NASCAR News

Joe Gibbs Racing:  It turned out just as expected -- no points penalties, but hefty monetary fines for bringing the unapproved oil pans to Michigan.  The three crew chiefs -- Mike Ford, Dave Rogers and Greg Zipadelli -- were fined $50,000 each.  The crew chief, the car chiefs and competition director Jimmy Makar were all put on probation until the end of the year.

Red Bull Racing:  The news that Red Bull was pulling out of NASCAR seems to have leaked a lot quicker than the company might have liked.  Anyway, they're searching for a buyer to keep the team going and will even throw in some sponsorship.  Whatever it takes.

Silly Season:  Carl Edwards is still the top free agent.  His decision -- to stay at Roush Fenway or move on -- will affect everyone else, but the situation at Red Bull throws a big monkey wrench into the works.  It's currently a two-car team, but Kasey Kahne is going to Hendricks next season and Brian Vickers's contract is up at the end of the season.  And what about Mark Martin...and Clint Bowyer and Danica Patrick and Juan Montoya and all the others?

It's a strange weekend coming up for the new official sport of North Carolina.  No Truck race, but the Cup and Nationwide Series are both at road courses -- just not the same one.  The Cup race is at Sonoma, California, at Infineon Raceway.  The Nationwide race is in Wisconsin at Road America.

Road courses?  Yea or nay?  I think they're fun and take a lot of driver skill.  I'd like to see maybe one more road course track on the Cup schedule, maybe even during the Chase.

Cup -- Kurt Busch on the Pole, JGR Rules Violation at Michigan

Image by Photography by Hank via Flickr

Kurt Busch won his third pole in a row, edging David Reutimann by three one-thousandths of a second Saturday to take the pole for Sunday's Heluva Good! 400 at Michigan International Speedway.

Busch turned a lap on the two-mile track in 38.156 seconds (188.669 mph) to edge Reutimann's 38.159-second effort.  It was Busch's 15th career pole and the fourth in a row for Penske Racing.  Brad Keselowski started the streak at Charlotte in May.

Matt Kenseth will start third, followed by Brian Vickers and Regan Smith.  Series points leader Carl Edwards starts 23rd.  Tony Raines, Brian Keselowski and Mike Skinner did not make the race.  (Race lineup)


The oil pans for all three Joe Gibbs Racing cars -- those of Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano -- were confiscated by NASCAR during opening day inspection Friday.  The teams had to change out the oil pans before practice began Friday.  The confiscated parts were 25-30 pounds heavier than those normally used and could give an aerodynamic advantage by lowering the cars center of gravity.

Because the oil pans were never used in competition, NASCAR seems to be inclined to treat this as a simple case of failing to submit the part for approval.  In that case, the teams might be penalized financially, not by taking points away.

Jeff Gordon weighed in on Twitter...

All I'm going to say about Gibbs cars oil pan is that we had 100 point penalty for a flared left front fender that never went on track. #JGFri Jun 17 18:49:58 via Twitter for BlackBerry®Jeff Gordon
JeffGordonWeb

Sprint Cup Series Director John Darby explained that this would be similar to Michael Waltrip Racing using unapproved radiator mounts at Texas last year.  In that case, the crew chiefs were fined $25,000 and put on probation.

"The whole issue has absolutely nothing to do with whether the oil pans are legal or illegal," Darby said. "But, quite frankly...we never had the opportunity to make that decision.

"When we open the rulebook, we don't have to flip through pages to get back to the oil-pan section. We open the book and we stop on the first page and the very first paragraph says you've got to have stuff approved before you can use it. We don't have to make a judgment of the pan. We don't have to decide whether it's too heavy or too light. We don't have to decide if it's an aerodynamic device or not an aerodynamic device...

"The Hendrick fender flares [in 2007], every square inch of the car body, there's a drawing that supports how exactly it has to be," Darby said. "The wing mounts from Dale Earnhardt Jr [in 2007], those were an exact part that had to comply with the design drawings that were given to all the teams.

"Oil pans, the teams have flexibility to work on them with oil pickups, depths and a little bit of widths. There's some real basic parameters that surround the oil pans, but there is some leniency to work on an oil pan, much like you would have a leniency to port a cylinder head to your liking."

  Penalties will be announced Monday or Tuesday.