Full Throttle

As happens with most breaking stories as time passes they gain more detail and consequently more credibility. When Roush-Fenways owner first hit the wires with charges of theft of a proprietary part I was skeptical.

My original conclusion was based on the venue Jack in the Hat aired his charges (ESPN the Magazine that has a long lead-time before hitting the news stands and the fact he chose to run to the press vice NASCAR officials.)

Roush said that he’s requesting NASCAR to look into the matter and is still considering legal action against an unnamed Toyota team over intellectual espionage. He would not name the Toyota team. (Rumors are the unnamed team is Michael Waltrip Racing -ed)

Roush identified the piece as a front swaybar vice a “spring” as first reported, and it came up missing at Dover last fall not this Spring at Atlanta.

“The tool boxes are back to back,” Roush said. “The non-descript Toyota team went behind my tool box and took my bar out of my inventory and put it with their inventory and took it home with them. That’s a fact. It has not been refuted. It has been discussed with the team.”

“I found out about it, I wanted to go supersonic,’‘ Roush said. “We’re going to do a search warrant. We’re going to get the bar. Intellectural espionage is going on here. They stole a part and had access to it and had an opportunity to see what it does. We’ve been damaged, we’ve been harmed by this theft.”

“So a clandestine meeting was arranged at 6 o’clock in the morning to return the bar, one manager to another,” Roush said. “I got the bar back. It’s been sandblasted. it’s got its appearance changed, but it’s still got the serial number on it.”

How Cloak & Dagger is that? Clandestine early morning meetings for a part swap. What’s next Jack, a call to Chief Inspector Clouseau?

My snark aside, obviously there’s more of an ember burning under Jacks smoke than first thought. Where it goes is anyone’s guess, but if I were to guess, not much further than a few more printed protestations by Jack.

A NASCAR spokesman is already on record as saying they don’t “do disputes between teams” so it also remains to be seen whether they get more involved as the story gains more life.

UPDATE: NASCAR is being consistent with their original thoughts. Autosport is quoting NASCAR’s vice-president of competition Robin Pemberton as saying “We’re not going to do anything,” Pemberton stated. “This garage area has to co-exist. If there’s somebody out there that takes a part or a piece form another team, in my opinion, I wouldn’t have a guy like that working for me.”

“If you have issues, then you have to work it out.”

Pemberton makes one salient point, the garage is an open area and subject to all sorts of shenanigans, both good and bad, to make a comparison to F1’s Ferrari/Mclaren fiasco as some have done is a bit of a stretch.

That said, I still think this won’t go much further, at least not without intervention by NASCAR and that appears unlikely at this point.