#33-Clint Bowyer came to the Dover International Speedway media center red-in-the-face fired up Friday. He came with a piece of yellow legal pad paper filled with notes he wrote at 6 a.m. and a quarter that he pulled from his pocket to show just how far NASCAR claimed his car was off after Sunday’s victory at New Hampshire. He came to say he was wronged. But not everybody agreed. “This is not two weeks old,” #11-Denny Hamlin pointed out sometime after Bowyer reminded us that Hamlin’s car and Jimmie Johnson’s car had to go through tech twice at New Hampshire before passing height inspection. “They were warned, and they were warned before Richmond. Everyone in the garage knows that. They [Bowyer’s team] wanted to get everything they could. You can’t fault them for that.” A lot of people still want to know what NASCAR is talking about. A lot of people still are angry. People are wondering: If Bowyer’s car can be found sixty-thousandths of an inch beyond the tolerances the governing body allows, how many other “illegal” cars are there in the garage? Crew chiefs up and down the garage will agree they’re pushing the tolerances. They’ll tell you that if more cars were taken to the R&D center, there’d be a lot more penalties. They’ll also tell you they’re paid to push the envelope. There’s a lot of gray here. And when you consider that the # 33 team had been warned, that owner Richard Childress gave everybody what Bowyer called a “butt chewing” before New Hampshire, that the team was told the car would come back to the R&D center for review regardless of what it did at New Hampshire, then you’re at least left wondering whether something happened to create this. Richard Childress claims the violation could have been the result of the tow truck pushing the car to the garage after it ran out of gas during a victory burnout. Bowyer on his yellow paper noted that possibility, as well as hard knocks by Tony Stewart during the race and the congratulatory bump by Dale Earnhardt Jr. afterward. Could that have happened to Bowyer’s car? NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton hasn’t seen such a case in his 30 or so years in the sport. He defends NASCAR’s decision and the inspection process, saying there’s no reason to bring 12 Chase cars or all 43 cars home for inspection. If Bowyer were king, he might blow up the R&D center. “I don’t like the R&D center,” he said. “I think what you bring to the racetrack is what they inspect.” He went on to say that the cars are torn down at R&D to the point that they don’t resemble what’s on the track.(ESPN.com)(9-24-2010)
