In
the second half of the 1990s, NASCAR again had its hands full trying to sort
out exactly who was cheating and who wasn’t. Some of the most pitched battles,
both on the track and in the inspection lines, involved bitter rivals Jack
Roush and Ray Evernham, though they had plenty of company in the scofflaw department.
Roush
and NASCAR got into it at Talladega on May 9, 1997, two days prior to the
rain-delayed Winston 500. When the Roush Racing Ford driven by Jeff Burton
rolled through inspection on that day, NASCAR officials were surprised to find
its roof was unlike any they had ever seen on a superspeedway car before.
At
the time, NASCAR used four templates to measure roof dimensions: the so-called
“long template” that runs the length of the car from nose to rear spoiler and
three others that fit across the width of the roof at its front, center, and
rear, respectively. The body on Burton’s car, a body that was built not by
Roush but by an undisclosed third-party vendor, fit all four of NASCAR’s
templates. Everything else about it, however, was wrong.
The
roof flaps, thin strips of sheet metal designed to raise up in the air and keep
the car from flipping in the event of a spin, were mounted five inches forward
of the NASCAR-mandated location. NASCAR officials admitted this modification
offered no performance advantage—after all, they only deployed if the car was
out of control—but were incensed nonetheless.
Tampering
with a safety feature of the car was one offense they took very, very
seriously. Ironically, Roush himself had designed the flaps, working in concert
with NASCAR to improve safety in accident conditions.
But
in a display that shocked the garage, NASCAR officials literally cut the roof
off the car in the garage at Talladega, destroying the car.
Officially
the explanation for the stiff punishment, which included a $20,000 fine in
addition to the destruction of a $150,000 race car, was that the flaps were
improperly mounted. “The fact is, we know the roof flaps work in the position
they’re supposed to be in,” said NASCAR’s Kevin Triplett, who had been promoted
from his PR capacity to become director of operations, in an interview with Winston Cup Scene’s Tom Stinson.
“There’s no way of knowing whether they would work or not [on Burton’s car],
and that’s a chance we’re not willing to take.”
Of
course, as always in stock-car racing, the reality was a bit more complicated
than the public explanation. Several Winston Cup crew chiefs said the roof did
indeed fit the four templates, but had been “scalloped”—lowered everywhere
except where the templates fit in an attempt to greatly reduce aerodynamic
drag.
In
fairness to Roush, his team bought the body from an outside supplier, one the
team would not do business with again after Talladega. Still, scalloping was
not a “gray area” miscalculation. It was an aggressive attempt at chicanery,
and NASCAR responded forcefully.
Gary
DeHart, crew chief for 1995 Winston Cup champion Terry Labonte, would later
call it “the squirreliest thing he’d ever seen in racing.” Fellow crew chief
Robbie Loomis agreed, saying it was the most outlandish modification he’d ever
seen a team try to get through the inspection line.
