Gibbs team's fibs might tarnish legendary figure

Now that legacy is in danger of crumbling. Gibbs is taking serious incoming fire because there are few people who believe this is the first time Gibbs' garage drastically skirted the rules. It's alleged his team utilized magnets under the gas pedals of their Toyotas to reduce the horsepower numbers during testing. As the Associated Press reported, Toyota has won 15 of 25 races this season in the Nationwide Series, all but one came in a Camry that Gibbs put on the track.

It's completely fair for the rational person to conclude that Gibbs' cars have used this cheating trick (or a variation) for some time.

Pat Suhy, GM Racing group manager for NASCAR, explained to the AP he has similar concerns.

"It's not something that you like to hear about and you have to just question every chassis dyno that's ever been run on every Toyota," Suhy said. "You look at the (No.) 32 car (of Brian Vickers and Red Bull Racing), the 32 and the 18 and the 20 made about the same power the first run. ... When they took the magnet, or whatever this device was, out of the 18 and the 20, they both came up.

"What I don't know is if it's a Toyota problem, if it's a Joe Gibbs thing, how widespread is it and how long has it been going on, because a lot of what's been done (by NASCAR) has been based on the chassis dyno results. And, if they were always showing worse on the chassis dyno than actual, maybe (NASCAR) didn't go far enough. It's disappointing to hear that anybody, whether it's a manufacturer or a team or an individual on a team would go to any length to do that. It's bad for the entire garage, I think."

Jack Roush, co-owner of Roush-Fenway Racing, which fields Fords in the Nationwide Series, called the Gibbs team's actions "extremely detrimental to stock car racing."

There are going to be Gibbs defenders who will say he didn't know. But did you believe Barry Bonds when Bonds claimed he thought the substance he received from his trainer was flaxseed oil? You laughed at that, right? Seemed improbable, didn't it?

It's just as improbable that Gibbs watched the sheer dominance of his Toyotas and, if he didn't know outright, didn't suspect something was amiss. He's too smart and has been around sports too long not to have that little voice in his head screaming that this doesn't look right.

As a Gibbs fan, I hope I'm wrong. I hope Gibbs had no knowledge of this.

But I'm not so sure. And I'm not so sure what this means for his previously unblemished legacy.