By Brit Fryer

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The way Jeff Gordon sees it, suspended crew chiefs working from outside the track is nothing more than a loophole in the NASCAR rulebook. NASCAR said differently Friday, and the practice is no longer allowed.
“They can’t be at the event,” NASCAR spokesman Jim Hunter said. “We want to change the perception that they’re circumventing the penalty.”
NASCAR Chairman Brian France said last week the issue underminds the integrity of the sport, because during the July 1 Nextel Cup race, Dale Earnhardt, Jr.’s crew chief, Tony Eury, Jr., communicated with the No. 8 team from atop a motorcoach parked outside New Hampshire Int’l Speedway while he completed a six-race suspension.
Two suspended Hendrick crew chiefs, Steve Letarte (Gordon) and Chad Knaus (Jimmie Johnson), were on site as well. They are serving six-race suspensions for violations found during initial inspection June 22 at Infineon Raceway.
“We stuck to exactly what they told us we could do,” Gordon said Thursday.
“That’s why our crew chiefs were at New Hampshire. We didn’t do anything we were told not to do.
“With the communication we have these days, we are going to talk to them. They’re not going to be on the box calling the race, and that’s taken away from our whole race weekend.
“They’re serving the penalty, and just because we’re able to be in some type of communication with them doesn’t mean we aren’t suffering from the loss of not having them.”
NASCAR’s previous policy essentially robbed a crew chief of time in the garage and on pit road. Neither Letarte nor Knaus were in Daytona.
“We’ll do whatever we’re instructed to do,” Johnson said, “but we’d be foolish to not try to maximize and go right to the edge of the rules just like we do with the race car. We’ll do everything we can and everything we’re allowed to do.”
France didn’t rule out suspending drivers to get NASCAR’s point across.
“We’d like to make the deterrent, a portion of the penalty, significant enough that that isn’t necessary for us to do that,” France said. “But are we willing to go there? Of course we would. We have in the past and we will in the future. We’re not hoping to do that. That’s sort of a death penalty.”