(By Greg Engle)
Posted: Monday,December 8th, 2008
A car owned by NASCAR’s Kyle Busch was disqualified after winning the 41st running of the Snowball Derby at 5 Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Florida Sunday.
It marked the second time in three years that a car has been DQ’d from the prestigious late model event in post race inspection after winning.
Inspectors found two fans underneath the car, driven by Brian Ickler, near each of the right side tires. The fans were connected to a switch inside the car and were designed to keep the tires cool and allow better traction on the half-mile track.
”As soon as I knelt down and looked inside, it hit me like a ton of bricks,” Ricky Brooks, the chief technical inspector at Five Flags told a local newspaper. “I hate to have to do this. But we have to maintain rules for everyone who competes in this race.”
The second-place finisher Augie Grill, 32, was awarded the victory; he was the defending champion of the event.
Ironically Grill was disqualified Friday night when his car failed inspection after qualifying second fastest. Grill was forced to start in the back of the field Sunday but fought his way to the second place finish.
Two years ago both the winner and the third place finisher were disqualified after failing post race inspection.
Last year Kyle Busch was scheduled to race but his car, driven by another driver, was disqualified after winning the last-chance race.
“It’s very disheartening to think racers are doing this to race fans,” said Tim Bryant, general manager and co-owner of Five Flags Speedway told the local newspaper.
Bryant had presented the winner’s trophy to Ickler in a finish-line celebration, and later and agreed to the disqualification.
“When an infraction is as blatant as this one, it’s not a tough call,” Bryant said.
Brooks said the cooling device was put on the car at some point Saturday, after he inspected the car the first time. After the post race inspection failure Brooks told Ickler’s crew chief, veteran Joe Shear, “Is the word ‘Stupid’ written on my forehead?’ ”
The incident marred what was otherwise a terrific 300 lap, three-hour slugfest.
“It was a great day for racing and I thought we had a good show,” Bryant said. “It’s just too bad this happened.”
Ickler, 23, from Poway, Calif., has won three races this year in the NASCAR Camping World Series.
Past winners of the Snowball Derby who have gone on to NASCAR stardom include Pete Hamilton, Donnie Allison, Darrell Waltrip, Gary Balough, Ted Musgrave, Rick Crawford and Steven Wallace.
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