Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...
Josh Herrin won the 81st Daytona 200 by 0.070 seconds over Josh Hayes. Herrin's victory was 13 years after his first Daytona 200 victory. However, this race ended up being 217.62 miles due to a late red flag and a provision in the rulebook stating any the race shall not be less than ten laps after a restart. There is a lot of college basketball going on. IndyCar and Formula One are already on break. Mercedes is having communication issues. The NASCAR race from Austin will be more of an all-star race than NASCAR's all-star race. Alexander Rossi and Patricio O'Ward will be in Austin, but not doing anything on a racetrack. Supercars returned to competition, and there were already complaints. The FIA World Endurance Championship had its prolouge test at Sebring over the weekend, but it was some IMSA news that was on my mind.
Take the Win Away
IMSA's paddock was rocked in the buildup to the 12 Hours of Sebring when it was announced last week that Meyer Shank Racing had manipulated the tire pressure data at the 24 Hours of Daytona.
MSR's punishment for such an infraction?
The team and its drivers lost 200 of the 350 points it earned for the race victory. It also lost all points in the Endurance Cup championship, lost all the prize money for winning the 24 Hours of Daytona and was handed an additional $50,000 fine. Race engineer Ryan McCarthy was also placed on indefinite suspension and stripped of his IMSA credential. MSR fired McCarthy after IMSA's penalties were announced.
However, while MSR lost quite a bit, it will get to keep the race victory, remaining in the record as the winners of the 2023 edition of the famed endurance race, and the drivers keep their Rolex watches.
This penalty wasn't close to enough, and Meyer Shank Racing should not remain the winners of the 2023 24 Hours of Daytona.
The penalty is appalling. The team loses 200 points earned in the race, but keeps all 35 points for pole position, because there is no way manipulated tire pressures could play a role in the #60 Acura setting the fastest lap in qualifying. Even if you look at the 200-point penalty as covering the entire total Meyer Shank Racing scored for Daytona and 35 of those points being losing pole position, that means only 165 point deducted are from the race finish, meaning MSR still scored points that would fall between 12th and 13th in the IMSA points structure.
MSR should have nothing to show for this year's Daytona race. It should be on zero, in a deep pit when it comes to the championship, and it shouldn't have the race victory either.
This was not a small infraction, being underweight by a tenth of a pound or a rear wing endplate being 1/64th of an inch too thin or a driver falling a second shy of the minimum drive time or going over the maximum drive time by a second. This required deliberate circumvention of the rules. A team employee knew it was breaking the rules when developing "intentional software offsets" to get away with violating the sporting regulations. This wasn't an accident. This wasn't a minor transgression or slight miscalculation. This was a complete lack of respect to sportsmanship and fairness in competition. Believing it was one employee acting out of turn is naïve at best.
There is an aversion in American motorsports to change the results once the checkered flag is wave. The belief is the fans deserve to leave a track knowing who won the race. Once the winner is declared over the loudspeaker, that is it. That is the winner. Everyone saw it. Everyone can go home happy. For decades the practice has been if said winner has been found to do something wrong afterward... well, that can be handled with a points penalty, fine and/or suspension (usually just to a crew member, never the driver or entire team) afterward. But the win stands and what everyone saw and all the photos that were taken will remain accurate to what the record book says for years to come.
That mindset has to go in all forms of American motorsports.
If the belief is retroactively changing the results only makes a bad situation worse, well I have news for you, doing nothing is rock-bottom. MSR isn't pleased about all those points its lost or the money it had to return, but it will still promote the team as a three-time 24 Hours of Daytona winner. It will be on the side of it hauler, on merchandise and used in team press releases from now until the team closes shop. It isn't quite a lose-lose. There is definitely a loss, but the win stands, both literally and metaphorically.
The trained eyes and future readers will see the 2023 24 Hours of Daytona results and either know it isn't kosher or will find out that the winners broke the rule and, frankly, got away with it even if there was a punishment. Is that any worse than taking the victory away from the #60 Acura and giving it to the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura? The counterargument is it would be a hollow victory for Wayne Taylor Racing, therefore the result should remain unchanged. Well, it was a hollow victory the moment Meyer Shank Racing broke the rules to win the race. We are never going to have a 100% satisfying result from this year's 2023 24 Hours of Daytona, but we can at least have one that everyone can stomach.
Wayne Taylor and its drivers would not get a victory lane celebration, and nothing would be fulfilling, but there is no way Jim Meyer and Mike Shank are feeling any joy with this victory. This isn't a victory Tom Blomqvist, Colin Braun, Hélio Castroneves and Simon Pagenaud are going to be bragging about for years to come. There really is no winner in this case, but at the same time, IMSA isn't going to strip this result and have no winner for this year's race.
The best of these unideal situations is to have a winner who at least followed the rules. Meyer Shank Racing should not keep the victory. It should not be kept in the record book for decades to come, and the Rolex watches should be returned. That should be the custom moving forward.
Viewers are not going to be turned off from motorsports if a team is found to have broken the rules and had a victory taken away. It actually shows great accountability. It will feel like a waste to some in attendance if the results are amended, but most functional adults will understand it and appreciate it more than allowing a team get away with an infraction.
For decades, teams have known the punishment is worth the crime in the long run. No series is going to hand down anything too catastrophic to harm a team, because that could mean a shrinking grid, crew members losing jobs and sponsors being soured on the series and never returning, but if a series isn't going to do the bare minimum of taking a victory away, teams will still feel compelled to cross the line knowing they will always remain the winners in the annals of history.
No team should feel that comfortable to break the rules. IMSA had a chance to send a message. It blew it. Next time it must do better.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Josh Herrin, but did you know...
William Byron won the NASCAR Cup race from Phoenix, his second consecutive victory. Sammy Smith won the Grand National Series race, his first career victory.
Cam Waters and Shane van Gisbergen split the Supercars races from Newcastle. Van Gisbergen was first on the road in the first race, but was disqualified after Tickford Racing and Walkinshaw Andretti United filed a complaint over Triple Eight Race Engineering using dry ice in a specific banned location.
Ken Roczen won the Supercross race from Indianapolis, his first victory since the 2022 season opener at Anaheim and Suzuki's first victory since the Meadowlands in 2016, 112 races ago.
Coming Up This Weekend
Super Sebring... the 1,000-mile FIA World Endurance Championship race on Friday and the 12-Hour IMSA race on Saturday.
The third Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
NASCAR will be in Atlanta.
World Rally Championship moves to Mexico.
Supercross motors into Detroit.
