NASCAR has penalize the crew chiefs and teams of Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson this week for problems with their cars at Infineon Raceway last weekend.
Gordon and Johnson have been penalized 100 driver points. Their crew chiefs (Steve Letarte and Chad Knaus, respectively) will be paying an even larger price: each has been fined $100,000 and suspended for the next six races.
Did the drivers deserve stiffer penalties? Or was the 100 points, which knocked them both back in the chase for the Nextel Cup enough? Bobby Labonte weighed in:
"It would be kind of hard," Labonte said. "I think NASCAR realizes a driver is just contract labor. We're really just contract labor to the race teams. So penalizing a race team for doing their actions that causes a penalty and then you penalize a driver for his actions. It's on his shoulders."