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closePenalties put team on the brink, Robby Gordon says
NASCAR sanctions get a full airing as rain scuttles qualifying at Fontana
DAVID POOLE
The Charlotte Observer
Saturday, Feb. 23, 2008
FONTANA, Calif. – Robby Gordon might have spent Friday accepting congratulations for an eighth-place finish in the Daytona 500 while preparing to qualify for Sunday’s Auto Club 500 at the newly renamed Auto Club Speedway.
Instead, on a day when rain and issues with the track stemming from it wiped out that qualifying, Gordon found himself explaining his side of a NASCAR penalty that Gordon said could push his Sprint Cup team to the point of extinction.
“We are going to jail for a crime we did not commit,” said Gordon, who has appealed a $100,000 fine, the deduction of 100 driver and owner points and a six-week suspension for crew chief Frank Kerr. “It’s almost like someone steals your car and robs a bank, and because it’s your car you go to jail.”
Gordon’s defense wound up being the news of the day which began with rain pushing back practices for the Cup, Nationwide and Truck series. When the rain abated, water seeped through “weepers” in turns 3 and 4 to keep cars from getting on track.
Then, just after 3 p.m., more rain arrived and Cup and Truck qualifying sessions were scrapped. Today’s scheduled Nationwide qualifying was also cancelled, but cars in that series will be allowed a practice this morning before their race late this afternoon.
For Sunday’s Cup race, two-time defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon will start on the front row of a field set based on the NASCAR rulebook primarily using last year’s car owner points.
Ken Schrader, AJ Allmendinger, Burney Lamar, Patrick Carpentier and Mike Skinner had their chances to make the race wiped out by the weather issues.
Robby Gordon starts 28th, and unless he wins his appeal he’ll have to work hard over the next four races to overcome the 100-point penalty. The immediate goal is to be in the top 35 once this year’s owner points begin deciding which cars are guaranteed starting spots each week.
NASCAR said that Gordon’s No. 7 Dodge came to opening Daytona 500 inspections with an unapproved nose. It ordered the team to repair the nose and then allowed Gordon to compete. Gordon does not dispute that the wrong part was on the car when originally presented. But he said that was not his fault.
“It was something that we didn’t build, we didn’t make, we didn’t supply,” Gordon said. “It was completely a clerical error from the manufacturer’s supply warehouse who delivered it to us. All we did was install it on the race car.”
Dodge agrees. The manufacturer has submitted a new nose for its 2008 models, but it has not yet been approved by NASCAR. Gordon made a late decision to switch from Ford to Dodge this season, and when he got parts for the changeover he contends he got the wrong parts without realizing it.
Kipp Owen, director of Dodge Motorsports Engineering, backed that in a statement issued Friday, saying “a series of human errors” led to Gordon’s team getting the unapproved nose from a parts warehouse at Gillett Evernham Motorsports.
But under NASCAR rules, each team is held responsible for what is on its car regardless of what might happen in the supply chain through which parts come to teams. Thus, Gordon’s team was penalized for having an unapproved part on its car.
“This is over the top,” Gordon said of the penalty. “My opinion is that Daytona was not exciting enough so they needed something to talk about this week.”
Gordon said he does not have a sponsor for all of this year’s races and believes the penalty could hamper his efforts to find more backing.
“The biggest problem is the perception of being labeled a cheater when we’re not cheating,” he said. “We’re getting trouble for something we didn’t do.
“I’ve never appealed anything. We’ve always taken our lumps and moved on. But this time we’re going to stand up for ourselves as a race team. This penalty could be life-threatening to our race team. ...If this sticks, I don’t know what our plan will be.”