After watching the race in Dover Sunday, and seeing the penalties levied against Brad Keselowski yet again, I am convinced that someone in NASCAR may be trying to keep Keselowski from making The Chase this year. After the race in Dover, where Keselowski finished fifth, he was found to have a car that was too low in the front during the routine post-race inspection. Keselowski was penalized six driver points and Penske Racing was penalized six owner points due to this infraction. This is not the first time Keselowski has had a run in with NASCAR concerning the NASCAR rule book.
The history for this thinking started in the 2012 Daytona 500. Under caution, Juan Pablo Montoya, had a part break on his car while he was trying to catch up with the field, which caused the car to veer right, and crash hard into a jet dryer in turn three. Keselowski was sitting in his car under the ensuing red flag, and pulled out his phone, and took a picture of the resulting fire, and tweeted the following picture from inside of his car.
After the race, NASCAR released the following statement concerning Keselowski’s tweets from the race:
“NASCAR will not penalize #2-Brad Keselowski for his use of Twitter during last night's Daytona 500. Nothing we've seen from Keselowski violates any current rules pertaining to the use of social media during races. As such, he won't be penalized. We encourage our drivers to use social media to express themselves as long as they do so without risking their safety or that of others”.
Case closed, right? Not so fast. After the second race in Michigan in the same year, Keselowski made comments about his competitors working in the ‘grey’ area of the rule book concerning the rear ends of their cars (which NASCAR listened and made the rules more black and white after this incident). After the second Phoenix race, Keselowski made some more comments in the media center that turned heads due to the language, and he was critical about there being no caution for oil on the track after Danica Patrick hit the wall coming to the white flag, and the drivers hitting the oil from Patrick’s car coming to the checkered flag.
”It's the double standard that I spent a whole week being bashed by a half a dozen drivers about racing hard at Texas and how I'm out of control and have a death wish, and then I see bulls--- like that," Keselowski said, getting more and more vocal. "That's all you can call that. These guys just tried to kill each other. You race hard and I get called an a------ for racing hard and called with a death wish, and I see s--- like that, and it just p----- me off. It's just … ridiculous, and they should be ashamed," he continued. "It's embarrassing."
Keselowski was not penalized for these statements; however he was penalized $25,000 and placed on probation by NASCAR for having his cell phone in the car with him during this race. This is strange due to the fact NASCAR stated earlier in the year that there was no issue with having a cell phone in the car during the race. Phoenix was the next to the last race for the championship as well, and Keselowski had just taken the point lead after Jimmie Johnson blew a tire and hit the wall. With Brad on probation for the last race, NASCAR placed the championship more into their hands instead of the two drivers racing for the championship. Due to the probation, if Keselowski’s car had any issues with inspection before or after the race, or Brad would have said anything negative about NASCAR, NASCAR could have parked him for the race at Homestead, or penalized him points, citing the fact he violated probation. This could have cost Keselowski the championship. Keselowski ended up winning the championship, and has been one of the most vocal champions NASCAR has had since Dale Earnhardt.
Ever since Keselowski won the championship, NASCAR has been watching his team closely. At Texas, Keselowski’s and teammate Joey Logano’s car both had to have the rear end housings changed due to NASCAR finding something that was not approved in them prior to the race. Keselowski made comments about his team being targeted by NASCAR.
“I have one good thing to say," Keselowski said. "That's my team and effort they put in today in fighting back with the absolute bull that's been the last seven days in this garage area. The things I've seen over the last seven days have me questioning everything that I believe in, and I'm not happy about it. I don't have anything positive to say and I probably should just leave it at that."
Keselowski continued: "There's so much stuff going on ... you have no f------ idea what's going on,'' he said. "And that's not your fault and that's not a slam on you. I could tell you there's nobody, no team in this garage with the integrity of the 2 team. And the way we've been treated over the last seven days is absolutely shameful. I feel like we've been targeted over the last seven days more than I've ever seen a team targeted. But my guys kept their heads on straight and they showcased why they are a winning team and championship team. We're not going to take it. We're not going to be treated this way.”
After this race NASCAR penalized both teams with a loss of 25 points, loss of their crew chiefs, car chiefs, and team managers for six races, and $100,000 per crew chief (with the loss of the team members later reduced to two races in the appeal process). During those two races without his crew chief, Keselowski did not run well, and was caught up in crashes in both races, dropping him to 10th in points. His crew chief was re-instated after Charlotte, and in his first race back, the car was found too low after the fifth place finish in Dover. Keselowski was penalized six more points and his crew chief was relieved of $25,000 for this penalty.
Maybe I am thinking there is a conspiracy theory that NASCAR is trying to either make the race to The Chase more exciting by placing the current champion in a position that could cause him to be the first champion since Tony Stewart to miss The Chase after winning the championship. Or maybe NASCAR is singling Bad Brad out due to his outspokenness concerning NASCAR, and their rules enforcement. Maybe this is nothing more than one team is getting caught for infractions that would have been there without the past history. Please weigh in with your thoughts on this below.
I can be found on Twitter @kevdogg329.
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