Several NASCAR Drivers Accused Of Cheating After This Past Weekend’s Cup Series Race – And NASCAR Is Vowing To Crack Down

There’s an old saying in NASCAR: If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.

Since the beginning of the sport, drivers and teams have always tried to find ways to gain an advantage over their competitors, from Darrell Waltrip loading up his car with buckshot to make it heavier during inspection and then secretly releasing it during a race to Jimmie Johnson’s crew chief telling him to “crack” the back end of the car during a burnout if he won the race.

These days with the Gen 7 car, the cars are all so close together in speed that any small advantage can make a big difference on the track. But of course NASCAR has made it harder and harder for teams to try to get around the rules with their stock parts and laser scanning system during inspection.

One thing that teams are consistently trying to do, though, is to make their cars lighter. Less weight = faster, right? And obviously NASCAR mandates minimum weights for all of the cars, but teams will do everything they can to try to get as close to the minimum weight as possible.

That’s why it was a little suspicious when several cars were spotted intentionally driving through the grass after this past weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race at WWT Raceway in St. Louis.

Video of the Trackhouse Racing cars of Ross Chastain and Shane Van Gisbergen leaving the paved pit road access road and intentionally running in the grass went viral on social media after the race, with even fellow driver Alex Bowman commenting on the team radio that the Trackhouse cars were driving through the grass:

But as it turns out, the Trackhouse cars weren’t the only ones. Onboard video also shows Joey Logano appearing to intentionally run his car off the track as he drove back to pit road:

Why would they want to drive through the grass after the race? Well, to pick up dirt on their tires and the underside of their car in order to add weight as the car goes through post-race inspection. That’s how close these teams are cutting it when it comes to making weight, and even adding a little bit of dirt onto the car can be the difference between passing inspection or getting hit with major penalties for being too light.

(Of course, any advantage the Trackhouse cars were trying to gain didn’t really pay off, because Chastain and Van Gisbergen finished 24th and 25th, thanks in part to some ill-timed cautions and pit strategy).

But NASCAR took notice of the teams apparently trying to push the envelope when it comes to making weight after a race, and NASCAR Cup Series managing director Brad Moran made it clear that they’ll be keeping an eye on it in the future:

“We’ll be having some discussions with Trackhouse management, as well as their crew chiefs, and we’ll be giving the all the teams some information regarding that this week. But yeah, it certainly caught our radar and you know, we have rules that could put the teams in a real bad spot when we see that.

So we’ll make it pretty clear to them, moving forward starting at Bristol, what that means.”

With Chastain, Van Gisbergen and Logano all in the playoffs, there’s no doubt that the teams are trying to do whatever it takes to gain an advantage.

But NASCAR has made it clear: They’re on to the tricks, and they’re keeping an eye on it now.The post Several NASCAR Drivers Accused Of Cheating After This Past Weekend’s Cup Series Race – And NASCAR Is Vowing To Crack Down first appeared on Whiskey Riff.