In response to the penalty NASCAR assessed Robby Gordon on Tuesday, Kipp Owen, director of SRT and Dodge Motorsports Engineering, issued the following statement:

"After the announcement on Feb. 6 that Robby Gordon Motorsports (RGM) was entering into an alliance with Gillett Evernham Motorsports and would race Dodge Chargers in the 2008 season, a series of human errors led to an unapproved Dodge Charger nose being given to RGM from the Dodge/Evernham Performance Parts warehouse. While the nose meets the template for the car of tomorrow, it has not yet been approved by NASCAR for use in racing. The prototype parts were in the warehouse, and share the same base part number as the approved Dodge Avenger nose.

"It was an unfortunate series of human errors compounded by the very short timeframe the RGM had to get their cars changed to Dodge Chargers in time for the Daytona 500. Dodge fully supports Robby Gordon Motorsports and is proud that Robby Gordon raced to an eighth-place finish the Daytona 500, his first race as part of the Dodge family.

"Dodge has taken the appropriate steps in the warehouse to make sure that prototype parts can not be mistaken for approved parts in the future and hopes that the circumstances surrounding this error are considered."

 

Does anyone have any comments on this?

 

I’m glad to see Dodge stepped up to the plate and took responsibility for their mistake. Because both nose pieces have the same part number, it was an easy mistake to do. Even though I work for a different cup team, I root for Robby because he is one of the last owner/driver single car teams out there. Red