No. 38 Cup Series team penalized for infractions

The discovery of illegally modified tire valve caps on Travis Kvapil's No. 38 car prior to last Sunday's race at Pocono Raceway has led NASCAR to hit Front Row Motorsports with a massive penalty: $100,000; 150 driver points for Kvapil and 150 owner points for car owner Doug Yates; and the use of three team members for 12 weeks each.

Team owner Bob Jenkins has formally appealed the severity of the penalty, which was handed down Wednesday afternoon. But he acknowledged the infraction, although he claims it was unintentional.

Kvapil

"For a team like ours, that's a pretty devastating blow," said Jenkins, who also fields the cars of David Gilliland and Kevin Conway. "I feel like it could have been a lot worse on the monetary side. We do feel like the 150 points is excessive."

The 150-point deduction knocks the No. 38 car out of the top 35 in owner points, thereby forcing it to qualify on speed; Robby Gordon's No. 7 moves inside the top 35.

The penalty also forces crew chief Steven Lane, car chief Richard Bourgeois and tire specialist Michael Harrold to sit out the next 12 Sprint Cup events. All three also are on probation through Dec. 31.

Technically, the No. 38 team was found to be in violation of NASCAR rule book sections:
• 12-1 (actions detrimental to stock car racing);
• 12-4-J (determination by officials that race equipment used in event does not conform to rules);
• 20-10.7J (unapproved modification to valve stem hardware).

Tires are one of a few specific areas, along with engines and fuel, where NASCAR has traditionally had the thinnest of tolerances, likely a reason for the severity of the penalty. Carl Long was penalized 200 points and fined $200,000 for an engine violation last season, while Michael Waltrip was docked 100 points and $100,000 for a fuel-additive scandal in 2007.

The violation on the No. 38 was discovered prior to the start of Sunday's rain-delayed event at Pocono, when NASCAR officials noticed that the two rear tires on Kvapil's car had gone flat. NASCAR made the team change tires, and took the original valve stems back to the Research and Development Center in Concord, N.C. Jenkins said the valve caps on the rear tires had "microscopic" bleeder holes drilled into them, as did caps on the right front tire and on one tire inner liner.

Modifying ties to leak air is an illegal practice, that, in theory, can help cars pick up speed under certain conditions. But not at Pocono, Jenkins argued. Had his team been trying to cheat, he said, they wouldn't have had the rear tires leak, and certainly wouldn't have messed with an inner liner.

"I can't speak for NASCAR, but I think they were relatively convinced that there was no malice in this, that there was no intent to cheat," said Jenkins, who met with NASCAR officials after the race and again Monday. "However, the point that's not lost in all this is, at the end of the day, there were illegal valve caps on our car. The question we have to ask ourselves is, where did those illegal valve caps come from, and how did they get on our car?"

On that, Jenkins was still unsure. Some of the team's inventory, he said, has come from two organizations that closed down. "Shame on us," he said, "because we didn't have the quality control to be able to trace this lot of product."

As of Wednesday afternoon, Front Row was still waiting to hear back from NASCAR as to the status of its appeal. Jenkins seemed more concerned with the points penalty than the monetary fine, given the effort the team has made to keep all three of its cars inside the top 35. And he was adamant that the infraction was not the result of a conscious move to try and enhance performance.

"I don't think anyone on our team intended to cheat," Jenkins said. "If they did, it was Keystone Kops. Because all it did was hurt the performance of the race car."

Related:
• Driver Point Standings | Owner Point Standings