Pemberton knows the sting of NASCAR penalty

NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton is the best person to ask what might be going through the minds of crew chief Shane Wilson and car chief Chad Haney after the sanctioning body announced huge fines and penalties against the No. 33 Chevrolet team on Wednesday.

That's because Pemberton's been on the other side of the coin, so to speak. Twenty years ago, he was crew chief of Mark Martin's No. 6 Ford when that team was hit with the biggest fine in NASCAR history to that point and a 46-point penalty for using an illegal carburetor spacer plate in a victory at Richmond early in the 1990 season. Martin eventually lost the championship to Dale Earnhardt by 26 points.

No. 33 penalized

Clint Bowyer's NASCAR championship chances were crippled Wednesday when his car failed a follow-up inspection and he was penalized 150 points after winning last weekend's first race of the Chase.

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Point(s) taken

The difference between the Hendrick teams and Clint Bowyer's when treading too closely to tolerances? NASCAR says one team listened -- and one team did not.

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"I'm sure it hasn't changed throughout the years for anybody to have won on Sunday and not been able to feel good about it on Monday or Tuesday," Pemberton said during Wednesday's teleconference. "And I'm sure it's a knot in their stomach and a lump in their throat when things like this happen.

"It's not any easier on our part than it is on the competitor because we sure don't want these types of things to happen, either."

Most of the attention that cold February afternoon was focused on Ricky Rudd, who had a chance to win a $220,000 bonus from Unocal for winning from the pole. Rudd and Rusty Wallace battled for the lead most of the second half of the race, but when each pitted for the final time, they elected to take on four tires. Pemberton, however, chose to just put right-side tires on Martin's Ford, a move that gave him a three-second win and his second Cup victory.

However, during post-race inspection some three hours later, NASCAR officials found the spacer between the carburetor and intake manifold was a half-inch too tall.

"We don't know if it's an advantage," Winston Cup competition director Dick Beaty said at the time. "The rule is to make sure the carburetor and air filter fit under the hood."

Martin had already left the track by the time the infraction was announced. NASCAR officials ruled Martin was allowed to keep the victory but was fined $40,000 from the $59,150 winner's purse, and the number of points between first place and the last car on the lead lap.

That would eventually prove critical some nine months later. Even though there were still 32 races remaining, several journalists were quick to point out how losing the points might come back to haunt Martin by Atlanta.

Martin was initially nonplussed by the decision to penalize him and his team.

"A half-inch doesn't amount to a hill of beans at Richmond," Martin said when notified of the infraction. "It wasn't something done to gain an advantage. It was a mistake. I certainly didn't know anything about it."

Pemberton was originally suspended by owner Jack Roush for 30 days for using the illegal part, but that suspension was rescinded as Roush decided to appeal. However, NASCAR didn't see it Jack's way. One month later, the penalty was upheld, and Martin's shock eventually turned to anger.

"Now people are saying I cheated to win," Martin said after losing the appeal. "But that's not so. The way I look at cheating is something you do to get an unfair advantage, but what we did didn't give us any advantage over anybody.

"I don't blame NASCAR. The rule is two inches on the spacer, and ours was 2 1/2 inches. But you can build up the intake manifold by welding [to gain the half-inch].

"It's like running a stop sign when nothing's coming, but a policeman catches you and writes you up. You broke the law and you have to pay for it. But this is like getting the death penalty for it."

Even though his engine swallowed a valve at Rockingham the next weekend, Martin rarely faltered the rest of the way. He put together nine consecutive finishes of seventh or better to blast his way back into the points lead and held it throughout the summer and early fall, with Earnhardt following closely behind.

But when Earnhardt won at Phoenix in the penultimate race -- at the same time as Martin was having troubles on the track and pit road -- Martin's slim lead evaporated and the events following Richmond began to take on added emphasis. The hue and cry became even more pronounced when Earnhardt finished third and Martin sixth at Atlanta, which left fans of the 31-year-old Arkansas native with the bitter taste of a runner-up finish for the title.

Martin would come close again and again, finishing second in the points in 1994, 1998, 2002 and in 2009. But it was 2002 when his team ran afoul of NASCAR's rulebook. This time it was a right-front spring at Rockingham that failed to have the mandated minimum number of coils, a defect Roush Racing officials claimed in the appeal was caused by the manufacturer.

However, their appeal was denied on the day before the season's final race, and team president Geoff Smith had little recourse but to accept the penalty and move on.

"You can only play Don Quixote and Sancho Panza for so long before you have to wrap it up," Smith said then. "What's occurred here is that the score of the contest can be altered even though there's been no performance advantage gained on the playing field.

"To have a degree of disappointment, you have to have a degree of expectation. We didn't have a high degree of expectation, so we have a low degree of disappointment that any result was going to be any different. We've made it clear all along that we thought our odds of success were going to be negligible."

The 25-point penalty placed Martin 89 points behind eventual champion Tony Stewart, and even though Martin finished fourth at Homestead, Stewart had enough left in the tank to win the title by 38 points.