For crew chiefs, gray area isn't limited to the cars

He could sit in his hotel room, watch the session on television, monitor the speeds over the Internet and use his cell phone to receive updates from his boys on the ground. He could sit across the street from the speedway, listen to his driver over the scanner and use text messaging to submit ideas that might help the car. And in the evening he could meet with his crew in some off-track location, spread the day's notes out before him, and finalize a game plan for that weekend's event.

And there's absolutely nothing NASCAR could do about it. The sanctioning body, miffed at the sight of a supposedly-suspended Tony Eury Jr. sitting atop his motor coach Sunday at New Hampshire International Speedway, has issued an informal edict: If you're suspended, don't show up at the racetrack. Nextel Cup director John Darby told The Associated Press that NASCAR would "throw the fear of God" into anyone who does otherwise.

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But even NASCAR's power has its limits. Suspensions used to mean crew chiefs couldn't enter the garage and pit area, but didn't specifically prohibit them from buying a ticket or obtaining an infield pass and showing up to confer with their team. That's why Eury, crew chief for Dale Earnhardt Jr., was at New Hampshire even though he was in the final week of a six-week suspension for mounting rear wing brackets illegally at Darlington.

Steve Letarte and Chad Knaus were there, too, even though the respective crew chiefs for Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson were technically in the first week of a six-week suspension for illegal body modifications at Sonoma. The practice is nothing new -- Kenny Francis, team director for Kasey Kahne, was spotted in Las Vegas while he was in the midst of four-week suspension for violations uncovered before the Daytona 500.

Evidently this routine bit of subterfuge was common knowledge to everyone but the top brass at NASCAR, which seems stung by what they perceived as Eury flaunting his punishment, and in retaliation has taken a hard line. But as they are paid to do, crew chiefs will find that line and stand one inch behind it. Because working in the gray area isn't limited to the cars.

"We'll do whatever we're instructed to do," Johnson told reporters at Daytona International Speedway, site of Saturday night's Pepsi 400, "but we'd be foolish to not try to maximize and go right to the edge of the rules, just like we do with the racecar, in this situation with the crew chiefs. We'll do everything that we can, and everything we're allowed to. That's just kind of the way it is."

People often use the word "cheating" to describe what these crew chiefs are getting busted for, and in many cases that's exactly what it is. Adding an accelerant to fuel is cheating. So is adding weight, storing extra fuel in frame rails, or trying to slip in a canister of nitrous oxide, covert practices not unheard of in the days when men like Junior Johnson and Smokey Yunick turned bending the rules into an artful game of cat-and-mouse.

But today's top crew chiefs aren't that blatant. When it comes to the NASCAR rule book, they're strict constructionists -- if it's not specifically prohibited, then they're going to try it. Some of these recent penalties stem from crew chiefs trying to work in areas where they don't think rules apply. That's what happened to Knaus and Letarte, who modified a part of their vehicles' front ends at Sonoma that didn't fall under the Car of Tomorrow template, leading them to believe it was open to modification. (Continued)