Today, NASCAR made it's decision on Richard Childress Racing's appeal on the penalties handed out to Clint Bowyer's #33 team, and decided to uphold the decision. Full article can be read here.
Now this is quite common for NASCAR to do, but I would just like to comment on a few things from the article.
First, this stat:
"According to NASCAR, in the past decade there have been 132 appeals heard:
• 92 decisions were upheld;
• 28 penalties were reduced;
• 10 penalties were overturned;
• 2 penalties were increased."
Very rarely does NASCAR ever overturn appeals. I have been closely following the sport since 2005 and can't recall off hand one incident where a major penalty was repealed. Nearly anytime I have ever heard someone was going to fight a penalty, my first reaction was "Oh that's not gonna change".
Second, the face that NASCAR would not listen to the accident reconstruction specialist that RCR had brought in to argue their side. They would not even give them a fair shot, it was as if they had already made up their mind about the situation and were simply going through the motions with the hearing.
NASCAR has gotten a bad reputation amongst fans about not really caring or having solid reasons for doing something. Continuing to have accusations such as these is definitely not helping this reputation.
I think NASCAR made the right call here. I personally am a RCR fan however i dont think that just because the fans want there to be no penalty there shouldn't be. Now the big argument is that the tow truck when pushing Bowyer after he ran out of gas is the reason the car was 1/16th or whatever it was off. However had NASCAR not warned Bowyer and the 33 team at Richmond i feel like NASCAR would have given them the benefit of the doubt. However how could the 33 team expect the car to hold up if a tow truck could ultimately screw up the balance of the car. I think that NASCAR made the right call here they did what they had to they gave the 33 car a chance and gave them a warning they just pushed that to the limits.
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