Nascar's unprecendented diciplinary wrist slap

So, after all these years, NASCAR is still finding guys who try to sneak in some performance boost. Micheal Waltrip's car was busted for being on the juice. I heard it was jet fuel, and thats an extremely powerful oxygenator. Adds O2 like a sledgehammer pounds rocks. Hard.

Well, I don't blame the driver, crew chief, or team.... just who said jet fuel wasn't a legal fuel? I'm of the Smokey Yunick school of NASCAR rules, if there ain't a rule against it, it's legal until they catch you... and make a rule against it.

So somewhen after Waltrip ran a great qualifying time for the Daytona 500 (most important race of the season) they do a tear down inspection... "when NASCAR found a suspicious substance in his intake manifold. After three days of examination, it was determined to be a fuel additive designed to enhance horsepower "

http://www.postchronicle.com/news/original/article_21264397.shtml

Yeah, jet fuel can do that.

Seriously, when is the France family going to clue in, those aren't anything like stock cars anymore, and probably haven't resembled factory stock cars, sine the 70's. Cripe, Elvis was still alive. The NASCAR race teams do not modify factory cars, run factory engines, or rims, tires, fuel tanks, body styles, etc etc. So why if they do not have any car parts in common with a dealership delivered car, do they have to run anything resembling pump gas? You don't believe for a moment that those cars make 700-900 horsepower on 91 octane do you?

Not that Brian France and family give a damn what the fans want, so long as NASCAR sells advertising... but we'd love to see either
1)dealership delivered race cars,
2)NASCAR drivers race anything they can find in a WalMart parking lot, or
3) race car team owners get free rein to put anything together that will be faster and corner better that the competition.

I vote for paint ball gun turrets in the pop up trunk lids that smear other drivers view, bolt on rocket engines ( http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2006/12/once-men-were-allowed-to-be-men-crazy.html )for momentary blasts past the other cars, and John Force's crew making a car that will lap the field at 300 MPH and stop with BIG freakin parachutes deploying for pit stops, and new packed 'chutes being bolted on for the nextr 20 laps at 300mph. Go John Go!

Meanwhile, back in reality, this is the first time that NASCAR has ever thrown a teams points count into the negative before the season begins. There's something shocking about that.

"We were going to ratchet up penalties and you can see that's happened," Pemberton said. "We'll continue to raise the penalties as time goes forward until we get everybody's attention."
http://tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070215/SPORTS09/702140405

The Waltrip crew chief and director of competition are both ejected from the Daytona 500, but Waltrip is still in, driving a teammates backup car. Best of luck Mike, give 'em hell and a forehead slap... but for pete's sake own up to it, you risked getting caught, glory in how close you came to getting away with it, don't pull this crap on us...
"While he took responsibility and said he was embarrassed by what has happened, Waltrip reiterated Thursday morning that the problem with his fuel was not something done with his knowledge or sanction by the team.
“What took place was the act of an individual or individuals,” he said. “It’s not a reflection on our team, our organization, our sponsors or our manufacturer.” http://www.thatsracin.com/242/story/2964.html

Keep the bull to yourself, you lose my respect and your dignity by asking anyone to believe the "Mystery Mechanic" made a performance alteration to your race car, in your garage, with your tools, under your hood, without you knowing, or when your entire crew was looking the other way and not watching the million dollar ride you risk your life in at 200mph. Sheesh... go back to where you left them, and put your pair back in your pants when you get out of the car, 'cause you sure have them in place during the races.

The only used once, Boss 429 Bardahl Torino, prepped by Holman Moody Stroppe

Also an odd historical note, the 69 full race Torino Talladaga's had Boss 429 engines, but none of the publicly available Torino Talladaga's came with a Boss 429, they were instead fitted with thte 428 CJ, not as powerful... sad. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Torino_Talladega

Why I admire Will Ferrell

The guy co wrote the movie, and had two tributes that most people wouldn't notice, and probably some I missed.

First the dad's Chevelle is a tribute to Smokey Yunick, it's Smokey's black and gold, and number 13... Smokey put that number on most or all of his cars. Second, the car Will drives in the beginning of the movie is a "strawberry douche Chevy Monte Carlo" tribute to "Larry the Cable Guy" from the Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie

How NASCAR improved production cars' aerodynamics

Superbirds, Daytonas, and winning at Nascar

The Dodge Charger Daytona was a design for peak aero efficiency on the superspeedways of Nascar, and it worked. Even Richard Petty left his Ford Sponsor when he saw the writing on the wall of how much easier it would be to win in something that had half the drag and more downforce than anything Ford or Chevrolet had in production, plus it had the 426 hemi. Winning combo. (The one year production had the Chrysler camp whipping up a Plymouth Superbird for 1970, which fixed the slow speed ((55 mph)) overheating problem the Daytonas had).

The '69 Charger Daytona set speed records at Nascar and Bonneville. First car to top 200 (Buddy Baker) at a Nascar track, and Bonneville clocked it at 217.368 in the flying kilometer. (Hot Rod fall 2006 Archives # 4 page 75). Great pictures on http://speedzone70.tripod.com/wing.html and a good brief history at http://www.allpar.com/model/superbird.html

The wing was so strong, many adults climbed on the middle of it for photo oportunities, startling pictures when that wing looks so thin, and wide, but it was built strong enough to push the rear of that 3400 lb car down at 220 miles an hour, and that is mighty strong.