hearing from sources that #2-Rusty Wallace will be sent to the rear of the field for Sunday’s Daytona 500 after NASCAR found an illegal carburetor in inspection after today’s qualifying race. Inspection will continue through the evening. It will not affect who will make the Daytona 500 lineup.(2-13-2003) UPDATE: NASCAR inspectors said late Thursday afternoon there was a “potential problem” with the carburetor on the #2 Miller Lite Dodge that Rusty Wallace drove to a fourth-place finish in Thursday’s second Gatorade 125. NASCAR said inspections would continue through the evening and into Friday before any potential sanction against Wallace’s team would be announced. It also said the outcome would not change which 43 cars will be in the starting lineup for Sunday’s Daytona 500.( ThatsRacin.com ) UPDATE 2: the news is that there was a template infraction on the carb and a decision is supposedly to be announced 11:30am to 12:00noon/et timeframe today. as of 4:00pm/et, Speed Channel reports that NASCAR will announce a decision on the #2 team around 5:00pm/et. UPDATE 3 – announcement: per a NASCAR press conference heard on XM Radio – Channel 144 : the #2 Miller Lite Dodge was disqualified from the Twin 125 it ran and crew chief Bill Wilburn has been fined $10,000. The fine is appealable, the disqualification is not. Will have a revised lineup soon, Wallace will have to use a provisional. Once I see how NASCAR handles this, I will post what I find. OK here is my understanding how this MAY work. #2-Wallace is disqualified from the 2nd Twin 125; #45-Kyle Petty who made the Daytona 500 field per speed and was to start 32nd moves up to 15th (from 16th) in the 2nd Twin and this goes into the 30th starting spot in the 500; then #97-Kurt Busch who was to start 37th using the first provisional, moves to 36th as he would had been the next fastest driver to get a spot with speed; #12-Ryan Newman, who was to start in the 2nd provisional spot (38th) moves to 37th; and #2-Rusty Wallace gets the 2nd provisional spot. This is still unofficial, but it makes sense. Actually this is the way NASCAR has done it many times in the Busch series and how it has worked for years. See my Daytona 500 Starting Grid page for an unofficial lineup. Rusty Wallace Commnets on NASCAR Penalty: “I’m OK with the penalty. I just hate it happened. NASCAR knows there was no intent on our part. We were 12 horsepower off the best car because of the carburetor. We just had one of the wrong carburetors on the truck. We didn’t check it and we’re paying for it now. Our engine guys feel real bad about it. We’re going to start at the back of the field now, but I think we’ll run even better with the right carburetor on the car. A rule’s a rule. We’re just embarrassed about the whole thing. Roger Penske is embarrassed. It’s our first race with Dodge and Miller is doing a big promotion. We’re embarrassed for our sponsors. I’m proud how we ran in the race based on what we found under the hood. It apparently was a test carburetor we’d been using on our unrestricted stuff. It was just a dumb mistake. We weren’t trying to pull anything off on anyone and that’s why NASCAR penalized us the way they did. Mentally, I’m a little down right now. I think we had an outstanding race in the Gatorade 125. The pit crew did an outstanding job. We were really hauling the mail. I think we could have passed the 54 car and challenged the 15 and 8 for the win, but I didn’t want to do anything crazy. It is a little upsetting. I started in the back last year and was running fourth after 30 laps. I started last in the Pepsi 400 last year and finished second.” Wallace and Penske are still trying to get to the bottom of it. “We’re still in disbelief that it happened. That carburetor cost us 12 horsepower, so that’s probably the only good thing that came out of it. We weren’t going to practice today anyway. We didn’t want to sacrifice the car and take a chance on something stupid happening. We’ll be there at 9:30 in the morning and our Daytona 500 engine will be in the car. I think we’ve found a couple more horsepower, so now we’re going to work like crazy on fuel mileage. I think it’s going to come down to a fuel mileage race. I’m real confident about the Daytona 500. We were a little tight in the 125, so we want to make sure we’ve got the setup right. We’ve got a couple of front shocks we want to try and make sure we’re loaded for bear on Sunday.”(2-14-2003)
