By Jerry Jordan, Editor
In what was the strongest words heard in sometime by a NASCAR official about the actions of a team violating the rules, Scott Miller, Senior Vice President of Competition, said Kevin Harvick’s spoiler was offset to the right of the centerline of the car and it was intentional.
“As everybody knows, we issued a penalty for the 4 car today, and the penalty notice, which I’m sure you all got, it was spelled out that the splitter or the spoiler did not meet the CAD file,” he said. “The spoiler is a piece that is bought by the teams from a single-source supplier. It has a part number from Richardson. It has a CAD file that calls out the profile of the spoiler, and the overall shape and where all the mounting holes are in the spoiler.
“This particular spoiler did not conform to the CAD file. There’s two things that when you’re talking about a spoiler that contribute to improved aerodynamic performance, and that would be the height of the spoiler. That was correct on this one, and it would be the offset of the spoiler in relationship to the center line of the car. This one was moved to the right.”
It is Miller’s position that Stewart-Haas Racing manufactured the spoiler themselves rather than obtaining it from a licensed vendor and that the part was made in manner that violated the rules. The only way to detect the offending part is to remove it from the car, which was done at the NASCAR R&D Center on Tuesday. Now, NASCAR will begin checking spoilers at the track to ensure everyone is on the same playing field.
Miller said there was no doubt in his mind that the spoiler violation on the No. 4 car was a deliberate attempt to obtain an aero dynamic advantage on the track. He explained the part being offset allowed for it to assist the car with getting more downforce and it wasn’t an accident.
“A manufacturing tolerance would be 10 thousandths of an inch, not 300 thousandths of an inch,” Miller said. “So yeah, absolutely 100 percent, no question, black and white. As black and white as it gets.
“Getting the spoiler further to the right actually — when the car goes into the corner and sees yaw, that puts more air on the spoiler, and that’s definitely aerodynamic performance.
Miller said that in light of recent rules violations by teams, the sanctioning body is looking at ramping up the penalties throughout the off=season for next year and could take the unprecedented step of disqualifying cars finishing position altogether – a move never implemented in the sport’s history.
“You know, we’re actually looking at a lot of different things in the off-season in regards to the deterrence model, all the way to — I mean, we’ve heard the fans kind of call out for, why don’t you disqualify the offending car, and I mean, that’s actually a topic of discussion along with many other things related to the deterrence model,” Miller said. “You know, stiffer penalties at track and for failing inspection and for — a lot of different things on the table. With any of those, there’s a lot of things to work through and a lot of things to consider, especially when you kind of get to the disqualification level or something like that. You know, like there’s a lot of knockoff effects from that as to how the rest of the field shakes out and all that.
“I had said earlier that we’re looking at the whole deterrence model and trying to review that over the winter and possibly put more teeth in it, because yeah, I think we’re getting into borderline ridiculous territory.”
The penalty on the No. 4 car moves Harvick back to one spot above the cutoff line and took away his locked-in status to the final round of the playoffs at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Harvick is now just three points ahead of teammate Kurt Busch in the points and has lost crew chief Rodney Childers, as well as, car chief Robert Cheddar Smith on the pit box for the next two weeks.