Most race fans who watch the SPEED Channel are familiar with Bob Dilner. He's the tall, goofy guy with the slow raspy voice. He's also the guy that revealed to Dave Despain on Sunday evening the allegations against Richard Childress Racing- The Nos. 29 and 31 Nextel Cup teams had manipulated their rims to release air pressure, basically working as a bleeder valve, which is prohibited in NASCAR Nextel Cup competition.
A day later, both Richard Childress and NASCAR steadfastly denied these allegations. According to Jim Hunter, the report was 'false' and 'misleading'.
But where do these rumors stem from? And where is Dilner getting his information?
I never post anything unless it's a hard fact, or from a very reliable source, and you would think that Dilner would be the same way. But if NASCAR denies the allegations...I mean, after all, they have the final say and there word is the bottomline.
It's understandable that Richard Childress would deny the accusations, but I seriously doubt that NASCAR would deny them if they were somewhat true. What do they have to hide. They sure didn't hide the 29 team's rule infringement at Las Vegas last year, nor did they deny the 48 team's multiple infringements, so why start now?
I'm not sure how Dilner got this info, and how this rumor came about. But it's not unusual for cheating allegations to run rampant when a driver or team is winning and running up front.
I remember in 2003, when Ryan Newman was winning recurrently, a lot of folks in the garage swore that the 12 team had some kind of illegal fuel mileage system going on. NASCAR had to practically tear apart the 12 car just to prove that nothing fishy was going on.
But anytime a cheating allegation leaks out, especially the way that Dilner handled situation, the wins will be in question because a cheating allegation tends to stick within the brain, no matter if the allegations are true or false.
Remember when Jack Roush accused Jeff Gordon's team of soaking their tires? Yeah, me too, and that was eight years ago.
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