said what kind of advantage the C-posts would have given the No. 48 but I assume it is some sort of aero advantage.
According to Rick Hendrick, those posts have been on that car since last year and it passed all technical template and visual inspections -- until this year. We know that the posts passed the template test but not the visual test this time.
It used to be, NASCAR would see something that a team was doing that was technically within the rules but was not to their liking. Instead of a fine, they would say “let’s not see that again.” and then pull the part and display it to all the teams so that they could see not only what not to do, but it brought the technology to the attention of all the teams.
And let’s be honest, this has been going on since day one in NASCAR. So put away all the Chad hate and just look at this objectively. There were other infractions at Daytona but none were dealt with via penalties. Why? Only NASCAR knows and it ain’t talking.
It’s hard to know what side to come down on with this particular penalty unless NASCAR opens up and tells us all that is going on. On the surface, it appears Hendrick has a case. They were within the rules and the car passed inspection more than once.
As long as the teams are not outright cheating (i.e. running different weights, engine parts that are illegal, etc.) let them see what they can do to improve their performance within the templates. The best minds should win the race, not the best template. This is not IROC. Yet.
The race at Phoenix itself was pretty good but we saw fuel issues come up and not in the way I would say for a “normal” fuel mileage race. This is only the second race with the new EFI engines and it showed this weekend.
Four cars had blown engines and I would not usually think of Phoenix as a track that is hard on engines. Brakes yes, engines no.
Did that have anything to do with the EFI?
The jury is out on that one but four blown engines make you scratch your head.
Tony Stewart had his engine fail to restart after shutting it off to save fuel and he was not the only one. A failed circuit breaker appears to be the culprit. While the old carburetor engines would have a problem restarting when they ran out of fuel, it was not common.
All eyes will be on the EFI engines in the coming weeks when fuel mileage becomes critical. Teams may opt to stop for gas rather than try the usual gas saving methods. And others may opt to go for the win even though mileage may be close.
Kevin Harvick was the perfect example of that this week as he and others ran out of gas on the final lap. We saw cars at Daytona on the apron during caution the way they used to do to help the fuel pick up. That doesn’t matter any more with the EFI engines from what I understand. So old habits die hard. I think we’ll see a few more of these challenges as the teams learn what they can and can’t do with the EFI engines.
That’s my take. What’s yours?
Lemme know your thoughts.
Drive fast, turn left and keep the shiny side up.
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