For the third time this year, the race winner has been disqualified after failing postrace technical inspection at Easley, South Carolina’s Greenville-Pickens Speedway. This time, it was Trey Gibson, who was caught in a net of disqualifications in the first race of the season.
Gibson, who is the nephew of former track champion Randy Porter, was disqualified for an “unapproved modification of a crate engine lifter” which is in violation of NASCAR 2015 Rulebook Section 20F-4.1 which states, according to a track press release, “The GM #88958604 or #19318604 crate-type engine will be permitted and must be used as supplied by the manufacturer and/or per the specifications manual provided by the manufacturer”.
Porter and Gibson both confirmed that the lifter was the reason for the disqualification. Gibson was driving the same car and engine Porter with raced last year when he was chasing Anthony Anders, who is now the promoter at Greenville-Pickens Speedway, on the track. Porter said his engine builder, who he would not name, made the modification to the engine last year after breaking two engines.
“We didn’t know it was wrong,” Porter said. “You get a motor and put it in the car and it’s supposed to be cool. The lifter was a stock GM lifter. Up in the very end of the lifter, there’s a ball and a spring and, what had been done is, the ball and spring were swapped. It was cup, ball and spring; it’s supposed to be cup and the ball sitting on the end of the spring. Those two pieces were swapped in order and it changed the way the lifter performs.”
Porter explained that the parts in the lifter were swapped so the engine could hold up when turning high RPM.
“To elaborate on that, I called the motor guys and he said that, last year, when we were chasing Anthony Anders every week and we broke motors trying to turn enough RPMs to keep up with Anthony,” Porter remarked. “He said he did that so we wouldn’t break the motors. By doing what he did, it takes the chatter out of the valve train up top. He said it wasn’t a horsepower gain at all, just kept the motor from breaking at those high RPMs. I explained this to Anthony and he said we had to do something to keep up with him.”
Gibson, who evidently had no knowledge of the unapproved modification, said that it, along with his week one disqualification, have become insurmountable setbacks in his quest to win the championship at Greenville-Pickens Speedway and the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series (NWAAS) South Carolina State Championship.
“It’s set us way back,” Gibson told RACE22.com. “After the disqualification the first week, we still had a fighting chance, went back last week and won and then went back this week and won and it’s definitely a setback for all the points in general. This is a setback for Greenville and the state points. We’ll fix it, win races and see where we’re at come the end of the year. We’re not points racing, just trying to win races now.”
Porter said Gibson had no knowledge in this instance and that the disqualification on the shocks in the March 7th season opener was weather-related and that Anders re-tested the shocks a few days after the race and they rebounded 2.5 seconds to the good. Gibson joined Kenneth Headen and Dalton Sargeant at Greenville and Hickory Motor Speedway competitor RD Smith in being disqualified that night for shocks not rebounding within 90 seconds.
“Trey had no knowledge, I had no knowledge, all I know is the motor guy said he fixed the problem,” Porter explained. “He fixed the problem and rolled into this year, never thought more about it, unfortunately Trey’s caught the brunt of this thing so we’ll put another set of stock lifters in it and we’re not chasing Anthony so we should be in good shape this year.
“Because this looks really bad on Trey when he just stepped in and started driving, the first week Pulliam and us and Kenneth Headen, we all got disqualified on shocks. So, here we are three races into the year and got disqualified twice. Anthony will tell you this too, the first weekend, the shock deal was kind of a screw up with the temperature they were trying to check them out. I met them on Tuesday and they handed my shock back to me and we asked them to stick it on the gage and it checked two seconds to the good that Tuesday the following week. We should have only been thrown out one race and it’s now two or three. The lifter was a legitimate problem, the first one was not.”
Despite the dejection over the two disqualifications, Gibson says he will continue to race at Greenville as well as at Anderson Motor Speedway.
Gibson’s disqualification allowed David Roberts to inherit the victory. Roberts’ win was his first of the 2015 season.
Greenville-Pickens Speedway track promoter Anthony Anders confirmed that the shocks, from the first week, were re-tested but said that the rule states the shocks must pass inspection at any time, regardless of weather conditions.
“I did give shocks back to everybody that had them,” Anders said. “This is pretty much how it is. The shocks are supposed to tech at any given time therefore it doesn’t make any different when and how. They’re supposed to pass at any given time, period.”
Anders also spoke about the lift in the engine of the car driven by Gibson, saying that the modifications were made to turn a hydraulic lift into a solid lift to give the car more RPMS.
“It’s just wrong,” Anders said. You go from a hydraulic lift to a solid lift … it’s a big advantage and anybody who knows racing knows 200-300 RPM is a lot to produce on a crate motor. They’re built to run 6800 RPM and they run 7200 RPM and that’s why they did that, to put more gear to the car and run harder off the corner. The rulebook states that. It’s a hydraulic lifter, not a solid lifter and that’s how they created it to be a solid lifter and they knew it was there the entire time and it was that simple.”
Anders said that he wants the racing at Greenville to be fair and stated that there have been multiple things wrong with the car driven by Gibson this season.
“I want to make these races fair all around,” Anders explained. “We threw out three people this weekend, two in other divisions. We told them we would be looking every week and this was an easy item to look at. This was an easy look thing. These guys know and I told them in the driver’s meeting we would look and get them within reason. The first race, their trailing-arms were wrong and shocks were wrong. There are multiple things wrong with this car Randy raced. I treated them all the same. I’m sorry their car is the only one that didn’t pass. We set our rules before race day. I have a good tech shed and a good staff. They’re on top of it and are very professional about it.”
