LDN - Sports

Larson, Ganassi under the gun after penalty

[July 14, 2017] By Jonathan Ingram, The Sports Xchange

Just as baseball players steal signs, NFL linemen hold and NBA stars constantly try to get away with fouls, NASCAR teams fudge on the technical rules.

The latest to get caught was the team of Chip Ganassi, whose driver Kyle Larson was leading in points before he was docked 35 on Wednesday -- a penalty that dropped him to a distant second place.

The team got nailed for rerouting air from ducting to the rear brakes.

Did that help Larson drive from the back to the front of the field -- twice -- at the Kentucky Speedway, where he finished second?

The more significant question concerns Larson's prowess on other 1.5-mile tracks. Did he have additional "brake cooling" at those events earlier this year?

The runner-up finish by Larson at Kentucky was his fourth on the six 1.5-mile track races this year. His other results were a DNF in Charlotte and a sixth place in Kansas.

Larson is 2-for-2 on the 2.0-mile tracks of Fontana and Michigan this year, also tracks that require heavy braking into the corners. He won at both.

Will the NASCAR penalty put the "brakes" on Larson?

There's already a pattern that has been established at a team that has been forced to tighten up on the rules.

The Joe Gibbs Racing team's current losing streak really began at the outset of the playoffs last season.

Before the race at the Chicagoland Speedway, NASCAR officials made it clear that the sanctioning body would come down heavily on teams whose rear tire track was out of skew.

Martin Truex, Jr. and Jimmie Johnson both had slight infractions in their Toyota and Chevy, respectively, at Chicago. Their penalties were dropped due to a technicality, but the message was clear: those with too much skew in rear suspensions would be penalized.

Truex, Jr. and Johnson both went on to win races during what was then known as the Chase without penalty, indicating that their Furniture Row Racing and Hendrick Motorsports teams had figured out how to get through the corners without fudging on NASCAR's tight window on rear suspension skew. By contrast, the Gibbs team has won one race since the tightening of that window -- by Carl Edwards at Texas during the Chase. The team's current losing streak stands at 20 races.

It raises the specter that the Gibbs team's extraordinary year in 2016 of 11 wins in the first 26 races resulted from hanky-panky in the rear suspension before NASCAR tightened up its procedures.

The encumbered rule was officially introduced this year. Team Penske is the only other team to have been hit with the new rule, which prevented Joey Logano's victory at Richmond from advancing him to the playoffs. Since NASCAR found an irregularity in the rear suspension, Logano has been mostly a non-factor -- despite the need to get a victory to assure himself a position in the playoffs.

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Logano's teammate Brad Keselowski got frustrated enough after crashing at Kentucky that he called for a new generation of cars. Not any time soon, was the answer from NASCAR.

This is an age-old problem in motor racing. Teams relying on a technical advantage that suddenly disappears have a difficult time recovering.

The Ganassi team and Larson are now going to be scrutinized as the season goes forward in light of the brake duct episode, which may have something to do with aerodynamics as much as braking. Also, the sudden stardom of Larson will be under review. Give any driver in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup series a decisive technical advantage and most will start running consistently at the front and winning regularly.

There's no doubt Larson is a very talented race car driver. Witness his recent success in sprint cars on short tracks as well as his leadership in the points for much of the Cup season. He is living up to the promise that arrived with him in his rookie season after stellar performances in the lower ranks. His victory while driving in his first Rolex 24 at Daytona in a Ganassi sports prototype further confirmed that he has rare all-around talent.

It would be a shame to see Larson become a non-factor once the playoffs begin. His fresh-faced stardom has been welcomed by fans and his competitors. And, it remains to be seen how much help Larson's cars may have gotten from the illegal ducting -- or if it had been used in previous events.

If there's a knock on Larson, it concerns his endurance. A car that's easier to get to the front certainly helps in that respect. On a Kentucky track that is relatively flat and tricky to drive, it appeared Larson had overcome any questions about his stamina by driving from the back to the front after his car failed to make it through inspection in time for qualifying and he started in the rear. A speeding penalty returned him to the rear and once again he returned to contender status in short order.

The betting here is that the Ganassi team and Larson will both rebound. After all, his two victories and runner-up finishes meant his car has been a regular visitor at NASCAR R&D and nothing was found previously.

Larson's penalty makes Martin Truex, Jr. the odds-on favorite to win this year's championship. It puts him comfortably in the points lead -- which will pay 15 bonus points if he maintains it for the next eight races. He's already the runaway leader in playoff bonus points from stage wins with 13.

Most significantly, the Toyotas of Furniture Row Racing have made it through the mandatory visit to NASCAR R&D after each of Truex, Jr.'s three victories this season.

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