Bruton Smith said before Daytona that the "Start & Park" teams were a disgrace and that NASCAR was about to make a move on the practice. This could be the first salvo.
It really sucks for them. According to the article, they won't get the car back in time for Vegas qualifying and might not have enough funds available to outfit the back up car to the same level as the primary.
I think NASCAR gets a little upset when you drive a car in with a perfectly good sounding engine and list engine problem as reason for being out. Qualifying 5th in a nonimpound race does not help.
Saw where Prism collected the same monies as 7th place finisher by having 2 cars start & park. Like Robby, not a fan of start & park. Rather see teams do like the Wood Bros limited schedule but race!
I don't care that NASCAR took the car for inspection, but I do care that the team may not get it returned before qualifying for the next race.
Not a fan of the start & parks, but if they're LEGALLY fast enough to qualify for a Cup race then they should be allowed run. No one really complained when RGM did the same thing with the 2nd car. If NASCAR wanted to make a statement, what the #26 team has done so far should be stopped. That's just a joke and I'm including Boris as a part of it for even agreeing to do that.
They should inspect the car quickly and return it if no violations are found. But they should pull the engine and keep that for more extensive inspection. The engine is blown anyway (that's why they parked, right?) so not having this broken engine would not impede the team from qualifying this weekend.
Permalink Reply by vak7 on February 22, 2010 at 10:19am
Bruton Smith says a lot of stuff, more often to stir controversy than offer any substantiave input. NASCAR doesn't usually react to an issue based on his comments.