How Team Penske Forced NASCAR to Rewrite the Rules With Ingenious Cars of Tomorrow Exploitation

NASCAR is a sport known for pushing the envelope of the rule books to win in the most magnificent way possible. Whether it’s Richard Petty running a textured black roof on his 1968 Plymouth to improve aerodynamics or Tony Stewart exploiting contractual loopholes and putting NASCAR on the spot. There’s always a battle ongoing between the rulebook and the teams to achieve glory. And the case was no different for Roger Penske in 2008 after NASCAR announced the Car of Tomorrow.

When NASCAR revealed its motive to move toward manufacturer equality with the Car of Tomorrow, most of the sport’s veterans were not happy. After all, the very essence of NASCAR was its diversity in design. But when Team Penske cracked the code by introducing a crab-walking masterpiece, the officials were not too pleased either. While the #77 helped Sam Hornish Jr achieve a spectacular recovery at the 2008 All-Star Race, the celebrations wouldn’t last for too long. Here’s what went down.

How Team Penske outsmarted NASCAR officials in 2008

While the Car of Tomorrow was hailed as NASCAR’s solution to the ever-increasing disparity between manufacturers, Team Penske once again found a way to make their challenger a notch better. The team had opted to run a looser setup, which meant the car could have higher speed. But the downside was the trade-off in grip levels. However, the solution to this quickly arose. Penske implemented an angled rear housing to angle the axles toward the outside wall, creating a yaw in the car’s stance.

This new tactic turned out to be crucial for Sam Hornish Jr’s chances of qualifying for the All-Star race in only his rookie NASCAR season, a feat not many drivers get to achieve. But for the Indy 500 winner, the combination of the #77’s sheer speed on the outside line proved to be a match made in heaven. Soon enough, Hornish Jr had driven his car to a close second behind AJ Allmendinger in the Sprint Shootout at Lowe’s, making him eligible for the All-Star race.

What made the #77 so dominant at the Spring Shootout was its angled read setup. It created side force, which meant the car could have increased grip in turns without sacrificing speed. The loose end was handled perfectly by Hornish Jr, and the set-up made its way to the all-star race. Although he started 23rd out of a 24-car lineup, Hornish Jr managed his best All-Star finish by slotting his car into seventh by the time the flag was out. Had Hornish Jr not been three laps down on the grid in the start, he would have comfortably made it to the top-3.

At this point, it was no secret that the crab-walking style of setup on the #77 had caught NASCAR’s attention. Fearing the prospect of a complete grid with angled cars, the officials brought down the ban hammer on the angled Penske masterpiece soon after the All-Star Race. While this was a bummer for the team that had pioneered their way to the front of the grid once again, the car had given Hornish Jr the time of his life in the NASCAR Cup Series.

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Speaking of the #77, the Indycar legend went into further detail during the interviews he did after dominating the Lowe’s weekend.

Team Penske was not the only one running an angled rear setup!

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Sharing his experience driving the car that looked like it was drifting through each corner, Hornish Jr shared,“That’s one of those things where it kind of helps all the way around and if you look at every car out there is dog tracking to a little bit of a degree. You know we just maybe pushed down the envelope a little bit further than some of the other people have…”

Hornish Jr also stressed the fact that most teams were using a similar setup to throw NASCAR off their tail. He added, “You know it’s uh something that we saw other people doing earlier on in the year and decided that we wanted to try it out and actually you know there’s been you know people running it all year.” Although other teams had implemented the crab-walking stance to a certain degree, none had managed to dial it to perfection quite like Team Penske.

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Despite its questionable characteristics on the inside line, the #77’s sheer turning speed was enough to make NASCAR pull the trigger. While the ban on the car unsurprisingly derailed Hornish Jr and Team Penske’s newfound dominance, the innovation that preceded it gave fans the time of their lives throughout the All-Star Weekend.