Wednesday afternoon NASCAR issued a slap on the wrist to punish the No.20 Dollar General team owned by Joe Gibbs, for their alleged cheating in Sunday’s New Hampshire 301.
I am not an expert in car, nor do I claim to be, so it’s particularly hard to determine in what way Kenseth’s cheating affected the outcome of the race he won. That aside, if a team or player in any sport cheats in any game, no matter how tiny the infraction, they should be stripped of that victory.
In this particular case, it was not the last race of the season. It was not even the chase. Still, it could profoundly impact the standings with regard to who gets into the chase.
Trying to determine who No.20 team’s act will impact is like opening up Pandora’s box. To keep things simple, let’s just focus on race runner up, Tony Stewart. Fortunately for Stewart, he has already won a race this year, and will more than likely make it into the chase. That said, what if it was a no name guy that almost never makes it into the top 10 or even 20. A guy for whom a win would be a game changer in terms of point standings in the chase, changes the story to how Driver Doe got robbed from the chase by Kenseth.
For the record, it’s not like the No.20 team secretly attached rocket boosters to their car or anything like that. There is even a chance that neither Matt Kenseth, or crew chief Jason Ratcliff, had any knowledge of the cheating. Stay tuned for more questions about what could have been or should have been as the season goes on and the race for the chase heats up.
