Football
Associated Press 17y

NASCAR tightening rules on suspensions

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- When NASCAR suspended crew chief Tony
Eury Jr. for six weeks, he figured he'd take his wife on an overdue
Hawaiian vacation.

Then he found a loophole in his punishment: Although he couldn't
be in the garage area, NASCAR wasn't banning him from track
property. And he was only forbidden from using the team's radio
communications, but text messaging, cell phones and instant
messenger were fine to use.

So Eury called off the trip to Maui and traveled to five of the
six races he was suspended from to support driver Dale Earnhardt
Jr.

That didn't sit well with chairman Brian France, who has
instructed his officials to inform suspended team members they are
not permitted to be on track property during their punishments.

The change comes as Eury's suspension ends -- he's at Daytona
International Speedway preparing for Saturday night's race -- but
Hendrick Motorsports crew chiefs Chad Knaus and Steve Letarte have
five races remaining on their penalties.

"We'll throw the fear of God into everybody and hope they don't
be seen at the racetrack," Nextel Cup director John Darby said
Thursday.

That's where Eury went wrong.

He was somewhat discreet about his presence for the first four
races, but many believe he flaunted it last weekend at New
Hampshire when he parked his motorhome on a hill outside the track.
He then climbed on top to watch the race in a lawn chair, equipped
with his scanner and a laptop computer so he could aide Dale
Earnhardt Jr. during the event.

"He was parked up on the hill with all the other fans, and I
guess there was no real discussions about whether or not he could
participate as a fan and come to the race," Earnhardt said. "They
never said he totally had to be off the premises. If they had made
that clear, we would have definitely worked within their
guidelines."

Eury believes France only found out about the loophole in
suspensions this past week, and is now working to close it.

"I know he's pretty mad about the whole deal," Eury said.
"But we went to the proper people and asked them what the rules
were and what they wanted us to do. I just don't think he knew, to
be honest. Brian didn't know what they were doing."

The teams involved insist their crew chiefs did nothing more
than what NASCAR told them they could do during the suspension.
Knaus and Letarte both traveled to New Hampshire last weekend to
assist in preparations for Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson.

"We stuck to exactly what they told us we can do," said
Gordon, the current points leader. "That's why our crew chiefs
were at New Hampshire. We haven't decided what we're going to do
going forward.

"If they change those regulations, then we'll live by them. But
right now, we're living by what they told us we can do."

Suspended crew chiefs have been suspected of showing up at race
tracks for years.

They could set up shop in a motorhome to be on hand to assist
their driver and team. They could offer advice on setups, pore over
practice data and counsel the crew on strategy. And although they
weren't on the pit box to make the split-second decisions on race
day, they were close enough to the action to offer opinion.

Earnhardt said that's all Eury was doing, and it was the same
support Eury could have provided from his living room.

"We were going to utilize him whether he was at the track or
not," Earnhardt said. "He has a scanner and he can hear what's
going on. If he heard something or listened to how I was explaining
the car, he might call ... on the cell phone and say, 'This is what
you should do.'

"But that was going to happen if he was at the race track or
not. He can sit in his living room and we can upload the tire
temperatures and all the notes from practice."

NASCAR knows that, which is why series officials were somewhat
lenient with the enforcement of the suspensions. They have no way
to keep the crew chiefs out of the grandstands, the infield or the
luxury suites, and they have no way of preventing them from
communicating in some way with their team.

But Darby insisted the suspensions are still effective because
banning a crew chief from the garage prohibits him from doing his
job properly.

"The value of the crew chief is being able to touch the car,
rub the car, smell the car, look at the driver, the eyes, all of
that stuff," Darby said. "That's the value of a suspension. Me,
personally, I don't care if he's watching a race from the
grandstands. But when a crew chief that went through that is bold
enough to throw it back at us, we'll react to it."

That's what NASCAR believes Eury did at New Hampshire, and in
interviews he's had since his suspension lifted. It's why Knaus and
Letarte -- who had not planned to be in Daytona this weekend, but
were planning to attend races later this month -- have now been
informed they cannot be on track property.

And, if Eury isn't careful, he might find himself watching the
race outside the track with them.

"If Tony Jr. keeps running his yap, we could easily send him
home for another six weeks," Darby said.

^ Back to Top ^