Cram was fined $10,000 and suspended for four races after contaminated fuel was found in the gas tank of rookie Jason Leffler's No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing Dodge.

"I believe in my heart that somebody put that stuff in there on purpose," said Sabates, who sold 80 percent of his team to Ganassi over the winter but stayed on as minority owner. "If we were doing it ourselves, we would have drained the fuel cells after qualifying so there wouldn't be any residue."

He said when the Ganassi crew came back the next morning, they found twice as much in the fuel tank as the day before.

"That tells you something. I believe it came from some other team," Sabates said, refusing to speculate further.

The penalty against Cram was just one of many fines and suspensions handed out by NASCAR on Monday for infractions found since inspections began for the Daytona 500 last Friday.

Hendrick Motorsports, whose three crew chiefs were all penalized, declined to comment.

The worst of the penalties against the Hendrick team was against Tony Furr, crew chief for the No. 25 Chevrolet of Jerry Nadeau.

Furr was fined $10,000, suspended for four races and put on probation for a year for using an illegal part that dropped the car below minimum height while on the track.

Real Close
Former Daytona 500 pole-winner Mike Skinner turned the fastest lap Tuesday during the hour-long practice on the high-banked 2-mile oval.

Skinner was at the front of a long draft when he posted the lap of 189.247 mph -- considerably faster than Bill Elliott's pole-winning speed of 183.565 from Saturday's single-car qualifying.

More significant, though, was the fact that of the 52 cars that took part in Tuesday's practice, the fastest lap posted by 47 of them was within 0.890-seconds and 3.477 mph of Skinner's Chevrolet.

Ricky Craven's Ford was second fastest at 189.1919, followed by: the Tauruses of Robert Pressley at 189.159 and Jeff Burton at 188.933; the Pontiac of Derrike Cope at 188.865; the Ford of Mike Wallace at 188.861; and the Dodges of former Daytona winners Sterling Marlin and Elliott at 188.810 and 188.731, respectively.