Penalties to Ryan Newman and His Team Show NASCAR Is Serious About New Rules

Tuesday’s heavy penalties to the No. 31 Sprint Cup team for doctoring its tires in races should more than prove NASCAR means business about cracking down on cheating.

Unlike the way it’s been in the past, it’s no longer wink-win, nudge-nudge and even blindly looking the other way at times.

Coupled with the elaborate video and scoring system implemented at the start of the season to more greatly—and fairly—determine pit road violations, Tuesday’s actions showed NASCAR is serious about being serious when it comes to teams trying to pull a fast one.

In case you missed the news, the No. 31 Richard Childress Racing team was hammered hard on Tuesday when third-party tests found there had been illegal manipulation of the team’s racing tires.

NASCAR stopped short of saying the team was guilty of “bleeding the tires,” which is a euphemism for cutting small holes in tires to allow for air to slowly escape while further enhancing the balance and grip of those same tires.

But for what it didn’t say about the actual infraction, NASCAR spoke volumes when it came to penalizing the team and organization.

And boy, were those penalties stiff:

* Driver Ryan Newman was docked 75 points in the Sprint Cup standings. He goes from sixth to 26th place. His outstanding start to the 2015 season is now nothing more than a memory shrouded in rule-breaking.

* Team owner Richard Childress was docked 75 owner points.

* Crew chief Luke Lambert was fined $125,000, was suspended for the next six races (through the Coca-Cola 600) and placed on probation until Dec. 31.

* Team engineer Philip Surgen and tire specialist James Bender were also each suspended six races and placed on probation through the end of the year.

This was the second-harshest penalty NASCAR could have handed down, a so-called P5 violation, part of the Deterrence System that was introduced prior to the 2014 season.

For that, RCR should probably be thankful, because a P6 violation would have carried with it a 150-point penalty (for both owner and driver), a fine between $150,000 to $200,000 (potentially apiece for everyone involved) and a six-race suspension for the crew chief.

This was not a “whoops, my bad” kind of mistake. This was not a “sorry, I promise not to do it again” faux pas, either.

Alex Gallardo/Associated Press

Rather, NASCAR felt it had enough evidence against RCR to determine this was a deliberate attempt to deceive and egregiously circumvent the rules.

But any way you slice it, it’s still plain old and simple cheating.

And after decades of turning a blind eye at times, or maybe not hammering guilty teams as much as they deserved, NASCAR appears to be hell-bent on cleaning up the sport.

“NASCAR takes very seriously its responsibility to govern and regulate the rules of the sport in order to ensure competitive balance," NASCAR executive vice president Steve O'Donnell said in a statement Tuesday. "We've been very clear that any modifications to race vehicle tires is an unacceptable practice and will not be tolerated.”

Where the old saying used to be “it ain’t cheating if you’re not trying,” now NASCAR is showing teams there’s a new sheriff in town—or that the old one had a startling catharsis and he’s no longer going to allow or tolerate any hanky panky.

Say goodbye to old-school NASCAR. This is a long and welcome overdue change.

Terry Renna/Associated Press

Consider what USA Today’s Jeff Gluck said in his story about Tuesday’s infractions: “It's said that NASCAR has a holy trinity of sacred areas on the car: Engines, fuel and tires. Any illegal modification or manipulation in those areas is expressly frowned upon.”

Even though it was caught red-handed, RCR is still not ready to get on its knees, over, perform penance and seek forgiveness. Rather, it is considering an appeal. Some might consider that the ultimate gall.

But then came a statement from RCR president Torrey Galida:

“We understand the seriousness of the penalty. In fact, RCR has been one of the most outspoken opponents against ‘tire bleeding’ since the rumors began to surface last season. Once NASCAR provides us with the specific details of the infraction we will conduct a further internal investigation, and evaluate our options for an appeal.”

To use another well-worn phrase, sometimes it’s better to ask or seek forgiveness than to first ask or seek permission.

In this instance, since NASCAR would obviously never grant permission to manipulate its tires, RCR can forget about forgiveness.

Instead of evaluating its "options for an appeal,” RCR should simply accept its penalty quietly and contritely, move on and hopefully never do something as serious—or stupid—as this again.

Follow me on Twitter @JerryBonkowski