Dale Earnhardt Jr's dominance in the Busch series continued this weekend. He led wire to wire and took the win at Daytona. Anytime Dale Jr wins, the conspiracy theorists come out in full form and make up the craziest stories as to how NASCAR let Dale get away with it and how they favor him. I am always one to say that the rules are the rules and NASCAR can not fix the outcome of a race.

I still believe that.

However, I saw something on Friday that shocked me. Not only did Jr's crew do something so blatantly obvious during inspection, but the NASCAR officials let it go, and to top it off they laughed and joked about it.

I do not believe that this infraction was enough to give JR the win. I feel he would have won anyways, but, I strongly disagree with the way the 3 involved officials conducted themselves and the inspection and it can make you sit back and say, "Jr's team got preferential treatment.".

This weekend I was at Daytona with garage/pit credentials courtesy of NASCAR. After this, it'll probably be the last time.

The sun was blazing and there were only a few places to hide in the shade during the day to try to stay cool. Over in the garage normally used by the IROC cars when they are there, there was an opening to the side. NASCAR had a set of scales set up, but no one was there and no cars were going over them. So, I decided to hang out there and sit on a table in the shade and rest for a bit.

Within a little while cars starting coming thru and putting their cars up on the scale and checking them out. They were not officially in inspection at this time, but they were checking to see where the numbers were at prior to official inspection. I soon realized this would be a busy area and decided to stay.

Inspection finally opened up prior to the race and the cars were sent thru a maze in the garage area consisting of about 5 or 6 different areas that the teams pushed the cars thru. One checked body templates, one checked under the cars, one checked the weight, etc. I found it odd that they would move the cars to several different locations to accomplish this, but a NASCAR official escorted each car from station to station to ensure that no one did anything illegal.

When Dale Jr's car was going thru the station that checks the roof height and the valance heights and others, I walked over to that station and snapped off a couple pictures, mainly for my friend Kevin who is a big Dale Jr fan.

Jr's team pushed the car up on the scales.

The NASCAR officials were having the teams disconnect and reconnect the sway bar at the scales. So, the 8 team, as others, lifted the hood and went to work on the sway bar. Then it happened.

One of Jr's crew members walked over to the passenger side and while the inspectors were looking at the computer to see the numbers and the other one was watching the guy wrenching on the sway bar, the crew member grabbed the hood in the area where it goes over the right front tire and bent it severely upward away from the fender. I sat there for a second thinking, "Why did he do that?".

Then the officials told them to close the hood and move on to the next station, they had passed this portion of inspection. At this point the same crew member closed the hood and now it didn’t fit with the fender anymore. So what did he do? He grabbed the fender and yanked it up at least an inch and a half to meet the newly shaped hood. As he yanked it up, the rest of the fender, above the tire twisted and contorted to this new shape. He closed the hood and it still wasn’t right, so he opened it and adjusted the fender some more until he got it where he wanted it. Then he closed the hood.

This was a major modification to the shape of the fender at a place where the templates are checked very closely.

To make it worse, there were 3 NASCAR inspectors watching this. One Winston Cup inspector and 2 Busch series officials.

They looked at each other and one said to Jr's guys, "That was a major adjustment there guys, I think you need to go back thru the templates."

I thought, "Ok, they are going to do the right thing."

Then they all laughed. The crew guy said, "OH, they never check that anyways." And they laughed some more. The main inspector looked at the obviously tweaked fender and shook his head and said, "I knew we couldn't trust you guys." And they all laughed again.

They pushed the car over to the next station and that was the end of it.

How could these officials let this team make such a blatant adjustment to a critical part of the car and not make them go back thru the templates? Like I said before, it might not have been that much of an advantage, but they have templates for a reason. The inspectors can not "eyeball" it and say, "It's fine".

Now, I am sure all the Jr fans will write in and tell me that I am jealous of Jr or that I need to get a life. But I want you to seriously consider what happened. The rules specifically state that no adjustments can be made to the body of the car after it goes thru the templates or else you must go thru the templates again. A major reshaping of this fender was done and the officials just laughed it off.

I watched several other teams get sent back thru the templates and other stations for far less minor infractions.

Jr fan or not, a rule is rule and it must be enforced evenly. I place the blame here on the NASCAR officials and not on Jr's team. They did what they had to do and they got away with it. The officials did not do their job properly. I personally would like to see an investigation into this and find out why it was allowed. I have the names of all 3 NASCAR officials if anybody wants them. And, I actually had one person say that post race inspection would have found the infraction if there was one. They do not template the car in post race inspection. The cars bump each other during the race.

Like I usually say, take off your rally cap and look at this from a rules perspective. Don’t look at this from a "He's picking on Jr perspective." Jr had nothing to do with this. It was between his crew member and NASCAR. And if JR had seen it, he would probably be mad at his crew member as well.

I anxiously await the replies…… I'll probably post a follow up later in the week.

If you look at the following photos you can see (sort of) the area where the fender was adjusted. It doesn’t look like much and it probably wasnt, but the point is that procedure should have been followed and the car sent back thru the templates. Who knows, it may have passed, but unfortunately, we will never know. .