Note to the rubes: most of this is made up.
NASCAR officials said Tuesday they are "definitely fixin' to talk about getting somewhat tough" on teams who "cheat."
After three teams failed inspection during qualifying for the Daytona 500 Sunday, NASCAR announced it was mulling over some kind of stepped up something to "get a handle on this cheating stuff."
The inspection failures come a year after NASCAR sent crew chief Chad Knaus home after cheating while preparing Jimmie Johnson's car.
Apparently any memo NASCAR meant to send with Knaus' suspension got caught in the teams' spam filters. Even with crew chief Knaus banned for a month, Johnson still won the Daytona 500 -- the Super Bowl of racing -- and a second event two weeks later.
"We're definitely somewhat upset about it," said a NASCAR spokesman Chuck Cashflow. "We're going to check into cheating, and if we finds it hurts merchandise sales or advertising revenue in any way, well, you can bet your bottom dollar we'll form a committee and take a good, long look at it."
NASCAR officials turned ghost-white at calls for drivers, not crew chiefs, to be spuspended -- or cars to be parked for the weekend -- as a punishment for cheating.
"That would only punish the fans and damage merchandise sales and advertising revenue," said Cashflow. "It's not the driver and teams who suffer then, it's the league's bank account. That seems a little bit of an overreaction, frankly."
Asked why anyone should pay even brief attention to the rule book if there's no chance their driver will get suspended, Cashflow said "Because I think everyone out there respects the integrity of NASCAR and the fact that we put on an honest, clean race every time we go out on the track."
Cashflow pointed to success the league has had in reducing accidents by stressing that intentionally colliding with an other car is against the rules.
Cashflow added that "I'd like to thank Nextel for this amazing ZT-132 Ultra Talk wireless phone. The walkie-talkie function alone is worth $94.99, on sale now at your local Best Buy."
In other news, Las Vegas betting lines put the over/under for yellows at the 2007 Daytona 500 at 13.
Haha. What about adding oxygenate or possibly aviation fuel to your intake manifold? Double secret probation?
Posted by: Johnny | February 15, 2007 at 07:34 AM