Issue with #29 and #31 cars after race at NHIS UPDATE’s NASCAR denies; RCR & Speed’s statements: FoxSports/Speed’s Bob Dilner reports: have learned that there was an issue with the winning car of #29-Kevin Harvick and also his teammate, #31-Jeff Burton, in postrace tech [at New Hampshire Intl Speedway in the Cup race]. That issue surrounded the actual [wheel] rim of the race car. The team apparently manipulated that rim to act as a bleeder valve to release air pressure from that rim. In English, it was performance advantage for the RCR team. Now, it was not against anything in the rule book so there won’t be any fines or points penalties later on this week, but they have been told not to do it again.(more at FoxSports)(9-18-2006)
UPDATE: Race winner Kevin Harvick and his teammate, Jeff Burton, did not have any problems in post race tech Sunday night at Loudon. Late Sunday night, it was reported that the Richard Childress Racing teams had manipulated their rims to act as a bleeder valve to release air pressure from the rim. According to NASCAR however, the issue of the rims never surfaced during post race tech. Weve been checking valves and valve stems for about 4 months now, said Jim Hunter Vice President of Corporate Communications for NASCAR said Monday. What it was, was one reporter trying to make something that wasnt there. Then another reporter went on TV and reported it as fact, when it was actually totally untrue. It was one reporters unsubstantiated fantasy,(Cupscene.com)
AND The following is a statement from Richard Childress, president and CEO of Richard Childress Racing (RCR), regarding allegations in the media after the Sept. 19 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series race at New Hampshire International Speedway that two of RCR’s teams had manipulated the rules: “Reports in the media, specifically on SPEED TV, that one or more of our NEXTEL Cup Series teams was found by NASCAR to be manipulating the rules yesterday at New Hampshire International Speedway are false and misleading. Our cars passed post-race inspection and officials at NASCAR assured us last night and again today that no one from RCR was told at any time not to bring a part back to the race track. The reported events and conversations did not happen. Our focus remains on two of our teams competing for the championship and the other finishing as high in the points as possible.(RCR PR) SPEED statement: SPEED issues the following response to statements made by NASCAR and Richard Childress Racing regarding a story filed by SPEED reporter Bob Dillner during the Sept. 17 LIVE broadcast of The SPEED Report. “SPEED reporter Bob Dillner has a strong record of solid reporting from the NASCAR garage; so there is no rational reason for us to consider that the events and conversations he related to SPEED viewers are anything other than the truth,” said Chris Long, SPEED Executive Producer for NASCAR programming.(SpeedTV.com) AND Kevin Harvick told Sirius Speedway that he believes a rival team was behind Sunday’s SPEED TV report alleging that NASCAR had discovered issues with the team’s right-front wheels. “I absolutely think it was a plant from another team,” said Harvick. “NASCAR didn’t say anything, so it’s pretty obvious to me where it came from. It’s an attempt to try and distract us from what we’re doing, but they’re going to have to do a lot better than that.” Harvick said he knows who planted the story, but declined to name names. (Sirius Speedway/MRN Radio)(9-18-2006)
UPDATE 3: Car owner Richard Childress told Benny Parsons during Monday nights PRN’s Fast Talk radio show” that a Speed Channel report that RCR manipulated a rim giving the 29 car a performance advantage at New Hampshire was not true. Childress said reporter Bob Dilner Got some bad information and he talked about it before he knew all the facts.” Childress fielded many phone calls from various sponsors about the story, but he did not chastise Dilner. Ive got to say something for Bob Dilner. He did not report that on purpose. He didnt do it out of anything derogatory to RCR or Jeff or Kevin. Its part of you guys (the media) job sometimes you report things and maybe you dont get the whole story. Meanwhile the incident brought back some fond memories to the long-time car owner who won six championships with Dale Earnhardt. All it did was made me think back to the days when Dale and RCR was winning and running good. You know, nobody ever loses if youve ever heard that story…its because somebodys doing something wrong to win. So, naturally with Kevins performance the last few weeks and RCRs performance this year, people are going to say things.(PRN’s “Fast Talk with Benny Parsons” radio show)(9-19-2006)
