Race manipulation isn't a new concept in NASCAR or racing in general. Stock car racing had SpinGate with Clint Bowyer in 2013, Formula 1 had CrashGate with Nelson Piquet Jr. in 2008, and IndyCar had its recent P2P scandal involving Team Penske. But as Penske's own Joey Logano pointed out during Championship 4 Media Day, the way a sanctioning body reacts to such moments will be critical for keeping the sport intact.
"Well, it's everything, right?" said Logano when asked about the maintaining the sport's integrity. "I mean, you see plenty of documentaries on how sports and people have kind of done things in the wrong way, how it can destroy a sport. NASCAR is backed up against the wall to where they had to do something, right? They have to do something to control us. It's everybody, right?
"Whatever the rule is, whether it's this 100% rule or it's putting the cars together, if the rules aren't enforced, the sport will fall apart. It's important to keep that."
The 100% rule was implemented following Michael Waltrip Racing's attempt to influence the 2013 playoff race, a very gray-area rule that essentially says all competitors must race at 100% of their ability with the goal of achieving their best possible finishing position in an event.
The growing influence of manufacturers
But while race manipulation has been a hot topic this week, so has the role of the manufacturers and how tightly aligned teams representing the same OEM now are. Ross Chastain and Austin Dillon weren't Hendrick Motorsports drivers and neither team even runs Hendrick engines. Despite that, they put their own race aside to safeguard the No. 24 of William Byron.
Earlier this week, Denny Hamlin said that the manufacturers have "way too much say in the outcomes of these races," but Logano looked more at the current car and its role in all of this.
"Yeah, I mean, in some ways it's grown and in some ways not," explained Logano when asked about manufacturer influence. "But I think the Next Gen car itself has kind of made the manufacturer matter a lot more because there's only certain things that we can control, right? The car is the car. The body becomes important. That's one thing that the OEM can control. The engine. There's your other one, right? Those are two big speeding ops.
"The teams, they have the ability to tune and make a car better than others. There's times where we've seen it, right, what happened earlier this year, the Fords were off, all of them. You tell me all the teams were off? No. The OEM matters. We've been able to turn that around all together, which is great."
Are the penalties enough?
The penalties issued by NASCAR this week did not factor in the car makes, focusing on the three teams accused of race manipulation. However, said penalties were substantial, totaling $600,00 in fines, nine suspensions, and the loss of 50 driver/owner points between each organization. But was it enough?
"I don't know," admitted Logano. "I know that NASCAR had to do something just because if you let that go, it will just keep becoming more extreme every time. They put their foot down. Is it enough? Well, we'll see this week. If they do it again, then you know the penalty wasn't big enough."
Trackhouse attempted to appeal the penalties this week, but lost. Both RCR and 23XI withdrew their own appeals. Now onto Phoenix where each manufacturer has at least one car in the Championship 4 fight. With all four title combatants entering the finale on equal ground, there will surely be temptation to meddle again if the opportunity arises. For the sake of the sport and for the reasons already stated by Logano, hopefully they do not.
