NASCAR's Punishment of Michael Waltrip Racing, Clint Bowyer Not Harsh Enough

NASCAR’s credibility and integrity were degraded on Saturday night during the final laps of the Sprint Cup Series race at Richmond International Raceway, the series’ final race before the 10-race Chase for the Championship playoffs. The penalty handed down by NASCAR was likely the most severe in its long history and yet it still seems unsatisfying and only halfway done.

With less than 10 laps to go in Saturday night’s race it appeared as if Ryan Newman was on his way to Victory Lane and a playoff wild card berth clinching second win of the season. It appeared as if four-time champion Jeff Gordon was going to drive his way into the Chase for the second straight season with a solid run at Richmond. It appeared as if Joey Logano would just miss the playoffs by finishing outside of the top 10 in the standings and with his one victory not good enough to clinch a wild card berth with Kasey Kahne and Ryan Newman having multiple victories. It also appeared the same thing would happen to Martin Truex Jr., the driver of the Michael Waltrip Racing number 56 Toyota Camry. 

This is when a plan that had to have at least been somewhat pre-planned was set into orchestration by members of the Michael Waltrip Racing organization, at least led by general manager (and spotter with MWR number 55 driver Brian Vickers) Ty Norris and Brian Pattie, crew chief for the number 15 MWR car driven by Clint Bowyer.

With nine laps to go Bowyer’s spotter Brett Griffin said over the driver’s radio, “The 39 (Ryan Newman) is going to win. Well, that kinda sucks. Nine more (laps) right here. This transmission was followed by Pattie saying, “Is your arm starting to hurt? I bet it’s hot in there. Itch it.”

Bowyer responded to his crew chief with an “oh yeah.” Bowyer’s in-car camera caught him wildly jerking at his steering wheel in a fashion that no professional stock car driver would ever do. His number 15 Toyota then spun out bringing a late race caution that would completely shuffle the running order, the finishing order, the point standings and the playoff seedings. 

Through the late race sequence of pit stops Newman lost the race lead. Paul Menard would restart the race first. Carl Edwards would restart beside him on the front row. Edwards would eventually go on to pass Menard on the restart, that he quite possibly illegally jumped, and go on to win. 

The shuffling wasn’t done. 

On the restart of the race Bowyer hit the pits despite having little to no damage from his spin. He would also creep down pit road at an unusually slow speed, according to a clip from the race broadcast. Meanwhile, the other MWR team car Vickers restarted the race behind the lap car of Logano, despite being on the lead lap. Vickers would also come down pit road on the restart at the behest of his crew. 

This would be the piece of evidence that would later do MWR in.

The caution and resulting pits and loss of spots would result in Newman not winning the race, giving him the same number of wins as Truex Jr. The ensuing pit stops by both Bowyer and Vickers allowed Logano to gain two spots on the track thus re-passing Gordon for the tenth and final playoff spot in the point standings and ensuring that Logano wouldn’t have to use his win to grab the final wild card spot away from Truex Jr. In almost the blink of an eye Newman and Gordon went from playoff bound to wondering what the hell had happened. Truex Jr. was playoff bound because his team orchestrated his positioning. Logano, the luckiest guy in the sport evidently, was playoff bound because he was a pawn in MWR’s game. 

Fans instantly took to social media sites like Twitter claiming something fishy had taken place with Bowyer’s spin. Things would get even more obvious when the evidence of Bowyer’s and Vickers’ pit stops and final lap times came to light.

The next day NASCAR announced that it was going to investigate the happenings of Bowyer’s spin.

On Monday, NASCAR announced that they would be taking Truex Jr. out of the playoffs and placing Newman into the playoffs. They also announced an indefinite suspension for Norris. A 50-point loss in driver points for all three MWR cars (Truex Jr., Bowyer and Vickers) and a $300,000 fine, the largest in the sport’s history.

The deduction of championship points meant that Truex Jr. would fall behind Newman, thus giving Newman the final wild card spot. The deduction of points would have absolutely no penalty on Bowyer because he had already locked himself into the playoffs and points are reset for the 10-race playoff. Thus, the guy who began the entire travesty essentially got a non-penalty penalty.

NASCAR had decided to punish the organization rather than any driver (except they sure as hell ended up punishing Truex Jr. who really had no doing in any of his team’s shenanigans) because they said they didn’t have conclusive evidence that Bowyer had spun out intentionally, but did have conclusive evidence that MWR manufactured the ending of the race by pitting their other two team cars.

The conclusive evidence essentially came from Vickers’ confusion over why his team wanted him to pit. Vickers asked his crew if he had a flat tire despite not feeling it. Seemingly not wanting to pit Norris told the driver that he needed to pit because the team needed that one point, clear proof of fixing the finishing order.

Michael Waltrip Racing probably gets away with the entire thing if it wasn’t for Vickers’ dumbstruck response to being asked to pit so late as the race was going back to green flag racing and Norris having to explain to him why he was to pit.

NASCAR’s reaction and punishment toward MWR is frankly surprising to me, because I didn’t really expect for them to do anything at all. After the race on Saturday they claimed not to have seen any improprieties in how the race ended. Also a non-action from NASCAR wouldn’t have been unusual as the sport is only consistent in its inconsistency. NASCAR seems to make up and follow its rules when it pleases, something that seems to be commonplace in all forms of motorsports (see IndyCar and Formula 1 as other examples).

But, despite NASCAR’s punishment, that many in the press are calling “severe,” it doesn’t seem severe enough.

Why?

Because the guy who essentially put the orchestration into the playing field, Bowyer, is the only one who truly comes out of the punishment unscathed. And, because only half of the duo wronged by MWR’s actions (Newman) is given justice; Gordon still remains out of the playoffs, when he had a spot all but locked up.

Some are saying that Bowyer doesn’t deserve punishment because he was just following orders, but it comes down to the old “if you’re friends asked you to jump off a bridge, would you do it” cliché. Bowyer has to be held accountable for his own decisions and actions and know what’s right from wrong and immoral, but he hasn’t been.

NASCAR did well to punish the Michael Waltrip Racing organization and did right by putting Newman into his rightful place in the playoffs, but they failed immensely when it came to punishing the main culprit in the race fixing (Bowyer) and it failed to give Gordon the playoff spot that he rightfully earned.

NASCAR could’ve easily made everything right by also kicking Bowyer out of the playoffs and placing Gordon into the playoffs in his place, thus ensuring Logano, an innocent in the entire situation, would not also be punished. That is the main problem with NASCAR’s punishment, although I do think race owner Michael Waltrip, Pattie and Bowyer all should’ve been suspended for at least one race, with Pattie likely serving a longer suspension, for their parts in the act.

But, despite both audio and video evidence that Bowyer intentionally spun out his car NASCAR didn’t have “conclusive evidence.”

Other sports have banned athletes for life for fixing sporting events. NASCAR didn’t even so much as slap Bowyer on the wrist. Bowyer still has a shot at winning NASCAR’s premier championship. Wouldn’t that be damning for the sport? And, NASCAR gets to regain some of its integrity and credibility, but it’ll never be able to recoup all of it, because the punishment simply wasn’t harsh enough and frankly the sport didn’t have all its credibility to begin with from numerous past controversies.

Bowyer, previously one of the sport’s most popular drivers, however, will see some punishment in the public eye as he’s lost at least partial, if not complete, respect from many fans of the sport, as well as likely from some of his comrades in speed.