Full Throttle

The “evil masses” have been heard (read Roush among others) and NASCAR is in the process of a rethink about its restrictive NEXTEL Cup testing schedule:

“It appears that we’ve got teams that want to test more and teams that want to test less, and teams that test on tires that are not made by our tire supplier,” Robin Pemberton, NASCAR vice president of competition, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

“Holy rules written on an Etch-a-Sketch Batman whatever makes NASCAR think that?”

“Well Robin, according to the Brainwave Bat-analyzer it’s a perfect storm that rides in on leased tires and a testing policy that SCREAMS ‘disregard me.’”

“So we’re going to start looking at a lot of different things, from eventually lifting the test ban completely, or get as restrictive as we cannot let teams test anywhere at any time, or land somewhere in between.”

Oh-oh!

That gives NASCAR a very wide margin of error - as if they need any margin at all - and could lead to what was stated 21 months ago or… testing being restricted to “Sony Playstation 3, Official Platform of NASCAR Test Teams.”

For the record, I side with Beth as she saw the handwriting on the pitwall all those many months ago.

Mike Ford, crew chief for Denny Hamlin, also goes on the record with an example of The Law of Unintended Consequences.

“They are forcing teams to spend money with other tire manufacturers instead of with Goodyear, the company NASCAR supports,” he said. “One way or the other, everybody is going to test.”

Apparently NASCAR’s library doesn’t contain that law book.