NASCAR again lets cheater keep race win

Kyle Busch's race-winning car in the Yellow Transportation 300 failed post-race inspection at Kansas Speedway, NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said Saturday night. Although NASCAR originally indicated the Hendrick Motorsports car passed but the intake manifold was being taken back to its Research and Development Center for further evaluation, NASCAR later determined that the intake manifold did indeed fail for not meeting NASCAR specifications. NASCAR still will confiscate the manifold for further evaluation.

Any penalties will be announced next week, but even though he probably would not have won the race with the illegal manifold, Busch will be allowed to keep the race win because this is NASCAR where cheaters get to keep their name in the winners column for the history book and sponsors still get all their post-race publicity. Frankly, if you are a team owner you have to wonder if it's not better to cheat and win every race. The record book will show you undefeated for the season and your sponsor will get their photo in all the race winner circle photos. Fans will leave the track and TV viewers will switch channels thinking the same guy wins week in and week out.

Sometimes it looks as if NASCAR just shoots from the hip, content to keep all these crews off-guard.

Rattling off the list of points-penalties and suspensions reads like a who’s who:

• Gordon and Johnson were both hit with 100-point docks at Sonoma in June for fiddling with the front fenders of their Cars of Tomorrow, and their crew chiefs were suspended for six weeks.
• Kurt Busch was docked 100 points for reckless driving on pit road at Dover in June.
• Earnhardt took a 100-point hit messing with the rear wing on his Car of Tomorrow before the race at Darlington, and crew chief Tony Eury Jr. was suspended for six weeks.
• Waltrip lost 100 points and his crew chief was suspended indefinitely after Waltrip's car was discovered pre-qualifying with an illegal gas additive at Daytona.
• Kasey Kahne lost 50 points for a pre-race body violation at Daytona in February, and his crew chief was suspended for four races.
• Matt Kenseth lost 50 points too for a pre-race body violation at Daytona, and his crew chief too was suspended four races.
• Scott Riggs and teammate Elliott Sadler both lost 25 points and their crew chiefs were suspended two races for a similar pre-race Daytona violation.
• Kyle Busch and Johnny Sauter both lost 25 points for their cars of tomorrow being too low on the nose post-race at Loudon in July.
• Robby Gordon was docked 25 points for fiddling with an in-car TV camera at Daytona, discovered pre-race.
• Tony Stewart was docked 25 points for using bad language on TV after winning at Indianapolis.
• Jeremy Mayfield was docked 25 points for having illegal weight in his car at California, discovered in pre-qualifying inspection.
• And in the playoffs, Edwards has just been docked 25 points.

Is there any consistency? What has NASCAR been trying to say in all this?