Everett, Wash.
Published: Friday, October 24, 2008

NASCAR's Red Bull eyes image change after caught cheating

By Jenna Fryer
Associated Press

 HAMPTON, Ga. -- Red Bull Racing fired the employee responsible for manipulating Brian Vickers' car. The team, however, knows that isn't enough to overcome the perception that cheating is behind its improvement this season.

"The old saying that 'Any press is good press' is wrong in this respect," said two-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson, who has seen his team slip onto the wrong side of the NASCAR rule book numerous times.

"When you have that negative press on your team, it does put question marks in people's minds, and that is something that takes a long time to overcome. I've lived it firsthand. It's a tough thing to overcome."

That's the battle Red Bull faces with just one month left on a season in which it crawled from the bottom of the NASCAR pile and moved toward the front of the pack. Barely competitive during last year's inaugural season, Vickers has challenged for wins and was in position to grab a career-high finish in the final point standings.

All that progress was sullied when NASCAR discovered illegal sheet metal on the No. 83 Toyota following Vickers' 11th-place finish at Martinsville.

The car was randomly selected for post-race inspection and also picked to go back to NASCAR's R&D Center for a further look. Once there, inspectors found the sheet metal did not meet the minimum thickness requirements.

NASCAR docked Vickers 150 points, fined crew chief Kevin Hamlin $100,000 and indefinitely suspended Hamlin and car chief Craig Smokstad.

The points deduction dropped Vickers from 15th to 17th in the standings and jeopardized Red Bull's season goal of having him finish inside the top 15 in points. Vickers' career-best finish was 15th in 2006, his final year with Hendrick Motorsports.

He declined to discuss the infractions Friday at Atlanta Motor Speedway but said in an e-mail he believes the team can overcome the setback.

"Having made huge strides as a team this year, we are all embarrassed over this situation," Vickers wrote. "This goes against my beliefs, as well as those of Red Bull Racing Team and Toyota. What happened was an error in judgment on someone's part. I have full confidence in the team and the team's strategy to rectify the situation."

Red Bull general manager Jay Frye has already taken steps, telling The Associated Press on Friday he fired the person who manipulated the sheet metal.

"It was just a complete error in judgment," Frye said. "What we did was wrong. It won't happen again and it was for sure isolated. The person responsible has been removed from the company and others have been disciplined."

Frye said he also put in place a stronger safeguarding system to make sure this doesn't happen again. The team is in second season competing in NASCAR. It struggled mightily last year under different leadership that relied heavily on the same approach Red Bull uses for its Formula One teams.

Since Frye was hired in January, he put Red Bull on a NASCAR model that has turned the program around.

"After we did our investigation on what happened, we had a team meeting and we said, 'We've got a black eye now, we've made great strides, and there's going to be the perception that this is why,'" Frye said. "And it is not why. This is not how we operate and we will not operate this way again."

The No. 83 has been randomly selected for post-race inspection numerous times this season, and Frye estimated the car was sent to the R&D Center an additional "six to eight" times for further inspection and sailed through without issue every time.

"The Red Bull team in general has a great system of checks and balances to it, so for this to slip through the crack, it was enlightening that it could still happen with all the systems we have in place," Frye said. "So we've had to add new systems. More internal policing, and it's everybody.

"If your supervisor comes to you and asks you to do something that you think is wrong, then you need to tell someone. Nobody will be reprimanded for asking a question."
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