Robby Gordon busted @ Charlotte

[RaceFanStan]

It has been found that Robby Gordon's rear was out of defined limits ...


the #7 Toyota had it's rear axle housing placed to exceed the maximum specified toe.

Robby Gordon was docked 50 driver points & 50 owners points ...
Robby Gordon is 34th in driver points & 34th in owners points

http://www.nascar.com/2009/news/headlines/cup/05/27/rgordon.lowes.punishment/index.html

[harvick#1]

I thought the new precedent was a 12 race suspension plus 200K and 200 points from owner and driver :rolleyes:

[RaceFanStan]

I suppose in NASCAR's eyes an out of tolerance rear end alignment is less severe than an 0.17 cid oversize ..... :s
what adds insult to injury is that the Coca-Cola 600 was a points race, the All-Star Race wasn't. :rolleyes:

[e2mtt]

They are hitting the little guys hard. :-(

I saw an interview with Robby Gordon a while ago... He said that because of the much tighter standards NASCAR is holding the new car too, he was spending twice as many man-hours just making the cars meet inspection, compared with the old car. He wasn't happy about it, because of course it took away from time spent making the cars better.

Because of NASCAR's stance on this, I think we will continue to see heavy fines & penalties on the low-budget teams pretty regularly. There are only so many man-hours available to work on the cars, and it seems like it would be pretty easy to miss a couple thousands of an inch here or 1 degree of toe there, when the team is working so hard just to qualify & run competitively.

[oldhippie]

intentionally setting the rear axle toe past spec is a blatant bypass of the rules
whoever set the car up was pulling a fast one hoping to gain a handling advantage
i hope all of the cars are so dilligently inspected
i think cheaters should have to sit out a few races

[Sparky1329]

They all cheat, oldhippie. Not all of them get caught. The #7 team probably took the car home in a bucket. Robby Gordon always gets extra scrutiny because he refuses to kiss NASCAR butt.

[Mark in Oshawa]

If the big teams get caught, they will pay the same price or worse. The thing is, the punishments must be blind and the enforcement is equal. If Robby cannot get his cars legal because he lacks the manhours, then that is too bad. A toe in above the prescribed angle isn't an mistake and it isn't something you miss by accident. It isn't a manufacturing flaw either. I am kind of surprised they didn't crack down harder really.

[Chaparral66]

The only thing I'm concerned about is NASCAR being too hard on the smaller teams. Have you guys noticed a pattern here where the Big Shots are making it hard on smaller teams because they can? This is happening in NASCAR, F1, and IndyCar, while the big teams are skirting the scrutiny because their sponsors bring in big money to the sanctioning body.

[NickFalzone]

I see a guy who is a struggling team owner, generally disliked by NASCAR, has his best result in a long time and gets busted. I'll bet you if Robbie finished in his usual back third of the field we wouldn't have heard anything about this. I don't think cheaters should get a pass, but as a fan of Robbie I think this is a shame that he loses his good finish and more because of debatably minor performance improvement. I think there should be a scale where first infraction is a moderate penalty, and an escalating set of penalties for further infractions. I'd say that as often as not, these infractions are due to lack of oversight or man hours as often as they are legitimate cheats.