Did Favorite Son Dale Earnhardt Jr. get the NASCAR “Call”
06/16/08 It seems NASCAR did everything it could in its power to give Dale Earnhardt Jr. a win on Sunday.
Evidence #1
Now that it's all over, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has the checkered flag, has the trophy and we know darn certain that NASCAR doesn't go back and take victories away from Sprint Cup Series winners, let's ask the question. Isn't it against the rules to pass the pace car under caution?
And if it's not, wouldn't a driver be penalized if NASCAR has warned them 3 times to stay behind the pace car as television commentators relayed to viewers before Earnhardt took the checkered to win the LifeLock 400 Sunday at Michigan International Speedway?
This much is certain, Earnhardt was doing what he had to do to keep his car coasting and conserving fuel for a 2-lap green-white-checkered shootout at Michigan. But he was having some serious issues with keeping his car at the pace set by NASCAR, and isn't that part of the rules, that a driver must maintain the pace set by the "pace" car under caution?
Clearly Earnhardt was trying to get quick bursts of power out of his motor as he would fire it and immediately turn it off while pacing waiting for the final restart. Wasn't it to his advantage that Earnhardt was gassing his car so much that the bursts he was getting were faster than the pace car was running and thus sending him past the pace car?
Earnhardt said the team was warned that he could be parked if he did it again.
"I can understand how it might look if, especially if you're not a Dale Jr. fan," Earnhardt said. "Yeah, I guess you might not be too, I know exactly what they are going to say Monday. But hell with it."
And yes, there are many out there that would say NASCAR at times will play favorites.
And when the most popular driver you have is on the verge of breaking a 2-year plus winless streak, does fair and equal play for all go out the window? Courant.com
Evidence #2
Matt Kenseth thought he should have finished two spots higher, and not just because he finished third on Sunday. Kenseth led four times for a total of 41 laps, but he gave up the lead for good on Lap 187 of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series LifeLock 400 at Michigan International Speedway.
During a two-tire pit stop in the second half of the race, a NASCAR official stayed in front of Kenseth's No. 17 DeWalt Ford, trapping him for a few seconds in his pit box.
"I thought we just kind of got beat on the pit deal again," Kenseth said. "We had an official in front of our car when we did two (tires) and that cost us two spots leaving the pits, and that really hurt us.
"Then, we had a little miscue on our two-tire stop and that hurt us a little bit, too. Just didn't quite work out. There was a lot of different strategies, and some guys could make it to the end and some couldn't, and we were just not exactly in the right place to capitalize on it."
Kenseth immediately told his crew chief he thought that NASCAR should put him up in the order to compensate for the official's error.
"Well, I kind of knew they wouldn't," he said. "I've seen them before when officials made a mistake and they corrected it — I can't remember if it was Carl (Edwards) somewhere in the Nationwide Series race where the official called something wrong and put him back, so you hope for that possibility.
"But the official just walked out and stood right in front of my car when it was time to go and it was either run him over and hurt him or wait for him to get out of the way, so I had to wait. And it wasn't really for the lead, because that's when Jimmie (Johnson) and the 77 (Sam Hornish Jr.) stayed out. But it would've put us two cars farther forward and the first car on fresh tires. At the end of the race, the way the caution fell, it might not have made a difference, but it might've." Detroit Free Press