Nascar and Racing

Blatant Cheating: Gibbs' Teams Rig Dyno Test

Posted Aug 17, 2008 11:58AM By Geoffrey Miller (RSS feed)

Filed Under: Tony Stewart, Nationwide Series, Joe Gibbs Racing

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The NASCAR world may have just found out why Joe Gibbs Racing has been so dominant in the 2008 Nationwide Series.

The No. 18 and No. 20 JGR Nationwide Series teams -- driven by Joey Logano and Tony Stewart -- were accused Saturday night at Michigan International Speedway of tampering with the post-race inspection process after NASCAR found magnets attached to the back of the accelerator pedals on both cars during a chassis dyno test.
During the test, NASCAR officials discovered magnets on the accelerator pedals of the two Gibbs Toyotas. Several sources said the magnets could, in theory, keep the pedals from being fully depressed, which would limit the engines' output and distort the data available to officials.

"This was an attempt to interfere with NASCAR's post-race inspection process, and we are taking it very seriously," said Jim Hunter, vice president of corporate communications for the sanctioning body.
The test measures the horsepower, torque, and other numbers of an engine as it sits inside the race car and by putting a magnet behind the pedal, the numbers NASCAR would get from the test would be incorrect, leading to incorrect conclusions about the parity of the competition.

NASCAR has done one other chassis dyno test this year in the Nationwide Series at Atlanta in March and the point of the tests are to get an accurate reading of what a varied selection of race cars have under the hood in terms of performance.

In theory, Joe Gibbs Racing and the Toyota camp as a whole could have greatly benefited from the chassis dyno test with the magnet in place because NASCAR might have changed a rule in favor of better competition by seeing numbers were unfair to the JGR Toyotas.

I would imagine there aren't going to be many concessions to Toyota from here on out in 2008 thanks to this slap-in-the-face that the JGR team dropped on NASCAR.

The magnets were most likely installed on the race cars following the completion of Saturday's Nationwide Series event at Michigan because they would be a significant performance reducer on-track. They could have been easily installed while the cars were being pushed to NASCAR inspection via a crew member reaching in and sticking it to the back of pedal.

In the Nationwide Series -- where the penalties took place -- JGR has 13 wins in 2008. The team has also been dominant in NASCAR's top Sprint Cup Series with 9 wins in 2008.

I think the worst part about the whole thing is that JGR has now managed to put a big question mark next to all of their Nationwide Series -- and in many fans eyes, the ones in the Sprint Cup Series -- wins in 2008 because of this move. There is simply no way for a team to explain their way out of this because magnets don't just magically show up on two race cars, and it opens the door to wondering what other illegal advantages the team is trying across the board.

The penalties will undoubtedly be quite substantial with crew chief suspensions, point deductions, and a tremendous amount of money. The fallout could even go deeper for JGR because its not often someone tries to interfere with NASCAR's post-race inspection -- much less a competition test.

Expect penalty results on Monday or Tuesday in the coming week.

So, in the end, was it all worth it for JGR to win a few more second-tier series events?

I say no.

Tags: JoeGibbsRacing, JoeyLogano, MichiganInternationalSpeedway, NASCARPenalities, NationwideSeries, TonyStewart

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