Blog: Tires the talk at Martinsville

— -- MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Rodney Childers stood inside the hauler of the most dominant car on the Sprint Cup Series circuit Friday morning and shook his head, even offering a slight chuckle when asked if he was concerned about NASCAR sending last week's tires of his driver, Kevin Harvick, to a third party.

"No," Childers said. "Not at all."

Childers will say until he is blue in the face that the team is not doctoring or bleeding air illegally from its tires. He's a little frustrated at the accusations but understands that is the nature of racing.

NASCAR has taken tires from teams the past two weeks. At Phoenix, it took tires from Harvick and Joey Logano and said it didn't find anything. At California, it took tires from Harvick, Ryan Newman, AJ Allmendinger and Paul Menard and sent some of the tires (it did not specify which ones) to a third party for analysis.

Obviously, all the talk is not only about Newman, Allmendinger nor Menard. It's all about the car that has won four times in the past eight races and finished second in the other four events.

"If I was one of the other competitors, I would expect NASCAR to do the same type [of] thing," Childers said. "So it's just part of the deal."

While NASCAR officials have characterized this as just a general audit of tires, going to the extent of taking tires to a third party has raised eyebrows in the garage. NASCAR warned teams Friday at Martinsville Speedway of items not to mess with in the cars, including tires.

Obviously, bleeding air from the tires would help the car run consistently fast laps as the air pressure builds during the run.

"I do think [some teams] are," said Jeff Gordon, who was accused of having doctored tires in 1998. "When it gets to this level when you're hearing about it, I'm hearing about it and they're talking about things in meetings with crew chiefs, it's definitely being done. It's just not clear how it's being done."

His crew chief, Alan Gustafson, wasn't as definitive.

"There's a lot of smoke around that," he said. "There's a lot of talk, there's a lot of dialogue, there's a lot of rumors in the garage. It's obvious that some people think something is going on. Is NASCAR reacting to that or do they feel uncomfortable with what's going on? I don't know that answer.

"It is something that's at the forefront of a lot of people's minds and obviously NASCAR is trying to make sure that we're all on a level playing field, and if anybody is violating that, they will pay the price, which they reminded us this morning is very, very stiff."

Messing with tires would be considered at least a P5 penalty on NASCAR's 1-6 scale, with a P6 as the most serious. It would be a loss of 50 points, a fine of $75,000 to $125,000, and a six-week suspension for the crew chief. If found during a race, it would be 75 points and a fine of $125,000 to $175,000.

"If they find a way to stop that, if it's really going on, I get excited about our chances because I know that we're not doing it," Gordon said. "So it will close the gap for us to whoever may be doing it."

Gordon believes NASCAR should just allow the tires to have bleeders, which is used in other racing series and could be easier to police for NASCAR officials.

Policing it is the main issue. Denny Hamlin also believes some teams are doing it, and NASCAR's challenge is trying to determine what is a natural leak by the tire or something intentionally done by a team.

"If it's out there and they know about it, you should be gone forever," Hamlin said. "That's a major, major, major thing. This isn't like the old rodeo days of being able to go out there and run a big motor or soak the tires.

"This is a professional sport. ... There definitely is no room for it in the sport. I hope they clamp down on it if they do find it. And if they find it multiple times, they should have a permanent vacation."

For now, it will be up to NASCAR to try to determine if teams are bleeding air illegally. Until it comes back with its third-party analysis, the speculation will continue.

"I know I sent [Sprint Cup Series director] Richard Buck a text and said: 'Hey, man, could we poke holes in our tires, is that OK?' " Jimmie Johnson crew chief Chad Knaus said. "He sent me a text back and said, 'Absolutely not.' So that is all I know."