A few ins, a few outs and a few what-have-yous:
One of my best friends from West Virginia sent me quite the thought-provoking text message on Thursday afternoon.
“The penalty for having the wrong part seems more aggressive than a life-safety penalty. Or am I seeing it wrong?”
No, Chris, you’re not.
Let’s review.
This week, NASCAR levied a pair of noteworthy punishments. In one scenario, a driver was suspended for this week’s race at World Wide Technology Raceway. Said driver was then given a second playoff waiver just a couple of days later. The end.
In the other, a driver and team were docked 120 points, a crew chief was suspended for the next six races and was issued a $250,000 fine. The scenario fell into the L3 category of NASCAR penalties, the most severe in a tiered system of sanctions introduced prior to last season.
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The good thing about a structured system is that there’s no gray area. The bad thing about a structured system is that there’s no gray area.
And if ever there needed to be, it was this week.
Theatrics aside, most of you know by now Chase Elliott is the first driver and was parked for a race for intentionally wrecking Denny Hamlin. The second scenario involved the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing team of Chase Briscoe after being caught using a counterfeit part during Monday’s event.
For Elliott, Sunday will mark his seventh missed race of the season after being sidelined six weeks with a broken leg after a snowboarding incident earlier in the season. Yet, after the penalties, Briscoe would need to score 43 points at Gateway to catch Elliott in the points standings, despite competing in every event thus far.
Look, I’m far from an advocate for cheating. Just ask my daughter what it’s like to play board games with me.
My problem isn’t with the severity of the repercussions for Briscoe. By all means, let’s ensure the playing field is level.
But shouldn’t we be ensuring its safety first and foremost? And I know, there was a precedent set and Elliott’s penalty matched the one given to Bubba Wallace in October for a similar incident with Kyle Larson.
I get it, if our weekly poll is any evidence, the majority of you can’t see past your fandom to admit Elliott’s actions were penalty worthy, but allow me to make a plea to your humanity. Just look at the statistics regarding the position of Elliott’s steering wheel at the time of contact between the cars. Watch Hamlin’s in-car footage.
I know, Hamlin’s not exactly a crowd favorite these days, but the violence of the impact is horrifying. Squeezing someone in the wall at 100 miles per hour is one thing, turning them into the fence head on at nearly 200 miles per hour is something altogether different.
Right hooks are devastating in boxing. They can be fatal in motorsports.
Just imagine the narrative had the unthinkable happened. What if Hamlin had been killed? I’m sure that story would’ve overshadowed Briscoe’s 20th-place finish with an illegal part at Charlotte.
Thankfully, Hamlin is OK. The next time, we may not be so lucky. But will there be a next time? Does a one-race suspension deter such future actions?
Color me skeptical. But I’ll bet a can of Sunoco (more on that later) that Briscoe’s team won’t be caught in any cheating scandals any time soon.
Ross Chastain vs. William Byron in NASCAR Tournament finals
Elliott’s crashing of Hamlin also had another, albeit much less severe, side effect — it eliminated both drivers from our NASCAR Tournament.
That means in the finals next week at Gateway, it’ll all come down to 13th-seeded William Byron taking on second-seeded Ross Chastain. Byron advanced past Hamlin while Chastain eliminated Elliott.
This will mark just the second race for the Cup Series at World Wide Technology Raceway, a 1¼-mile flat track shaped like an oblong oval (think Darlington’s layout with Martinsville’s banking). Last year, Chastain came home eighth with Byron settling for 19th but the race may be most remembered for contact between Chastain and Hamlin, which began a feud between the two that carried all the way into the season.
Official fuel of NASCAR, a crossword stumper
Finally, upon doing my weekly research, I discovered “official fuel of NASCAR” to be trending on Google search.
Fearing NASCAR made good on its promise to cut emissions a little early, I dug a little deeper and was relieved to find that the phrase was simply a crossword clue in the Los Angeles Times on Friday.
Six letters, S-U-N-O-C-O.
Of course, we already knew that.
Judging by the search statistics, it seems the fine folks out West had a little more difficulty.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: NASCAR: Chase Briscoe, Chase Elliott punishments don’t fit the crimes
