NASCAR needs its ‘cheaters’

Chad Knaus, crew chief for Jimmie Johnson, has a NASCAR rap sheet as long as your arm. He's about to do hard time again with his fourth suspension in six years, his second in the last two.

Good for him. Bless his heart. May he never relent in seeking technological advantages.

Sunday's Nextel Cup race in Loudon, N.H., will begin the first suspension for young Steve Letarte, crew chief for Jeff Gordon. It won't be his last, if he's as good as I think he is, and if NASCAR continues down this path of zero tolerance on modifications to the Car of Tomorrow.

As these two sit out the next six races, living legend Junior Johnson can only admire them from afar. Somewhere Smokey Yunick is smiling. As those two always said, you work to find an edge, and then you leave it up to NASCAR to decide whether you've crossed the line.

Without their kind, NASCAR would be but a faded memory of a misbegotten experiment with showroom cars that fizzled in the 1950s.

Innovation and ingenuity, often sensationalized as "cheating," are the very blood and marrow of NASCAR's rise out of the backwaters into the huge markets and national telecasts.

"Stock car" racing worked only briefly. Showroom cars just never have been graceful or powerful enough for interesting racing. More at Chicago Tribune