McGEE: NASCAR's top-five cheaters revealed BY RYAN MCGEE FOX Sports Net Jun. 11, 2003 8:31 a.m. Sunday on NASCAR This Morning, Barry Dodson and Jeff Hammond wrap up their three-part series on how crew chiefs manage to wiggle their way around the gray areas of the NASCAR Rule Book. Cheater (CHEET-er), noun: 1. one who defrauds or swindles. 2. one who deceives, influences by fraud. 3. one who violates rules or agreements, takes action in a dishonest way. 4. one who must eat pumpkin if caught. Cheater. It's such an ugly word, but it is a term that is tossed around with reckless abandon when it comes to the world of NASCAR. Why? Because each and every race weekend is spent wrapped up in a murky, deceptive game of chess. The men that build and drive the race cars spend all week trying to find a word or a phrase in the rulebook that allows them to slide one toe over the line drawn in the sand... and the men on NASCAR's payroll are employed for no reason other than to make sure that same line stays intact. In other sports, cheating is much more clearly defined. Sammy Sosa corked a bat, therefore, he is a cheater. The 1919 Chicago White Sox took a bunch of money and threw the World Series. Cheaters. Southern Methodist University passed out c-notes to college football players like they were flyers outside a strip joint. Cheaters. Whether you agree with them or not, all of the above were busted because there were very specific rules concerning each infraction. The governing rules for the NCAA alone fill up entire file cabinets in the hallways of every college athletic department. Not so in NASCAR. The 2002 edition of the NASCAR Winston Cup rulebook is only 76 pages long -- 66 if you throw out the table of contents and the blank "notes" pages -- and not much wider or longer than a checkbook. The fact that every roll bar, rear view mirror and rocker arm is covered within such a small amount of type means one thing... a lot of room for, ahem, "interpretation". "I think that's our job," says Robbie Loomis, big league crew chief since 1991. "To find those areas of interpretation -- the gray areas -- and do just that. Interpret. There is a lot less room in there to find an advantage than there used to be, but that's part of the challenge." So, who were (or are) the greatest cheaters in the 56-year history of this sport that we all so dearly love? Glad you asked... 5. Robin Pemberton A crew chief from 1985 through 2001, Pemberton makes the list for no reason other than the fact he holds the distinction of being the most monetarily penalized mechanic in NASCAR history. On the list of NASCAR's top-ten biggest fines, Pemberton shows up three times for a total of $85,000. The biggest of those penalties came in 1990, when a carburetor spacer plate was found in Mark Martin's car following a win at Richmond in late February. The dime part cost Pemberton forty large. The team was also docked 46 points, which hurt more than a little when Martin ended up losing the championship to Dale Earnhardt by only 26 points in November. 4. Ray Evernham Evernham has only been busted big-time once -- officially. During his first title run as Jeff Gordon's crew chief in 1995, Ray was fined $60,000 for using "illegal suspension" parts in the 24 car at Charlotte. There was another time, however, that happened so fast and so quietly that it got very little attention at the time. Evernham and Gordon won The Winston all-star race in 1997 with a car that was so radical in its chassis design and construction that the team was told to tear it apart and never bring anything like it back to the track ever. So, what was so radical about it? Evernham looks confused at the question. "I don't know what you're talking about." Yeah, right. 3. Gary Nelson When Nelson hung up his crew chief clipboard to become NASCAR's top rules enforcer in the mid-1990's, his former competitors were up in arms. "It's like letting one of the inmates run the asylum," said Darrell Waltrip. Nelson had made his name as an "innovator" with DiGard Racing and Bobby Allison in the early 1980's and later on the payroll of Hendrick Motorsports, working with Geoff Bodine and DW himself. Nelson was a master of the gray area. During Allison's 1983 title run, NASCAR was so sure that Nelson was hiding extra fuel somewhere in Allison's car that it was torn apart twice during the season. Nothing was found. Nelson is also given credit for one of the most infamous inventions in NASCAR history -- a device that emptied lead buckshot hidden inside the roll cage when the driver pulled a lever inside the cockpit, thus lightening the weight of a car during a race. It is a story that has become legendary, even outside of the garage. During a recent online chat session, the validity of the "bombs away" story was asked by a fan to Nelson himself. His response? "My memory is becoming fuzzy on that. Next question." 2. Junior Johnson What else do you expect from a man who got his start outrunning "revenuers" on the backroads of North Carolina? Johnson won 50 Winston Cup races as a driver and 140 as a car owner. From 1953 to 1995, Johnson and NASCAR stood nose-to-nose waiting on the other to blink first. Big gas cans, using lighter weight metals during engine construction, cars that pushed the outer limits of legal aerodynamics... they all originated in Wilkes County, N.C. in Johnson's shop. Leaning on knowledge gained from hauling moonshine through the mountains, his cars always seemed to have a few more horses under the hood than the competition. In 1966, he showed up at Atlanta with a car that was supposed to be a Ford, but looked like nothing that had ever come out of Detroit. Nicknamed "The Banana" because of its Holly Farms yellow paint scheme, it amazingly still fit into NASCAR's templates. The Banana ran one race before NASCAR told Johnson to never bring it back again. Twenty-five years later, Johnson and crew chief Tim Brewer were suspended for 12 weeks for using an illegal carburetor in Tommy Ellis's car at Charlotte (it was reduced to four weeks after an appeal). And in 1995, Johnson went out in style with a $45,000 fine for using an illegal intake manifold in Brett Bodine's car at Daytona. You know, Jeff Hammond always says that everything he learned about racing came from Junior. Hmmmmm. 1. Smokey Yunick The only thing that Yunick did better than bend the rules was use cuss words. A high school dropout, the Daytona Beach resident possessed one of the most brilliant automotive minds of the 20th century, and he never hesitated from using it to his advantage on Sunday afternoons. In his three-volume autobiography published shortly after his death in 2001, he even addressed what he believed was cheating and what was not. In the volume dedicated to NASCAR, entitled "All Right You Sons-a-Bitches, Let's Have a Race", he estimates that by 1970, over half of the NASCAR rule book was dedicated solely to him. He is also quick to point this out as one of the great accomplishments of his life. Operating in the gray areas of the rulebook, Yunick says, is not cheating. However, there are four things that he considers "real cheating": 1. Using a big engine. 2. Using a big gas tank. 3. Using expensive exotic materials to save weight. 4. Very expensive aerodynamic rule violations. "Now, three and four," he wrote. "I consider more 'chicken s--t' than cheating... Big engines and big gas tanks, I have no mental tolerance for. What brains does that take?" And that's how you become the best cheater ever, young mechanics. Violate the honor code... with honor all the while.
NASCAR aims to send message with penalties Officials say cheating, excessive bumping won't be allowed By David Newton, NASCAR.COM February 15, 2006 11:27 AM EST (16:27 GMT) DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- The look on the face of NASCAR series director John Darby was priceless on Tuesday when asked if Chad Knaus cheated more than any crew chief in the Nextel Cup garage. "Wow!'' said a red-faced Darby during a seminar on competition at Daytona International Speedway. Darby never answered the question, but NASCAR officials sent a strong message that cheating and excessive bump drafting will not be allowed. Darby and Robin Pemberton, NASCAR's vice president of competition, reiterated that Knaus likely will be suspended beyond Sunday's Daytona 500 after rigging the rear window of Jimmie Johnson's car for an aerodynamic advantage during qualifying. A source close to NASCAR said the suspension likely will include the next two races at California and Las Vegas. Pemberton said Johnson also could be penalized driver points when further punishment is decided early next week. NASCAR also plans to implement a system that will penalize drivers for excessive bump drafting after heated complaints from reigning Cup champion Tony Stewart and other drivers following Sunday's Budweiser Shootout. Pemberton said extra staff and television monitors will be used to watch for bump drafting, primarily in the corners that have been dubbed "No Zones.'' He said penalties would range from a pit road pass to being parked if there are repeat offenders. "We're gonna make calls that won't be popular at times,'' Pemberton said. "We hope that we make the right calls. But if we have to step in to try and regulate this, this is what we're going to do.'' Pemberton said NASCAR's Research and Development Department is looking at ways to make the front end of cars more susceptible to damage from a hard bump without sacrificing safety That was one of the suggestions made by Stewart, who said somebody was going to get killed if bump drafting wasn't curtailed. Until then, Pemberton said the solution will be a judgment call by officials until drivers back off. "It's in their control,'' he said. "We can only say that so many times. They've got a steering wheel, a gas pedal and a brake pedal, and they can use anyone or all three at the same time if they want to. "We're being asked to do something to try to regulate that. They don't have to run into each other.'' Drivers weren't at the track on Tuesday, but in a comment to the Associated Press Michael Waltrip said enforcing the rule would be tough. "Because even the most sublime bump drafts at a time when a guy's getting ready to make a move in another direction can result in sending a guy out of control,'' he said. "It seems to me it would have to result in a crash before [NASCAR] could react.'' Pemberton said most of the focus will be on the corners. Waltrip said bump drafting, a move where a driver bumps the car ahead of him to create an aerodynamic push, also can cause havoc on the straightaways. "You have to know the other guy is going to continue in a straight line,'' he said. "Even if you barely bump draft him, it would cause a crash if he's starting to make a move.'' Darby said there is a place in the sport for bump drafting, but not the "slam drafting'' that has evolved from it. Pemberton, after reviewing tape from the Shootout, said there were at least a couple of incidents in which a penalty could have been called. Mark Martin said most of the violators were younger drivers. Pemberton would not pinpoint names. He said a veteran who correctly uses the bump draft will be looked at no differently than a younger driver that doesn't. "We're not picking on anybody,'' he said. "We're trying to do what's best for the sport all across the board.'' Pemberton and Darby said ejecting Knaus, who has been fined by NASCAR several times the past few seasons, from remaining activities this week also was best for the sport. "I can tell you we've spent a lot of energy talking about Chad and what he did, his innovation, the direction he's chosen to run his race team,'' Darby said. "Somehow through that process we're forgetting about the 500 other guys who are left in the garage who are doing it the right way. "And the reason we're even involved in what we do is to protect them. So I think the message is there.'' Darby said NASCAR discovered the violation when one of the inspectors noticed the shape of Johnson's car appeared different after qualifying. Upon further inspection, it was discovered that an adjustable component used to move the track bar that holds the rear end centered had been rigged to push the back window out to create an aerodynamic advantage after the car went through pre-qualifying inspection. A source said the difference was more than three-quarters of an inch. "That's a very aerodynamic-sensitive area on the racecars, and anything you can do to raise the rear window in there essentially diverts air away from the spoiler,'' Darby said. Darby said NASCAR will continue to increase penalties until everybody gets the message. He did not rule out the possibility of one day sending an entire team home for the weekend, particularly while other teams that are not guaranteed a spot in the field may be left out despite playing fairly. "Obviously, [Johnson's team] is a very competitive team in our garage,'' Darby said. "There is a huge part of every race team's agenda that the more aggressive you can be in competition the better your results will be. "What they need to be better at is where the aggression turns to concerns about the rulebook.''
Is there any sport these days where the participants are not "gaming the system"? And then they fight when they don't get their way! The punch throwers are even bigger crybabies--they take it more seriously