Feud of the Week: Do Hendrick penalties add up?
CBS.SportsLine.com's Brian De Los Santos and Charlie McCarthy provide analysis on three weekly racing topics.
| 1. Is NASCAR's punishment of the No. 24 and No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports teams too tough, too light or just right? | |
| Brian De Los Santos | Charlie McCarthy |
 As usual, it's just smoke and mirrors. The $100,000 fines for both teams are a pittance to the multi-million Hendrick Motorsports. In fact, both teams could pay that with their Sunday winnings at Sonoma and still have money left over. The point penalties? Meaningless to these two. Gordon still holds a 171-point lead in the standings. Johnson drops a few spots, but is still safely in the top 12. The suspensions? Both crew chiefs can continue to work on the cars back at the shop, and there is nothing stopping them from communicating via phone on race days. So what would have been a good punishment? Well, I'm sort of over the suspend-the-drivers deal. Instead hit 'em where it should really hurt -- at the track. How about taking away the team's champion and owner provisionals, forcing them to qualify on speed for a certain number of races. If something goes awry during qualifying, too bad, they're going home. And if they are fast enough to make the field (which for these two would most likely be the case), they still have to start at the rear. Finally, limit their practice to one session. Perhaps something along those lines, in addition to the crew chief suspensions, fines and point penalties would finally make an impact. |  Sounds to me many people saying NASCAR wimped out or are doing so because Gordon and Johnson were involved. If the teams of two other drivers had been caught, would the penalties then be more to their liking? And answer this: Was NASCAR "weak" when it fined Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s team for cheating at Darlington? Just because so-called experts spent this past weekend predicting penalties would be more severe doesn't mean the fines and suspensions were "weak." Look, if NASCAR truly wants to stop cheating -- something that often gets glorified as a fun tradition of the sport's history -- then the governing body should put its foot down once and for all. If a team is caught cheating before a race, that car gets parked for that race -- no starting from the back of the field. If a car fails post-race inspection, the team loses any points and money earned in that race. |
| 2. Should Joe Gibbs Racing have pulled Aric Almirola for Denny Hamlin during Saturday night's Busch race? | |
| Brian De Los Santos | Charlie McCarthy |
| I really don't have a problem with Hamlin replacing Almirola. Hamlin had flown all the way from California to Milwaukee, might as well put him to work. Almirola knew going into the weekend he was just keeping the seat warm. He had no expectations that he'd be racing Saturday night. My problem with the whole series of events was that Hamlin was even there in the first place. The Busch Series is supposed to be a developmental series, right? Almirola is an up-and-coming driver, right? Why is Hamlin -– or any Cup driver for that matter –- flying halfway across the country for a Busch Series race in Milwaukee? It's sort of understandable when Cup and Busch are tandem events at the same track, but it makes no sense to me when the Cup is racing on a road course in California and the Busch Series is on a short track the Cup Series never visits. Yeah, yeah I know all about how the sponsor of the JGR 20 car is based out of the area and they really wanted to see Hamlin win in their car. According to some accounts, the sponsor actually demanded Hamlin be put in the car. If that's truly the case, I think it's kind of a sad state of affairs that Busch sponsors need to see Cup guys in their cars in order to be happy. It wasn't as if Almirola wasn't getting the job done. He had won the pole and was running third at the time he was replaced. | Of course -- money talks, especially in the expensive sport of NASCAR. If a sponsor wants a certain driver behind the wheel -- and the rules allow it -- then so be it. You say Almirola's pride was hurt? So what? Hey Aric, grow up! Get over it! I know the young driver never fell out of the top five, and led 43 of 59 laps, he was in the car but ... there's no guarantee he would have won. Now if you're asking should full-time Cup drivers be competing in Busch, that's a separate issue. Ideally, Busch would be used as a feeder series for Cup. But under current rules, JGR certainly had a right to replace Almirola. |
| 3. Who is your pick to win in New Hampshire? | |
| Brian De Los Santos | Charlie McCarthy |
| I'm jumping right back on the Martin Truex Jr. bandwagon. He finished 24th last week at Sonoma, but I don't put much stock in a poor road-course finish slowing the 1 team's momentum. Back on the ovals I expect the team to pick right back up where it left off with finishes of first, third and second before the series made its detour to Napa Valley. I look for strong runs out of Hamlin and Tony Stewart, who has two wins and nine top fives in 16 trips to the track. Gordon (three) and Johnson (two) own five wins between them at NHIS. It'll be interesting to see if the penalties have any sort of impact on their performance. | The obvious choice? It has to be Juan Pablo Montoya. (Are you chuckling?) OK, a poor attempt at humor. Last week's winner at Infineon has a way to go before he becomes the pre-race pick on an oval. The obvious choices to me are the current points leader Gordon, who owns three wins at New Hampshire, and Jeff Burton, who has won four times there. But I think this is where Ryan Newman finds Victory Lane for the first time since winning there in September '05. Newman has won twice in 10 starts there, with five top fives and seven top 10s. |
