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Monday, February 12  Nadeau not placing blame Associated Press DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Jerry Nadeau is disappointed, but bears no animosity toward his crew for failing to properly set up his car to qualify for the Daytona 500. "We're not even sure who did what," Nadeau said Monday before requalifying his Chevrolet. Two days earlier, he put the car on the outside of the front row for the Winston Cup season opener next Sunday. But NASCAR said the roof of the car was too close to the ground and disallowed his speed of 182.763 mph that would have locked in his starting position for the race. Instead, he was forced to requalify Monday, and did so at 178.271. That put him behind all first-day qualifiers for a spot in one of two 125-mile races Thursday to set positions 3-to-30 for the 500. Now, he will start 26th in one of those events, and must finish 15th or better to be guaranteed a spot in the Daytona 500. "I'll just get in the car and drive it as fast as I can," Nadeau said. "I think we've got a good car and I'm looking forward to a good race in the twin 125s. "We'll just pay the fine and move on." The penalty for the height violation and a previous fuel cell violation was levied Monday against crew chief Tony Furr, who was hit with $12,500 in fines, a four-week suspension, beginning with the race after Daytona, and season-long probation. It was determined by NASCAR that the team intentionally used an illegal part to lower the car once it got on the track. A crew chief since 1994, Furr has previously been disciplined three times by NASCAR for rules violations. Rapid rookie Addington Racing might experience some growing pains with rookie Travis Kvapil replacing Andy Houston in the Chevrolet in campaigns in the Craftsman Truck series. Although Houston, one of the top drivers in the series, has moved up this season to NASCAR's Winston Cup division, Kvapil gave the team reason to hope there will be no decline with his performance Monday. "We came down here, tested and were good, so we expected to be in the top five," he said after posting the second-fastest speed in one practice session and the third-best in another. Houston finished second to Mike Wallace -- who also has moved up to Winston Cup -- last year in the inaugural Daytona truck race. So, the 24-year-old Kvapil (pronounced Kwa-pil) is in a nice position to make his debut in the series. Can he win the first time out? "Yeah, I think we have a shot," he said. Leffler time disallowed Like Jerry Nadeau, rookie Jason Leffler will wind up starting deeper in the field Thursday in one of the Daytona 500 qualifying races. NASCAR disallowed his 36th-fastest speed of last Saturday because "discrepancies" were found during an analysis of fuel. That led to his crew chief, Mark Cram, being fined $10,000, suspended for four weeks, beginning Feb. 23, and placed on season probation. Ratings up Fox Sports' coverage of its first NASCAR Winston Cup race, Sunday's Budweiser Shootout, came up with a 4.2 overnight rating and a 19 share -- the best rating the made-for-TV race has received since 1998. The 4.2 rating is 17 percent better than last year's Shootout on CBS, and 20 percent better than the numbers on CBS in 1999. The 49 metered overnight markets represent 66 percent of the country. A show's rating indicates the percentage of U.S. homes tuned in, while a share represents the percentage of television sets. One overnight rating point equals approximately 675,000 homes. |
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