Why seized bolt from Martin Truex Jr.'s car doesn't mean jack
When NASCAR seized an unapproved front jackbolt from the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota of Martin Truex Jr. at Talladega Saturday and made three Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas go through the body template inspection station a second time, suddenly the C word -- cheating -- was on everyone’s lips.
And I had to laugh, because this is Talladega. Cheating -- some subtle, some wildly flagrant -- has been going on for literally decades.
Two things determine how fast a car runs at Daytona and Talladega, the two restrictor-plate tracks on the NASCAR circuit. The first is horsepower, which you want to be as high as possible. The second is aerodynamic drag, which you want to be as low as possible.
So enterprising and sometimes devious crew chiefs are always trying to figure out how to get the most horsepower and the least amount of drag here.
Go back to Talladega in 1985 and one of the most famous Talladega races of all time, when Bill Elliott made up two laps under green after pitting to repair a loose oil fitting.
If Elliott’s car had the same horsepower and drag as the other cars, it would have been impossible for him to run alone and unlap himself once, let alone twice. That’s not conjecture, that’s simple physics: At plate tracks, cars run faster in a group than they do alone -- sometimes by as much as 10-15 miles per hour per lap.
All things being equal there’s no way Elliott could make up two laps under green. No way at all. But obviously all things weren’t equal.
So how did Elliott do it? Ford’s former aerodynamic engineer Louis Duncan told me that Elliott’s Ford Thunderbird was narrower and had a lower roof than the other Fords in the field, so it pushed less air and had a lot less drag. Duncan told me Elliott’s car was “maxed out in the gray area without technically being cheated up.” I’d call that a distinction without a difference.
One time, I point blank asked former NASCAR Premier Series Director Gary Nelson, who himself was one of the sport’s most “innovative” crew chiefs, if Elliott’s car was cheated up. He smiled and said only, “They were just smarter than we were that day.”
Draw your own conclusion.
And that’s just one example.
I was here in 1997, when Jeff Burton's Roush Racing Ford Thunderbird showed up with a roof that had been heavily modified by an outside vendor. The roof laps -- which, ironically, team owner Jack Roush had invented -- were relocated five inches forward, contrary to the rules. Sections of the roof were also lowered to provide improved aerodynamics.
NASCAR officials were so incensed with the roof-flap modifications that they cut the roof off the car entirely, destroying it.
Three years later at Talladega, the fuel in Jeremy Mayfield's Penske-Kranefuss Ford was found to be illegally tainted with unapproved additives. Mayfield was fined $50,000 and docked 151 points. But he went out the next weekend at Auto Club Speedway and won the race.
And I could go on and on.
Over the years at Talladega and Daytona, I have seen hydraulic deck lids that moved up and down, doctored restrictor plates and intake manifolds, and all other manner of mischief.
Back when NASCAR only measured ride height before cars went on the track, crew chiefs used to stick charcoal briquettes or sticks in the coil springs to hold the car up through inspection. Hit the first bump and the briquettes and sticks broke into a thousand pieces and the nose of the car fell.
One former crew chief told me years ago that he used to keep an illegal restrictor-plate taped under the radiator and when an official handed him the legal plate, he’d secretly swap them out.
So while some folks may be feigning outrage about one bolt of off Truex’s car or the JGR cars having to go through inspection multiple times, after everything I’ve seen here, I’d have to say what happened yesterday didn’t mean jack.
Let’s go race, and may the best team win.
