Gentlemen, Time to Start Cheating

Mike Skinner, sidelined since the fall Dover race because of a series of crashes, is eager to get back in the car.

Skinner, 44, is a racer. A former Craftsman Truck champ, he doesn’t just make laps.

But despite his success on the truck circuit, it has been five years, or 167 races, since Skinner graduated to Winston Cup, and he hasn’t won once. It’s not that he’s desperate, but there’s definitely a sense of urgency. He is determined to prove to himself--and the naysayers--he’s capable of doing the job.

After offseason testing, Skinner is excited about the prospects of his new ride for 2002, Morgan-McClure’s No. 4 Chevrolet. And the drive to win at all costs still burns inside.

“I told the [crew] to do whatever they want to the car as long as we win,” Skinner said before arriving at Daytona.

Including bending a few NASCAR rules?

“Sure,” he said. “And I told the guys if we get busted, I’ll pay the fine.”

To Skinner, the benefits of a win far outweigh the punishments that accompany cheating, and he should know. Skinner was the last NASCAR driver to lose his first-place winnings after a postrace inspection (at the 1999 Busch race at Atlanta)--but the victory stood.

Therein lies the reason Skinner’s team and many others are willing to push the limits in the gray and not-so-gray areas of the NASCAR rule book.

Some in the garage say cheating will occur more frequently this season and continue until the punishment fits the crime, such as NASCAR taking away a win--or the 175 points that come with it.

“That’s the only way NASCAR will get anyone’s attention,” says crew chief Tony Furr, who was suspended for four races for cheating last season. “Taking away the crew chief, yeah, that hurts the team and it hurts the sponsors, which they don’t need to do. And fines? People will pay the fines. Money’s not the problem or the issue.

“What NASCAR needs to do to really get their attention is take away the win. Now that hurts the whole team--not just the sponsor, not just the crew chief, not just the owner as far as his pocketbook. That would hurt the whole team and make them think twice before they ever do it again.”

Teams dramatically increase the performance on their cars by affecting two areas: the body and the engine. Before qualifying at Daytona last week, quite a few teams were sent to the back of the line after their cars’ bodies failed the initial inspection--the cars did not fit into the NASCAR template, particularly the rear deck lids.

As for the engines, the distribution of restrictor plates is supposed to be random, but some in the garage believe plates with slightly bigger holes end up on preferred cars.

One driver, who didn’t want his name used for fear of repercussions, says that sometimes a team will distract the NASCAR official and takes matters into its own hands if it isn’t one of the chosen few.

“With a little sandpaper, you can shave the holes on the restrictor-plate openings and take tenths (of a second) off your laps,” the driver says. A tenth of a second can add up, especially over a 500-mile race. Like Skinner, this driver believes it’s worth the gamble if it means winning the race.

“That’s ... a game that we’ve played, even back when I was racing,” Winston Cup Series director John Darby says of cheating in general. “If you can bring 10 things wrong with your car to the racetrack with the hopes that the inspectors will only find half of them, then it’s like cheating on your taxes. If you cheat on your taxes for five years and only get caught one year, then you’re four years ahead.”

That’s the philosophy the teams have--some just play the game a little better than others. Furr had an ongoing game of cat-and-mouse with previous Cup director Gary Nelson dating to 1997, when John Andretti won the Pepsi 400 at Daytona in Cale Yarborough’s No. 96 Ford. Nelson was certain the car, prepared by Furr, was illegal, but Nelson couldn’t find the violations. Last year, Nelson did catch Furr -- for the failure of Jerry Nadeau’s car to meet minimum roof height specifications during qualifying for the Daytona 500 -- and the team was slammed with a $10,000 fine and Furr’s four-race suspension.

Furr says cheating is “not the mentality at Hendrick Motorsports at all,” and he learned a lesson.

But what’s a little bad publicity when you look at the return? It used to be drivers tried to win races because they were competitive -- and certainly, the desire to win still is foremost in their minds. But today, NASCAR is big business, and though the teams provide the product, the sponsors and television drive the sport.

More is on the line by cheating than just a win, and that’s why this season, with prize money at a new high, teams are willing to cheat like never before. The Joyce Julius Sponsors Report shows a sponsor’s exposure on TV during a race can be worth millions. When Joe Nemechek won the Pop Secret 400 at Rockingham last year, for instance, his sponsor, Oakwood Homes, was mentioned four times and received 31 minutes of screen time, worth an estimated $3 million.

Those numbers paled in comparison to the face time Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Budweiser received in winning the 2001 EA Sports 500 at Talladega. Granted, the Talladega race was a No Bull 5 bonus event and Junior was running for $1 million, but Budweiser was on TV screens for more than one-third of the broadcast, worth an estimated $11.6 million in exposure--the highest such total of the season. Chevrolet, Junior’s manufacturer, was second only to EA Sports that day, getting more than $5 million worth of exposure.

Later that afternoon, NASCAR slapped Junior’s crew chief, Tony Eury, with a $25,000 fine when the No. 8 car failed to meet the minimum height requirement in the postrace inspection. But it was a small price to pay when you consider what the sponsor made and the $1.1 million won by the team.

The responsibility to run fast at a track such as Daytona lies mainly with the crew chief, who must find every advantage he can on the car--and that means pushing the limits. But it’s desperation, either from a lack of funding--with an eye on all those dollars mentioned above--or performance that drives teams over the edge.

“We won’t cross the line like other teams may, but we’ll certainly walk all over it and push and pull at it for different reasons,” says Jeremy Mayfield, driver of the No. 19 Dodge.

“I think everyone’s out here wanting the same thing. It’s just some will go a little farther to make that happen.”

To make sure cheating doesn’t become prosperous, NASCAR recently enlisted four engineers to bring its inspectors up to speed on the technological advancements on the cars. With all the Winston Cup teams having at least one engineer on the payroll, NASCAR was playing catch-up. But to gain respect throughout the garage, NASCAR must eliminate any suspicion that teams are not treated equally during inspection.

Darby says he is working toward making the inspections more consistent, which would go a long way toward eliminating a sense of impropriety.

“I think the teams will learn that early on and then take some of the, ‘Well, this guy got away with this’ mumbo jumbo out of the garage area,’” he says.

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The Facts

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