View from the Cheap Seats: Hammer Time

By Ron Lemasters Jr.

CHARLOTTE -- NASCAR is not kidding, bluffing, messing around or joshing.

When it comes to the Gen-6 car, the message is simple: touch anything the sanctioning body has deemed off-limits and you will emerge from the weekend sorry and sore.

Matt Kenseth and Jason Ratcliff, who used a fast car and a solid strategy to win the STP 400 last week at Kansas, are the latest to discover this, as they were rocked by a mega-penalty on Wednesday. NASCAR fined Ratcliff a cool $200,000 and suspended him for six races, zapped Kenseth and team owner Joe Gibbs 50 points each and determined that the victory wouldn't count toward the Chase, either as bonus points or in determining the wild-card spots.

Ouchtown, population JGR.

The culprit was a connecting rod, which attaches a piston to the crankshaft, that measured in three grams lighter than the 525 NASCAR calls for in that part.

Personally, that is a touch much for a part that offered exactly zip, zero, nada in the way of performance advantage. But I'm not NASCAR.

If you were going to go light, you wouldn't do it in the rods. They have to live all day, and rotational mass is the key. A three-gram shade on one rod does nothing to help horsepower. If you did it in all eight, you might have something, but in one? Nah.

Toyota Racing Development put the engine together, and earlier today, Lee White fell on the ceremonial sword. He took responsibility for the parts, and their placement in the engine. Now, TRD engine tuners don't check the rods as a rule, because it means disassembling the heads and block. At the track, they'll do it if they have to, but usually, when there's a question, they bolt another bullet in rather than hunt and peck.

Perfect storm it was, eh?

NASCAR has a decided lack of a sense of humor when it comes to stuff like this. The tech folks know that a three-gram mistake on one of the rods isn't an advantage, but they also know that three grams light is three grams light. Ipso facto: Hammer Time.

The Gen-6 is NASCAR's Bunker Hill. It's the Holy Grail, and the Perfection That Is the Gen-6 will not be besmirched. Put a period on the end of that sentence.

In truth, they really don't have a choice. They saw what the teams did the last time they came out with a new model, and a large part of the revulsion it engendered among the teams and fans was because it wasn't racy. The Gen-6 is, by all accounts, despite a sweet spot that's harder to find than an honest politician. When you're fining folks for oblique references to the competition, apple to apple, you're guarding the temple door with a host of thousands.

All the same, the penalties delivered on Wednesday were more than a reaction to a rule violation: they were a shot across the bow. 

Touch an off-limits area and you will be sorry and sore.