 | | Team owner Rick Hendrick celebrates his Daytona 500 victory with driver Jimmie Johnson and interim crew chief Darian Grubb. Credit: Autostock |
By David Newton, NASCAR.COM
February 26, 2006
05:08 PM EST (22:08 GMT)
FONTANA, Calif. -- NASCAR president Mike Helton put his arm around Nextel Cup owner Rick Hendrick following a brief conversation before Sunday's race at California Speedway. "We just want to keep him close to keep an eye on him,'' Helton said jokingly. Hendrick wasn't joking earlier in the week when he met with top members of his four Nextel Cup teams to remind them that breaking rules as crew chief Chad Knaus did during qualifying for the Daytona 500 would not be tolerated. "I told our guys we're too good for that,'' Hendrick said. "If it's a gray area and it's not a rule, you don't want to stifle the guy. But we don't need that aggravation. So they know not to put us in that kind of situation.'' Knaus was ejected from the Daytona 500 for rigging a device to push the rear window of Jimmie Johnson's car out more than three-quarters-of-an-inch to illegally create an aerodynamic advantage in qualifying. Two days after that car won the Daytona 500 with interim crew chief Darian Grubb, Knaus, who was scrutinized by NASCAR twice last season, was suspended for the next three races and fined $25,000. Hendrick stopped by the organization's competition meeting before the penalty was announced to reinforce his position on rules. "We do push the gray areas,'' Grubb said. "Everybody tries to get a competitive advantage. But he made it very clear it would not be tolerated.'' Hendrick said he felt it was important to send a stern message. "We've got stay away from things that get us in a jam,'' he said. "We want to win and we want to beat them and we want to leave a little cushion there so we don't have problems.'' But Hendrick wasn't as stern as Penske Racing South owner Roger Penske, who has an unwritten rule that instigating a rules violation will result in dismissal. "No,'' Grubb said when asked if Hendrick's message was that strong. "And I very seriously doubt it if Mr. Penske is that way. Everybody talks real big with that, but we're in competition. "We're at the discretion of NASCAR. If they think you did something wrong, you did something wrong.'' Grubb said it appears Johnson's car has undergone more scrutiny than most at California. "Everybody's eyes are on the 48 team because we won the Daytona 500 and because of the problems we had,'' he said. "But it changes nothing about how we do our job.'' | 
