Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 7, 1993 TAG: 9307070046
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The three-member National Stock Car Racing Commission panel instead fined Schrader and Hendrick $5,000 each - the minimum fine for any attempt to cheat the restrictor plate used on engines at Daytona and Talladega. For NASCAR teams, the combined $10,000 fine is less than the average tire bill for a weekend of racing.
Schrader and Hendrick were suspended by Les Richter, NASCAR's vice president of competition, after NASCAR inspectors found illegal engine parts on Schrader's Chevrolet Lumina after Pepsi 400 qualifying Thursday at Daytona International Speedway.
The parts - a carburetor and an intake manifold - had been machined to create passageways, or air leaks, in an effort to get more air past the restrictor plate and into the engine, thus increasing horsepower and speed.
But Schrader's team said the parts were put on his engine by mistake. They said the air-leak assembly was incomplete and did not work, citing the fact that their car was 15th in time trials.
"As I've stated all along, I had no knowledge of the carburetor situation," Schrader said in a statement released Tuesday by the team. "This was an oversight in the shops [where the engines are built] and not an attempt to gain an illegal advantage."
Each side presented its case Tuesday at a hearing in Daytona Beach, Fla.
"We feel very positive about the way our appeal was handled," said Hendrick Motorsports owner Rick Hendrick (whose father, Joe, is the owner of record for Schrader's car). "The commission was open and very willing to listen to our side of the story. No advantage was gained and gaining one was not our intent."
Although Schrader's qualifying run Thursday was disallowed and he started the Pepsi 400 from the back of the field, he finished third and moved from seventh to fifth in the Winston Cup points race. It was his fifth top-five finish in the past six races.
While Schrader and his team obviously were delighted with the outcome of the hearing, Richter and Winston Cup Director Gary Nelson were said by one source to be "stunned."
"Disappointed" was the official word from NASCAR spokesman Chip Williams.
"We felt that we made a very good judgment on Thursday, that we followed the rules and did what was in the best interest of the sport," Williams said Tuesday. "So we are disappointed with what the commission came up with."
The Schrader camp, meanwhile, headed off to a victory lunch in Daytona Beach after the three-hour hearing.
In addition to Schrader and Rick Hendrick, engine builder Kenny Bingham presented the appeal, while Nelson explained NASCAR's rationale.
Bingham is part owner (along with Hendrick and another partner) of B&R Engineering, a Winston-Salem, N.C., manufacturer that sells restrictor-plate engines to Hendrick Motorsports.
"The engine was built under contract" by B&R, Hendrick's statement said, "and the holes were put there as part of a testing program. They should have been filled by the builder before we received the engine, and we accept the blame for that oversight."
The commissioners who heard the appeal were NASCAR Competition Administrator Jerry Cook; Martinsville Speedway President Clay Campbell; and International Motor Sports Association President Dan Greenwood.
Tuesday's ruling was inconsistent with the commission's harsh stance at the most recent previous major appeal hearing in May 1991. In that case, a different three-member commission panel upheld 12-week suspensions against car owner Junior Johnson and crew chief Tim Brewer, while rescinding a 12-week suspension of driver Tommy Ellis but keeping intact an $18,000 fine. Johnson and Brewer had their suspensions reduced to four weeks after a further appeal to National Stock Car Racing Commissioner Semon E. Knudsen.
The panel Tuesday "made their decision in good faith and we're going to abide by that," Williams said. "But what we'll probably do over the course of the next week is talk to the guys on the commission and ask them, `Where did we go wrong?' and `What could we have done differently.' "
NASCAR rules state that in any appeal, the commission is only supposed to consider the "correctness of the decision by NASCAR" rather than the results of the ruling. But Williams said the commission essentially "can do anything they want to."
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB