Say it isn't so, tell me that MWR (Michael Waltrip Racing) didn't do the obvious, tell me that Clint Boywer didn't spin on purpose, tell me please that Brian Vickers didn't come in and pit for no reason, then start back far enough during a restart that he was behind Joey Logano and gave Joey enough points to keep Jeff Gordon and Ryan Newman out of the chase therefore letting their teammate, Martin Truex Jr, get the position and the points enough to get a tie with Ryan in points (with the points tie and the total number of wins tied at 1 a piece, NASCAR goes to the second place finishes then if thats a tie they go to 3rd place finishes and so on and so forth until they have a tie breaker on how man times they finished in whatever spot they have to get to to declare a winner, in this instance it went to 2nd place finishes) and therefore getting the 12 and final spot in the chase. Consequently Joey Logano finished 1 point ahead of Jeff Gordon, Brian Vickers lined up behind Joey on the final restart when he should of been in front of Joey being that Joey was 1 lap down and Brian was on the lead lap. Not only did he line up behind Joey, on the last lap we slowed down so much that he was only doing 79mph (see picture below and check out the highlighted area) when the leaders were doing over 120mph, and teammate Bowyer also finished behind Joey when 10 laps before he was 2 laps ahead of Joey. From a video I seen posted on YouTube, Brian finished the race going down pit road because he never crossed the finish line on the track. The picture of the cars clearly shows (yellow circles) Joey in front of Brian Vickers on the track, Brian Clearly lined up behind Joey on the final restart when he should of lined up in front of him. Not only did Brian Vickers go into the pits on the final lap, he was told too by Ty Noris, Executive Vice President of Business Development and General Manager of Michael Waltrip Racing, "to pit, pit now" which Brian replied " are you talking to me? why do I need to pit? Do I have a tire going down?" Ty Noris replied " yeah you do" then a second later "we need that 1 point." Then Ty told Brian that he would talk to him after the race and that he "owed him a kiss." The more you hear and see of what happened Saturday night, the more you wonder what NASCAR might do. What Michael Waltrip racing did was willfully change the outcome of not only a race, but who got into and was eliminated from the Chase. If NASCAR does nothing in response to what we have now learned took place, what will the black mark on the sport be? let alone the integrity issue that will arise from all thats happened since Saturday. You can bet the WWE references will be never ending if nothing is done. If you follow Twitter you need to check @GeoffreyMiller and read his timeline, he covers the breakdown of events very clearly and is actually where I got both pictures I used here. Watch the YouTube video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=brrgyDs3CFE&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Michael Waltrip Racing isn't new to the whole cheating game either. In 2007, the first race in Sprint Cup Racing for the Michael Waltrip Racing team of which Michael himself was the driver, the team was caught using what turned out to be jet fuel in the engine to help try and gain an advantage during qualifying, of course NASCAR caught onto that it seems a lot faster then they have this time. Sounds like NASCAR will be holding a meeting tonight to discuss what happened at Saturday's race. It has been said that what Clint did was just to get back at Jeff Gordon for the race last fall in Phoenix when Jeff took Clint out of the race and ending any chance Clint had to win the championship. I call bull crap on that because what Jeff did just affected Clint and Clint alone and what Clint did was change the outcome of the chase for 4 teams. In my opinion what NASCAR needs to do is bring the hammer down and very hard on the whole MWR company. This is unexceptable to the highest degree.
THIS JUST IN NASCAR SLAMS DOWN HARD ON MWR
Welcome to the chase Ryan Newman. In an unprecidented move NASCAR has come down and come down HARD on the MWR racing team as a whole. With a whopping $300,000 fine and spotter/General Manager/Executive Vice President Ty Norris was suspended indefinitely and Martin Truex's team was docked all 3 teams 50 driver and championship owner points and those points were assessed PRE chase seating, knocking Martin Truex back to 691 points and back to 17th in points therefore eliminating him from the second wild card spot and giving the 12th and final spot back to Ryan Newman. Along with that all 3 crew chiefs - Brian Pattie (15) Scott Miller (55) and Chad Johnston (56) have all been placed on NASCAR probation until December 31st. Clint Bowyer, the whole reason this all happened in the first place, got away with no real penalty for his part in the fiasco except the 50 points which effectively done nothing to hurt him. Which I seriously think is wrong for NASCAR to leave him out of the punishment and more then the 50 points should of been assessed, but I do believe this was a step in the right direction for NASCAR, they had to hit hard and fast on this issue to tell the other teams that actions like this taken by the teams, will be delt with and delt with in a swift and harsh mannor. If they had not come down on this issue hard, they possible would of had the same problem at the season finally in Homested.
Ok onto bigger and better news for today. It is official, Ryan Newman will be driving the Richard Childress number 31 with partial sponsorship by CAT, I would be surprised if Quicken Loans and the Outback don't go with him to RCR. Also on related news the entire crew including the Crew Chief of the 31 will stay with the 31 team. Ryan thinks the fact that Richard Childress racing does everything "in house" from engines to hanging the body, will help him be able to compete at a higher level. The team he is currently with, Stewart-Haas racing, gets engines and chasis and technical support from Hendrick Motorsports. With Ryan's engineering degree from Purdue, he will be a great asset for the Richard Childress company. Next year wont be easy for RCR, with grandson Austin Dillon going to the whats now 29 team, word is the 3 will be back on that car when the season starts next year, Paul Menard will be the lead driver on the team, that is if you go by seniority, my guess is Austin will be the top dog in the stable.
More problems for NASCAR in the Nationwide Series, The final restart had many crying FOUL, specially home town boy Brian Scott. Brian led 339 of 350 laps and on the last restart it was painfully clear that Brad Keselowski jumped the restart and after the race NASCAR came out and admitted as much, but the way NASCAR sees it, when they crown the winner everyone goes home knowing who won the race and not much will change the lineup, including a mistake they agree they made. What should of happened is Brad fall back and give Brian the lead back and if the driver doesn't give the position back they get the black flag, if this all sounds familier it should, this was the case when Jimmie Johnson jumped the restart on Juan Montoya a few months back. Jimmie was black flagged and had to do a pass through down pit lane. Brian handled it very nicely. Hang in there Brian because the wins are coming and soon.
Folks I wanted to get this published because of the breaking news so I will end this at this time and try to do some more on this story tomorrow after we get some reactions to the penalty.
Until later.........
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