Sadler's blunt stance on cheating has him a new fan

HAMPTON, Ga. -- I've never understood how a winning car can fail post-race inspection and not be disqualified. Or in the case of Carl Edwards last week in Las Vegas, "an issue" with the No. 99. And Elliott Sadler doesn't mince words about how he feels.

"I honestly think NASCAR's penalty on the No. 99 was not severe enough, to be honest with you," Sadler said this weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway. "If you're going to deliberately cheat and try to take advantage of something, then you should be penalized or sit out a race or something like that."

• Send Mark your thoughts
• Mark's Community page

Good for Elliott Sadler. It's about time somebody stood up for fairness. Why should a team that winds up with a competitive advantage, either by fortune or falsehood, get to take home the trophy if it wasn't won, fair and square?

That's not to say that Edwards wouldn't have blown away the field at Las Vegas, just like he did the week before at Auto Club Speedway. Even if the No. 99 had a slight advantage in downforce, Edwards still had to drive the car -- and the team had to rally from two problems in the pits. So give credit where credit is due.

But a loose oil tank lid certainly leaves a "smoking gun" that raised eyebrows all over the Sprint Cup garage this weekend. And that's what bothers Sadler the most.

"As a driver, you want to think you have an honest, good shot at winning and that you're running against 42 other cars that are as legal as they can be, because you know your car is legal," Sadler said. "That's all you ask for, as a driver. So I applaud NASCAR for going in there and digging and finding things that are wrong, and I applaud them for doing points and doing fines and sending people home."

Deliberately cheat? Jack Roush denies that -- and deserves the benefit of the doubt -- but Sadler feels otherwise.

"I think it insults my intelligence as a racecar driver when you try to tell me that you accidentally left the oil tank lid off," Sadler said. "If you go to any owner, any engineer, any driver, any crew chief, and ask them, 'Is that an advantage?' Heck, yes, it's an advantage. I've done it half of my career. Everybody did it until NASCAR started teching it. You do that, it's 100 pounds of downforce.

"We spend three or four million dollars a year going to the wind tunnel, trying to change body shapes, trying to change underneath the car, changing crush panels, doing stuff like that all the time, trying to get a gain, trying to find an advantage. When all you have to do is take the oil tank lid and get 100 pounds of downforce."

A 100-point, $100,000 fine looks pretty imposing, until you realize that Edwards earned 195 points and took home $425,675 for his efforts. Second place paid $252,000, so even giving back nearly a quarter of the purse, Roush Fenway Racing still came out ahead. And that's why there's so much animosity involved with this issue, because if NASCAR won't lower the boom, "cheaters" will prosper.

Sadler would like to see even stiffer penalties for post-race infractions.

"I think there should be differences whether it's caught pre-race or post-race," he said. "If they're pretty happy with the 100 points, $100,000 pre-race, make it 200 points, $200,000 after the race, being that you got to race that way. When you present a car for inspection and something's not exactly right, I understand slapping you on the wrist and going, 'Look, let's make sure this doesn't happen again or it's going to be this and this.

"After the race, I think it should be more. If my team cheats this weekend on Sunday and I get a competitive advantage and I get caught with it, I think it should be more than what it is if somebody gets caught before the race. I just think that keeps it all in line and keeps it fair, because you didn't actually get to race with that competitive advantage."

Sadler says the current penalty structure is starting to make teams think twice about trying to bend the rules. Perhaps it's time to do the same thing with victories. That's something that hasn't happened in NASCAR's top level series since Fireball Roberts was busted for an engine modification at the Daytona beach course in 1955.

"I think you should take a victory away," Sadler said. "Say if I cheat and win this weekend -- that puts me on the Winner's Circle [program] for the rest of this year. Do you know how much money that's worth? I'll give you $100,000 for that and I'll get hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars back from that.

"You may have to get to the point where you're taking wins away. Do something to discourage these people from doing what they're doing, trying to get this competitive advantage. If that means taking a win away, then yes. I think we're going to get to that point. We started with fines, and then points and maybe we'll to get to where wins are taken away. We'll see. But I'm for that."

And so am I, Elliott. I wonder if the No. 19 hauler has an extra racing jacket?

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer