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[h=2]WEAVER: On with the (tech) show[/h] Monday, 26 September 2016


Matt Weaver / Images by LAT
There were two NASCAR shows on Sunday afternoon at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
The first was the 300-lap Sprint Cup race, ultimately won by Kevin Harvick, while the other was the post-race technical inspection process headlined by all 16 Chase for the Sprint Cup teams thanks to a series of legislative changes announced by NASCAR late last week.


The latter was a 50-minute circus with media, fans and rival teams all gathering around the Laser Inspection Station to see who would be the first to get hit with a failure and all the controversy that will surely follow.
NASCAR certainly set the stage for it on Sunday morning with Vice President and Racing Development Officer Steve O'Donnell warning teams not to engage in any actions that could compromise the inspection process or else face grave consequences for doing so.
Even though everyone passed on Sunday, it seems inevitable that someone will cross that threshold before the season ends – and it very well could be a winner during a pivotal moment of the playoffs. Even though NASCAR increased the tolerance that would constitute a encumbered result, it's expected that teams will push even closer to that new number, simply because that's what it takes to win when everyone else intends to do the same thing.
That's what made the Sunday scene after the race so damn captivating.
There's a good number of NASCAR observers that believe everyone in the sport spends too much time talking about lasers, weights and templates. And there's certainly some validity to it, especially in the Chase when the stakes are increasingly high and a championship could be decided by an official rather than the drivers.
But at the same time, there's a subset of observers who want to protect the parity that NASCAR has generated over the past 15 seasons at all costs. Ensuring that drivers whom take the checkered flag are legal is a matter of integrity and righteousness.
Cheating is an unfair word in motorsports as the rules are defined in gray rather than black and white, and yet, there are standards. It stands to reason that a car that passes inspection before an event should also be able to do so afterward.
But we live in the era of "transformable cars," as coined by Brad Keselowski, in which the machines can successfully pass through the LIS station and undergo changes that essentially make them illegal during the race, before transforming back into legal parameters by the checkered flag.
This can be achieved by swerving to reset rear toes and aerodynamic skew or even destroying fenders in a celebratory burnout. Everything has a purpose in the modern NASCAR and everyone is a skeptic. Everyone is looking for an edge and everyone is hoping to take away their rivals' advantage through politicking.
In short, there's a lot of agendas for NASCAR to weave through right now and the fluidity of the rule book reflects that. But simply eliminating post-race inspection is probably not the answer. Stock car racing is a money game and eliminating that procedure would basically provide the top teams in the industry a blank check to find whatever tools they can build to further seperate themselves from the rest of the field.
Look no further than the Xfinity Series for what could happen if the gap between the haves and have-nots increase. NASCAR has received some criticism for its evolving rule book this month but stock car racing is an evolving sport. It's not a timeless game like football or baseball and it requires flexibility.
When it comes to matters of fairness and parity, the folks in Daytona and Charlotte are trying their best because, let's face it, the teams are trying their best to skirt around every decision. It's the nature of the game. And that's why we spend so much time talking about tech each week.