Two from Waltrip's Team are Suspended Indefinitely: NASCAR Says it Found Illegal Substance in Car's Fuel System - aftermarketNews

Two from Waltrip’s Team are Suspended Indefinitely: NASCAR Says it Found Illegal Substance in Car’s Fuel System

From Winston-Salem Journal

DAYTONA BEACH, FL — Michael Waltrip found NASCAR CEO Brian France and President Mike Helton waiting at his hauler for him Tuesday morning. Waltrip knew that it wasn’t a good sign.

Wednesday night, Robin Pemberton, NASCAR’s vice president of competition, announced major penalties for Waltrip and his team for using illegal fuel additives in a major fuel-system violation Sunday during Daytona 500 qualifying runs.

"We’re not going to go into any great detail, but it was a foreign substance we didn’t think should have been in there," Pemberton said. While the illegal chemical was first found in the intake manifold, Pemberton said that further examination over the past three days showed "the additive was in the fuel system, the fuel line, at some point in time."

The rule violated, Pemberton said, was that gasoline must not be blended with alcohol, ether or other oxygenates.

According to one source, the entire fuel system of Waltrip’s car had been packed with the fuel additive polypropylene oxide, a performance-enhancing oxidant.

"It’s all around the fuel," Pemberton said. "It is something we will not tolerate."

The penalties: Waltrip was hit with the loss of both crew chief David Hyder and competition director Bobby Kennedy, who were ejected from this week’s races and suspended indefinitely. Hyder was fined $100,000 and the team was penalized 100 points.

The penalties were major, but fell short of a Waltrip suspension.

Toyota, making its Nextel Cup debut this week, didn’t even make it to the starting line before getting caught up in one of the sport’s biggest cheating scandals. The overtone of dismay about the Waltrip penalties from senior Toyota executives was clear.

Lee White, the senior vice president of Toyota Racing Development, spoke to that aspect: "The elements of ethics, integrity, character, honesty are things that are extremely, probably paramount, important to my company.

"Are we a little disappointed that one of our teams is involved in the things that have transpired? Yes.

"We expect to participate by the rules, and we hold our people to a high standard, and certainly, we hope we have partnered with the right people.

"Depending on what transpires, we will have further discussions with that team and decide what our relationship is going to be in the future. We’ll sit down with Mike and his team and figure out what the best course of action is to move forward and ensure something like this doesn’t happen in the future."

Pemberton said that a NASCAR inspector noticed an unusual substance in Waltrip’s intake manifold during pre-qualifying inspection. "It was a little peculiar, so we gave the team the opportunity to install another manifold," Pemberton said. "The substance was there a second time. At that time, we couldn’t tell if it was motor oil or some other substance, so we allowed the team to qualify."

Waltrip’s qualifying time, 24th fastest, was later disallowed and his car was confiscated. So Waltrip will have to make the 500 field by finishing well in Thursday’s two 150-mile qualifiers.

Pemberton wouldn’t say if more serious penalties had been considered.

It was confessional day for car owners Jack Roush and Ray Evernham yesterday, caught up in NASCAR’s dragnet this week, although for much lesser violations than Waltrip.

Roush has lost Robbie Reiser, his ace crew chief, from the Matt Kenseth team, and Evernham has lost all three of his crew chiefs, and the four teams will be run by interim crew chiefs the next few weeks.

Geoff Smith, the head of Roush Racing, said he will appeal a 50-point penalty but not Reiser’s suspension. Evernham said he’s still debating an appeal.

The penalties were for minor aerodynamics issues, and the severity of suspensions surprised many in the garage and was questioned in several quarters.

"Does the punishment fit the crime?" crew chief Todd Berrier asked. "Heck, no. “But then the punishment didn’t fit the crime for me, either."

Berrier was suspended four weeks last season for minor infractions.

Andy Petree, who won championships as Dale Earnhardt’s crew chief and who is now an ESPN analyst, said he was stunned by NASCAR’s penalties on Kenseth, Kasey Kahne, Elliott Sadler and Scott Riggs. "The things these teams got caught with are so small you wonder if those things really did anything," Petree said. "What blew me away is how NASCAR reacted to minor things that had very little effect. It’s not so much the infractions as it is the way NASCAR is making the calls."

NASCAR declined to make the disputed Evernham parts available for display and declined to say why.

Kenseth said of his crime and punishment: "It’s the difference between jaywalking and attempted murder.

"I’m embarrassed for our sponsor and our team that we’ve got to go through this. But I want to make clear that an infraction last year that somebody [Chad Knaus] got suspended for — no points — was a 10 times graver infraction than this. There were parts purposely built to move body panels around.

"I don’t think Robbie’s ever been known for cheating. We’ve always been known as honest straight shooters. Robbie’s never been any trouble before, and the penalty is severe for as minor as the infraction was and Robbie’s history.

"There’s probably less cheating, or pushing the envelope, than ever. Way less. It’s just they’re cracking down on every little thing."

Evernham said his aerodynamics violations were no more serious than others here and asked why his operation was singled out while violators such as Brian Vickers, Joe Nemechek, Eric McClure and Johnny Sauter weren’t immediately penalized.

"I don’t know if I can say I’ve been singled out, because I don’t believe in whining," Evernham said. "But there are parts [confiscated] up in the NASCAR trailer that have the same aerodynamic connotations as mine do. I don’t understand the difference between our situation and those.

"The rules may need to be written a little more clearly."

Copyright (c) 2007, Winston-Salem Journal, N.C.

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