Cheater, Cheater, Pumpkin Ea ... Wait They Didn’t Cheat

There has been a lot of talk about the 48 and 5 cars today and how close they were to cheating last week.

See Nascar.com for the full details.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t cheating breaking the rules somehow and not coming close to breaking the rules?
Let’s be perfectly clear here, the 48 and 5 team cars were both found to be within operational parameters established by NASCAR and they were not in any violation of NASCAR rules.

Mind you NASCAR did warn both teams that their cars were close to being in violation of established hieght tolerances, but they were not in violation of those tolerances.

So why is this such a big deal? Because it is the cars of Mark Martin and Jimmie Johnson we are talking about and both sit 1st and 2nd respectively in the standings. Add to this the fact that the 48 team has been caught in violation of the rules before (or depending who you talk to they have been caught cheating as it were) in the past and you’ve got a hot bed of rumours and innuendos floating around in the garage area and in the media.

If this were some other non-Chaser we wouldn’t have even heard about it.

I say so what if they were close to being beyond the set height? The fact is they weren’t beyond the set height, therefore they weren’t cheating. That makes this a non-issue plain and simple.

I’m done.