Monday, September 25, 2006

Delaware 400 - RCR Breaks Through Under Siege

The 2006 Delaware 400 came amid a continuing run where on-track action or lack thereof gets overshadowed by off-track scandal. The New Hampshire 300 ran through and kicked off the 2006 NASCAR Playoffs with a decisive statement win by Kevin Harvick amid wrecks by Kyle Busch and Jimmie Johnson that seriously injured their title chances.

When the New Hampshire race was over, brouhaha erupted in a Bob Dilner report on Dave Despain's show on SPEED Channel alleging alterations to wheel rims on RCR's two star Chevrolets, Harvick and Jeff Burton. NASCAR's denial of the report was almost as fast as the report itself, and almost as fast as RCR's denial of illegality with its two racecars after the NH 300.

Delaware 400 qualifying wasn't completed, however, without more scandal in a lawsuit by an ex-RCR engine builder. This suit alleges among other things that RCR cheated on the manifolds used in its restrictor plate engines at Daytona.

Given the rampant nature of cheating in NASCAR history, allegations of present-day cheating can't be avoided, and the burden of proof almost always lay with the alleged perpetrator - RCR basically has to prove it didn't do any of these things. The bigger issues, though, lay in NASCAR's handling of this issue and also in the Race-Stream Media, which over the years has sugarcoated coverage of cheating and has been notoriously lazy in reporting on issues unflattering to drivers, team owners, and the sanctioning body.

One of the better examples of RSM's lazy handling of cheating issues was the 1991 suspension of Junior Johnson for running an outsized engine in The Winston All-Star Race. Virtually all coverage of the engine in question repeated the excuse that Johnson's engine men accidently installed the wrong crankshaft into the engine; only Autoweek that I can remember at the time published anything of a dissenting nature when it noted that such a mistake is too sloppy to be taken seriously as accidental.

Then there was Johnson's win in the National 500 that October on fuel mileage, and a postrace measurement that showed Junior's Ford carried 23 gallons of fuel, above the 22 gallon limit. There was some coverage of that issue, but it had mostly died out by the time the Winston Cup cars reached Rockingham two weeks later.

Coverage of cheating in the sport has been of this decidedly blase nature almost throughout its history; even Tom Jensen's book on NASCAR cheating, despite its thoroughness, has a blase feel to its analysis of the sport's history of cheating.

NASCAR's handling of cheating incidents has also been of a less-than-satisfying nature over the years. Jimmie Johnson's cheating brouhaha at Daytona Speedweeks brought about suspension of crew chief Chad Knaus, but that was merely a slap on the wrist. Monetary fines have also been a slap on the wrist. On one occassion this year a car was disqualified from a BGN event, but it wasn't a "name" team and such occurrances are so rare as to basically never happen.

On this area some of the RSM's coverage has been better, with the view expressed on more than one occassion that quicker and longer suspensions of drivers and teams are necessary to weed out cheaters.

It is difficult to take RCR's denials, at NHIS and in this engine builder lawsuit, seriously, and it is also difficult to take NASCAR denials involved seriously. NASCAR threw the book at Kevin Grubb earlier this season, but Grubb was not a "name" driver. It is a labor to recall the last time NASCAR punished a big-name driver for cheating or some other incident without flinching at the bigness of that driver's name - offhand I can only recall the parking of Dale Earnhardt after he wrecked Phil Parsons in a BGN race at Charlotte in 1991.

And the spectacle of Harvick's confrontation with Bob Dilner and his continuing potshots during the weekend only made Harvick more petulant than he's already shown at times over his Winston Cup career.

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At the Delaware 400 RCR put all the bad press behind it and Jeff Burton broke through to what will be his most liberating win ever. The win put him in a slender lead in the points, and recalls his 1999 season when he won the most races at six and led the points in that season's first third. To be leading this late in the season is something Burton hasn't had before, and the Dover win comes amid a season where he'd led a lot of laps but was never secure enough in the lead to make it stick in crunch time.

Burton's win came amid incidents that swatted out several others, notably his RCR teammate Kevin Harvick, who struggled all day and finally blew up. Harvick's title chances took a hit, but Kyle Busch and Kasey Kahne are now racing for pride and perhaps a top five point spot. With the top five points spread at 54, the Chase has shaken out to a fight betwen Burton, Jeff Gordon, Matt Kenseth, Denny Hamlin, and Harvick.

But amid the Chase, some non-Chasers had noteworthy days, perhaps none more so than Bobby Labonte, robbed of a top ten at NHIS by Kurt Busch but solidly there at Dover. New crew chief Paul Andrews now has two straight Delaware 400 top tens - in 2005 he wrenched Kyle Petty to a top ten in this race, but with Labonte Andrews is showing something he wasn't able to show with Petty since the Atlanta 500 in March.

Dover's reputation as The Monster Mile showed again, and with the Chase that reputation has proven decisive for a lot of drivers.

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