Nationwide teams irked by Gibbs team cheating

Reaction was predictably swift Sunday among fellow Nationwide Series team owners in the wake of NASCAR inspectors catching Joe Gibbs Racing trying to alter the result of chassis dyno tests on the cars of Tony Stewart and Joey Logano.

Robin Pemberton, NASCAR's vice president of competition, said inspectors preparing to run the tests discovered spacers — in this case one-quarter inch thick magnets — were placed on the gas-pedal stop to keep the car from running wide open and presenting a true indication of how much horsepower was reaching the rear wheels of the team's Toyotas.

"Their [rear end] needs to be kicked out of there," Richard Childress said. "They're shiftless anyway. They [NASCAR] just need to do something."

J.D. Gibbs, the team's president and son of owner Joe Gibbs, vowed that no matter what action NASCAR takes — and he expects it "will be a pretty big slap," — the team will take additional action against the employees involved. He stopped short of saying whether anyone would be fired, but said action would come quickly.

"That was a really poor and foolish decision on the part of our key guys," said Gibbs, who apologized to NASCAR, Toyota and the teams sponsors. "A couple of guys chose to make a decision there that really impacts all of us. To me, the frustrating part is, why?

"I know they're probably frustrated from the standpoint of wanting to show that, hey, we have less horsepower than ever before and wanting it to look like we're handicapped even more than we actually were. I understand that, but that's not an excuse." More at ESPN.com