“If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying” is a common adage in motorsports, particularly among NASCAR drivers, although it’s harder to bend the rules now than it was, say, in the 1980s. Race cars these days are scrutinized down to the millimeter, and NASCAR Ford outfit Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing (RFK) has felt the sting of that precision more than once this season. The team has been hit with multiple penalties for rule infractions – rules that RFK co-owner Brad Keselowski claims are intentionally confusing.
According to a report from Motorsport, Keselowski spoke on his team’s recent brushes with officials. As a reminder, the No. 60 NASCAR Ford Mustang of Ryan Preece was disqualified from a second-place finish at Talladega after its rear spoiler was found to be out of tolerance in postrace inspection. Two weeks later, the No. 17 Mustang of Chris Buescher, also fielded by RFK, was dinged for unapproved modifications to its front bumper cover.
RFK appealed the penalty to the Buescher machine after arguing that the team didn’t modify the exhaust cover panel as officials initially indicated. The team won its appeal and Buescher’s penalty was cut in half, but Keselowski expressed frustration with the obtuse rules that put his team in this position to begin with, saying that the NASCAR Rule Book is as confusing as the “IRS tax code.”
“You have to read this paper and you have to reference this paper, to reference this paper to reference this paper,” Keselowski said. “When you’re head down and digging, running 38 weeks a year, oversights are going to happen. From our perspective, that’s not an excuse, I can’t really speak to other teams and how they handle it. I can speak to ours and we made a small restructuring this week to be better prepared and more mindful of what it takes to be in compliance.”
It’s worth noting that RFK wasn’t the only NASCAR Ford team to be penalized this year. Joey Logano’s No. 22 Mustang was also penalized after the race at Talladega for the same modification that resulted in Preece’s disqualification.
Comments
The IRS isn’t nearly as heavy handed as the Punishmasters at NASCAR.
Brad should REALLY be complaining about how those ‘infractions’ got missed in pre-practice, pre-qualifying, post-qualifying and pre-race technical inspections.