Analysis: NASCAR facing ethical quandary after Richmond

Nate Ryan | USA TODAY Sports

A conspicuous flick of the steering wheel and some curious easing of the accelerator revealed the seedy underbelly of the multicar team model Saturday night at Richmond International Raceway.

And it could undermine the integrity of NASCAR in such a way to demand major policy changes from a sport often tainted by the specter of conspiracy theories — but rarely in a way in which evidence pointed to such blatant orchestration.

The ballyhooed Chase for the Sprint Cup will begin Sept. 15 at Chicagoland Speedway under the darkest cloud of its 10-season history, because the focus has shifted from the 12 drivers competing in the 10-race championship run to those who might have been unjustly excluded from it.

The last seven laps of the Federated Auto Parts 400 had a nefarious vibe that had fans lighting up social media well into the wee hours while debating whether two Michael Waltrip Racing drivers took dives to help their teammate qualify for the Chase.

Did Clint Bowyer intentionally spin to cause a caution that effectively knocked Ryan Newman (who was leading before the yellow sent the field into the pits) out of the Chase by sabotaging his chances of clinching a wild card with his second victory of the season?

Did Brian Vickers and Bowyer then help secure a Chase bid for Martin Truex Jr., their MWR teammate, by choosing to run well off the pace during the closing laps, allowing Joey Logano to gain two critical positions and move into 10th in points (and the final guaranteed Chase berth) by one point over Jeff Gordon and thus vacate the final wild-card slot for Truex?

The in-car audio — in which Bowyer is told that Newman is leading the race and then told that his arm must be feeling tired — is suspicious. The in-car video — in which Bowyer seems to turn the wheel as awkwardly as a driver's ed student attempting a three-point turn for the first time — is damning.

Though Bowyer tried to downplay any controversy by blaming ill handling, Dale Earnhardt Jr. noted the throttle data from Bowyer's fuel injection unit would reveal if the spin was on purpose.

But there already were hard numbers Saturday that fed the perception of chicanery. On the race's last lap, Vickers ran a 79.564-mph lap — more than 30-50 mph slower than any other car in the top 25. Bowyer also managed to lose two laps and nine positions by seemingly dawdling in the pits despite a fairly harmless spin that caused little damage to his No. 15 Camry.

All of this leaves NASCAR, which warned teams about playing "fair and square" in Saturday's prerace drivers meeting, as it does annually before every Chase cutoff race at Richmond, facing a major quandary.

If it decides not to issue any penalties (and drivers have been punished for intentional spins in the past), it will grant tacit approval to gaming the system. But if it tries to take action, its hands seem tied. Saturday's results can't be altered in any meaningful way (stripping Bowyer and Vickers of points won't change the outcome for Gordon and Newman). It could punish Bowyer by forcing him to start the Chase's reset standings with negative points, or perhaps take the Draconian step of sitting him for Chicagoland (which is unlikely). Still, neither would fix the underlying problems.

There actually is little remedy short of banning multicar teams — an impossibility given that the business model for modern-day ownership is predicated on economies of scale that spread team budgets that run into the tens of millions across several cars.

Despite the financial benefits, one of auto racing's dirty little secrets is that having teammates often hinders competition.

What's dirtier is that it's extremely difficult to address or police it.

In 2002 after Ferrari ordered Rubens Barrichello to pull over and hand a win to Michael Schumacher on the final lap at Austria, and the favor was returned by Schumacher at Indianapolis, Formula One tried to stamp out the practice. Two years ago, in the wake of teams using code to circumvent the rule and another scandal in which Renault team principal Flavio Briatore was banned after an investigation into whether Nelson Piquet Jr. was told to crash to help teammate Fernando Alonso, the crusade essentially was abandoned.

To a lesser degree, NASCAR also has endured controversy over team orders — including the past two years in the fall race at Richmond that sets the Chase field.

In 2011, Richard Childress Racing's scanner chatter was reviewed exhaustively after Paul Menard spun to cause a caution that helped teammate Kevin Harvick snatch a victory from Jeff Gordon. Last year, Denny Hamlin pitted in the closing laps under the green for no discernible reason other than giving up a position to help Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch gain a point (he still missed the Chase).

But the stakes are much higher in this instance and the circumstances surrounding it are much starker: Newman and Gordon both missed the Chase — the paramount goal of every team's season — because two drivers apparently tanked in a manner that felt extremely manipulative.

MWR will weather its share of withering scrutiny, particularly given the history of a team that ran afoul of the law in its first race in NASCAR's premier series. The illegal fuel additive found in Waltrip's car during qualifying for the 2007 Daytona 500 led to a dressing down from Toyota, whose culture places a heavy emphasis on ethos. Though the manufacturer qualified an unprecedented four cars for the 2013 Chase, it's worth asking how Saturday's events will play at corporate headquarters in Japan.

But it also is hard to fault MWR for masterminding Truex's Chase berth with seemingly masterful coordination in the frenzied finish at Richmond. In a championship structure in which points and positions often outweigh the importance of winning — which inherently increases the likelihood of laying down — the team deftly played the cards it was dealt.

Now it might be time for NASCAR to reshuffle its deck.

If it can figure out how.

Follow Ryan on Twitter @nateryan

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