On Tuesday February 27th of 2024, NASCAR issued penalties for the previous weekend’s infractions. At Atlanta, NASCAR confiscated the roof air deflectors from two Stewart-Haas Racing teams. The two SHR teams in question were the #10 of Noah Gragson and the #41 of Ryan Preece. Meanwhile, the Team Penske #22 of Joey Logano got in trouble over a webbed glove. While rules are important in any sport, the excessive penalties related to the Next Gen era car totally ignore NASCAR’s roots.
There is an obvious manner in which excessive penalties ignore NASCAR roots. Yet, there is also a much more subtle manner in which they ignore stock car racing roots. The obvious manner refers to the old saying, “If you’re not cheating, then you’re not trying.” Still, this is not the manner in which I’m interested in covering in much depth here. I’m referring to NASCAR itself being a sociological and economic lesson of prohibition. It’s a lesson that should be clear considering what we saw with Joey Logano’s webbed glove.
The Penalties…
First, let’s cover the actual penalties. Joey Logano’s glove happened to be webbed. According to Denny Hamlin, NASCAR only caught this “violation” due to an excessive amount of “snitches” existing in the garage. While Logano qualified second, his starting position was taken away and a pass-through penalty was issued after the start of the race. This means he had to start last. Furthermore, after the green flag was waved, Logano had to drive down pit road, at pit road speed. Tuesday, he was issued an additional $10,000 fine.
While Logano merely got an additional fine, NASCAR handed out L1 penalties to the two Stewart-Haas teams. NASCAR did not go into much detail about the Stewart-Haas rule violations. Instead, they merely mentioned that the roof air deflectors did not match the image above. Despite not having gained any benefit from this, both teams were handed penalties of 35 driver points and 35 owner points. The violations were found prior to qualifying, unlike Logano’s glove.
Logano was lucky due to an early caution in the race. This allowed him to stay on the lead lap despite having to give up his front row starting position and doing a drive through penalty. Honestly, in Logano’s situation it seems they should have gone with either a fine or a penalty on the track, rather than both. After all, this is technically a violation for altering safety equipment, but I digress.
What Logano’s Glove Suggests…
Of course, I could go on all day about how it is weird that an infraction that didn’t lead to any benefit ended up with a larger penalty than one that did lead to a benefit. Yet, this is not my intention. Fans know that NASCAR has its roots in prohibition era America. In the early part of the 20th century, American leaders decided it was time to prohibit alcohol, much the way certain chemical substances are prohibited today. In turn, this led to the illegal manufacture of alcohol. Those who delivered the illegal supply to the prevalent demand required fast cars and great driving skill.
Anyone who has watched a qualifying this season understands that the driver will often put his hand up to block air from coming in the window on the straightaway. This is considered to be a sign of how close these cars are when it comes to speed. The hand blocking the air isn’t going to make up hardly any time at all. During one 2024 session, FOX announcer Kevin Harvick even stated that he had not been a fan of this tactic. He explained that it was difficult to keep the car going straight with one hand. This implies a different approach was used for a decrease in lap time.
Joey Logano’s webbed glove suggests a further attempt to block air coming in the driver side window. The gain from the standard hand in the window down the straight is minimal already. So, we are now seeing drivers trying to maximize that already minimal gain. This suggests that there aren’t a lot of areas in which the teams can gain that decrease in drag. Finally, this suggests that heavier regulation is only increasing creativity in bending rules.
What this suggests about NASCAR rules & officiating…
NASCAR is a result of a governmental attempt to stop something for which there would always be a demand. There will always be an economic and social demand for alcohol. NASCAR was born out of the futile attempt to stop the consumption of alcohol. Currently, NASCAR is in the beginning of their new “Next Gen” era. In this era, NASCAR has decided that they desperately want parity like the old IROC series.
There is nothing necessarily inherently wrong with that desire, as much as I dislike it. Still, the approach they are taking shows just how much they’ve lost touch with their roots. These penalties are just a big show. There will always be a demand for a competitive edge. If NASCAR says you can’t work on certain parts and issues huge penalties for things like roof air deflectors and windshield fasteners, then teams will simply get more creative at looking for that edge.
It is a widely observed sociological and economic pattern. You cannot decrease demand for things such as alcohol or a competitive edge in sports simply with authoritarian approaches to rule books. Joey Logano’s glove proves that. Prohibition proves that. The fact that there are so many garage snitches proves that. NASCAR would like you to think that is evidence that their penalties work. I work in corrections. When you have an excess of snitches, it generally means you have an excess of prohibited behavior. If you’re doing something against the rules, the quickest way to send the officials in another direction is to report someone else.
Conclusions…
So what can NASCAR do? They can stop with the draconian penalties for the smallest of things. Logano’s glove is evidence that the “cheating” will just move to a different area. They are essentially just forcing the sport to move more towards an engineering arena than a mechanical one. There won’t be a lot of opportunities for mechanically minded crew chiefs down the road. Just like the US Government pushed the alcohol industry from bars, saloons, and liquor stores to speakeasies and organized crime.
Yes, the Next Gen racing has gotten better than it was in 2022. That isn’t due to a decrease in “cheating.” It is due to an increase in creativity in “cheating” and a shift to different focal areas for “cheating.” NASCAR should drop these excessive penalties, and have a “boys, have at it” era for the crew chiefs, like they did for the drivers after they went too far in micro-managing driver behavior in the 2000s.
Ultimately, NASCAR needs to remember its roots, in more ways than one!
