Why does Nascar refuse to suspend teams and drivers?
 

Michael Waltrip's car was found to contain an illegal substance, Jet fuel, yesterday. Nascar fined Waltrip, deducted points, and suspended his Crew chief. Waltrip and his team will still be allowed to race on Saturday and will not miss a single race this year for testing postive for a performance enhancing agent.


The news is trying to compare this type of suspension to the NFL or Baseball? I am pretty sure if a player tests positive for a performance enhancing drug they would miss some game time. If this was the NFL, Waltrip would be looking at having to give up 25% of this years season.

Funny, how Waltrip, the driver and team owner, is using the Barry Bonds defense of not knowing what was in his gas that he put into his car.

Because if they do, sponsor dollars walk away from the teams, which in turn reduces the number of competitive teams available and threatens to dip into the advertising dollars spent with TV, which in turn reduces the value of the network TV deal. Right or wrong, that's basically the deal.

That aside, the problem with trying to compare this with football or baseball is that it's a very different scenario. Whether he knew about the additive (which I don't think NASCAR has yet figured out exactly what it was other than some sort of oxidizing agent that would increase horsepower from the same octane fuel, sources are saying that it wasn't exactly jet fuel as first reported) , it's still unlikely that Michael himself actually put the stuff in the car, more likely done by a crew chief and/or crew member. To suspend the driver for knowing about it, would be more equivalent then to suspending an entire baseball team for knowing that one of their players was on the juice ... which certainly doesn't happen.

Ultimately though, it comes down to the difference in the rule books for the various organizations. MLB, NFL, et al have certain specified penalties/range of penalties for various infractions. So does NASCAR -- the difference is that NASCAR's rulebook tends to be written largely in terms of whatever-we-deem- appropriate language.

Depending on the penalty though, the points in a lot of ways are akin to being suspended for a race, right? I don't know how stiff the points are, but I think I remember in the last couple of years it almost making someone miss the top 10 deal at the end of the season?

Jon nailed it. Sponsorship. Sponsors do not want to see their rolling billboard parked because a driver got suspended. Hitting them with a 50 point penalty, or 100 in Waltrip's case is as good as suspending them.

Not quite as much as a full race.

100 points is equal to a 21st place finish, or basically a middle of the pack finish.
The most common points deduction, 50, is right at 38th place (49 points actual)

Somewhere in the past couple of days I saw what seemed like a very good idea for a points deduction in cases like Mikey's -- 195 points, which would be the maximum he could earn by winning the race + leading a lap + leading the most laps.

NASCAR would be insane to suspend one of Toyota's flagship teams from their first ever Daytona 500.

Maybe not quite as crazy as you'd think though. Toyota is reportedly none too happy with the situation & it's Waltrip they're pissed at, not NASCAR.

From what I read, there was a team a few years back that got hit with a 150 point penalty for messing with fuel. I don't know if that is comparable to the 100 points now given the changes they've made to the scoring, but if it is, it seems like Toyota's involvement probably netted them a lesser penalty than previous cases suggest they should have gotten.

I'm sure his car was just taking an over-the-counter supplement. Didn't even know what was in it.

Has anyone checked the whereabouts of Miguel Tejada's car?

That was Jeremy Mayfield, for tampering with the fuel at Talladega back in 2000.
151 points, $50k, and a 4 week suspension for his crew chief. At the time, he was 7th in points & the deduction dropped him to 14th. He would finish the season out of the top 20 in points (in part because of missing 2 races due to a concussion).
http://nascar.about.com/library/weekly/aa050200a.htm

Oddly enough, it's in the next garage stall.

So, putting this in terms of Michael Waltrip, he got suspended for 2 races or more. :)

FWIW, It was not in his gas.

Hmm, can Toyota clean up NASCAR?

They have confirmed that they found traces of the substance in his fuel line.

See, I knew there had to be a way to say that but I couldn't quite figure out how to phrase it ;)

This really could be a nearly fatal blow to this particular team. They're already faced with having no margin for error in the first 6 races since they don't qualify for any provisionals. With what is at least the realistic equivalent of a one race deduction for them, they're likely to find themselves still outside the top 35 when this year's points start determining provisionals. And I'm not at all sure that they're going to make the race each week on time, meaning the hole will just get deeper & deeper. And I don't think NAPA will be happy with only getting maybe 20-30 races out of their $$$. And with major sponsors already on board for the other two cars in the Waltrip camp (UPS, Burger King, Dominos), there doesn't seem to be much opportunity to bump someone just to get NAPA some screen time with another car.

Exactly. This penalty assigned to Kenseth or Gordon or Jimmie Johnson would not be near as crippling but for Waltrip who is life and death to even make the field on a given week this is a huge penalty.

This is definitely a huge blow to his team. I feel bad for him. I don't think he knew this was going on, but you can't be sure about that. I imagine there is a huge amount of pressure on him and his race team to get this going on strong. I wouldn't be surprised if he knew what was going on.

Not sure how mechanically inclined you are, but the intake manifold bolts between the carburetor and the cylinder heads.

Fuel is pumped into the carb, the carbs job is to mix the fuel with incoming air and atomize the fuel, then it sends it to the intake which distributes it evenly (at least in theory) to each of the 8 combustion chambers.

The only way for the substance to get into the manifold is through the fuel (well unless they drilled and tapped an auxillary port which would be obvious)

As to the comparison, sitting the team for the acts of 1 individual is akin to suspending a franchise as mentioned.

Given the 26 races to get in the chase the most close parallel is to football. It is like one player failing the substance abuse program and an entire team not being allowed to play. The driver is the face, but don't forget the 25-30 man team that support that car. And depending on which team we are talking about some of those employees get paid ONLY based on the teams performance (for example a friend of mine is a crew member for a team and he gets paid x% of their winnings each week. He said not all teams are paid that way and not all employees of his team are paid that way but that does exist)