Is Gibbs Reputation Getting Tight in Turn Two?

After a few months of being Loose in Turn 3, we've had a bit of an adjustment and now Turn 3 isn't the issue any more. The moderation has now become a 2-man debate process between Charlie Turner from On Pit Road and myself and now we're finding ourselves getting Tight in Turn Two! Man, when are the adjustments going to kick in?

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This week, I wasn't sure what to say or think about the shimmy shim shim scenario that was going on in the Nationwide Series, but I thought I toss this out at Charlie with one perspective I have:

With Gibbs accepting every bit of the responsibility for the shims on the gas pedal deal, I find it refreshing. Yet who is going to believe him?

With outsiders looking in, NASCAR gets called America's Most Crooked Sport and it's gloriously colorful past gets pulled back into the present.

Circumstantially speaking, putting the shims on the car when you know the dyno testing rig is on-site sure does say something, but who ever did it, made a bone head move and didn't trust the processes already in place. IE: Toyota power plants having been dialed back a bit. (15 HP?)

Obviously several staff on the Gibbs Nationwide team felt it necessary to try this stunt. Or as DW calls it, Reverse Cheating, seeing as how the cars had to run with less power available to them through the entire race.

How does this make people feel about Joe Gibbs Racing, or the sport in general?

Bruce: I'm fine with it... as long as it doesn't become a habit. Things happen, people screw up and I doubt anyone is going to be trying such blatantly stupid stunts in the future. NASCAR is about innovation and looking for the gray areas and it's part of the process. So things similar to this will continue to happen. Not like this stunt, but similar. NASCAR insiders know this and then some accept it while other rail against it. It is what it is.

As far as the outsider goes, who doesn't know anything at all about the sport, but calls it names looking in from the outside, this stunt isn't going to help the image of NASCAR for a little while. As long as these larger things don't keep happening, the sport will be fine. But a few more incidents to add to Edwards CA deal and now this, could go a long way towards hampering the potential fan from checking out NASCAR.


Charlie (From On Pit Road ): I couldn't disagree with you more on the outsider thing.

Casual observers who are popping out of there racing "gopher hole" to comment on this infraction will duck their clueless heads right back down the chute as soon as the the send button is hit on their keyboards. NASCAR - and auto racing is all about getting away with whatever you can get away with. Call it innovation if you want. If the innovation isn't in the rules, the rule-makers might just call it cheating. And will happen again, just as soon as somebody thinks the risk of getting caught is worth the potential penalty.

Should JGR care about outsider opinion? As a NASCAR blogger, do you think that baseball is a bad sport when a pitcher gets caught doctoring a ball? When a football player argues with a referee about a penalty that the player clearly committed, do you say that the game of football is a joke? If you do, I call you a fool. It's all part of the game. And cheating makes it more interesting.

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Charlie over On Pit Road asked the question:
Who do we think the Fords will be filling their seats with next year?