In a surprise announcement, John Darby, NASCAR Competition Director, said on Saturday morning that no penalties will be assessed to Joe Gibb’s Racing or crew chief Greg Zipadelli for infractions on the #20 Home Depot Chevrolet, confiscated at Texas last weekend. Also, no penalties will be given on the two cars of David Green and Larry Foyt, disqualified after Winston Cup qualifying on Friday. Darby said missing the race was penalty enough.( Insider Racing News ) AND NASCAR will issue no points penalties or suspensions to defending Winston Cup champion Tony Stewart’s team after impounding the team’s primary car before qualifying at Texas Motor Speedway a week ago. “Our conclusion is that any further penalty to (crew chief) Greg Zipadelli or the team itself will not happen,” Winston Cup series director John Darby said Saturday morning. Darby said that while the violation on Stewart’s car was severe, the violation was with the car’s body and that, in most cases, NASCAR allows teams to fix problems with cars’ bodies. The difference in this case, Darby said, was that the violation was such that it could not be fixed at the track by adding or sanding away body material to conform. He said NASCAR elected to impound the car to take it out of competition for the weekend at Texas, then took it back to its research and development center in Concord, NC, to inspect the car further and learn more about what caused the violation. Darby said the impounded #20 Chevrolet never made it onto the track for competition. While points have been deducted from at least two teams for infractions that never made it on the track, Darby said those penalties were assessed for equipment designed to thwart measuring devices used to enforce special rules for restrictor-plate races or to circumvent rules in place at those tracks to even competition. When asked if he thought the violation on the #20 Chevrolet at Texas was motivated by a desire to confound the rules, Darby said his opinion on the matter would be subjective. “Is it a rock solid, black and white, infraction that was done for purely a competitive gain?” Darby said. “I can’t say that. I also can’t say it was an accident. So we step aside from that and just say that it is what it is.”( ThatsRacin.com ). NO mention if the team will get the car back.(4-5-2003) UPDATE: NASCAR’s Jim Hunter was interviewed by FSN’s NASCAR This Morning’s Winston Kelley and said that NASCAR still reserves the right to penalize Joe Gibbs Racing, but it is unlikely they will be. NASCAR still has not decided if the team will get the car back and that would be quite a large penalty if they do not get it back.(Fox Sports Net NASCAR This Morning) BUT NASCAR yesterday announced that it will not return the #20 Chevrolet of Tony Stewart, impounded before last week’s race at Texas. A NASCAR spokesman said further tests will be conducted on the car, but no ”additional” penalty will be assessed for Joe Gibbs Racing. The penalty, the spokesman said, will be the loss of the entire race car, valued in excess of $100,000.( Tennessean )(4-6-2003)
