At Least He Didn't Say "Shit" (or the Portugese Equivalent)

Many folks have been up in arms about NASCAR's docking Dale Earnhart, Jr. 25 points for dropping the "S-bomb" in a post-race interview. The theory goes like this: while Dale should have chosen his words more carefully, his linguistic slip-up had no effect on the race and, therefore, he shouldn't lose points. For some reason, the IRL has decided to take the opposite approach. Penske driver Helio Castro-Neves won the last race of the year this Sunday in Texas after jumping the final restart, which took place with two laps to go. Authorities have determined that Helio jumped the start - cheated, in other words. Surely this breach of the rules which had a great effect on the outcome (pretty much decided the race) would call for a change in the results, right? Wrong. IRL officials will let Helio keep his victory, but fined him $50k and 15 points (which didn't have any effect in the standings anyway).

How exactly is that just? I understand not wanting the crowd (such as it is at an IRL race) to go home thinking one driver won only to find out later that the second place guy actually won. That hardly justifies letting a driver get an unfair advantage at a critical juncture during a race and letting it slide. It's particularly hard to swallow given the IRL's willingness to second-guess what happened on the track when a CART driver might have won the Indy 500. Why am I not shocked?