In writing this week's feature for our new historical section I learned about how Tim Flock won a race on the beach and road course in Daytona Beach in 1954 but was stripped of the win when he was disqualified for an illegal carburetor.

Unlike NASCAR's era now, back in the early days drivers were actually disqualified from the race for various infractions, typically cheating but also for other reasons.

Besides Flock's incident, I found out about quite a few others that resulted in drivers being stripped of their finishes.

In 1949, Glenn Dunnaway won a "Strictly Stock" race but was disqualified when he was found to have "moonshiner springs" on the rear of his car.

The last time a race winner's victory was taken away because of cheating was the 1955 Daytona Beach road course win of Fireball Roberts. His car was found to have an illegal modification in its pushrods. In an odd twist of fate, Tim Flock was awarded that victory.

Another incident I learned about happened in 1960 when NASCAR disqualified six drivers in the first 600-mile race at Lowe's Motor Speedway, including Lee Petty, Richard Petty and Junior Johnson for spinning into the infield during the race. The drivers were explicitly warned prior to the race not to go in the infield.

It seems that back in the day, Bill France wasn't timid about showing the drivers he meant business with the rules. He had a rule early in the start of the sport where drivers couldn't compete in non-NASCAR sanctioned events. When Red Byron and Lee Petty competed in non-sanctioned events in 1950, they were both stripped of all of their championship points that year.

Byron challenged it a second year and lost all his points again in 1951.

He also placed lifetime bans on three drivers in 1961 for organizing with the Teamsters Union, with Flock being one and Curtis Turner and Fireball Roberts the other two.

My how times have changed. Jimmie Johnson's team gets caught cheating after his win in the Daytona 500 and he still shows for the rest of time as the winner of that race. His points penalty didn't even affect him much as he went on to win the championship that year.

Sure NASCAR's now increased its penalties to include more points, but Carl Edwards sure hasn't suffered too much from his penalty.

I guess maybe it's because drivers are not the ones actually doing the cheating: they didn't build or outfit the car. But neither did Fireball Roberts in that 1955 race. The engine builder made the modification, but the message was sure delivered more effectively when the driver was stripped of his win.

But drivers do create their own incidents and walk away unscathed in the DQ category. An example I can think of is bump drafting at Daytona. Like the drivers were warned not to go in the infield prior to that 1960 World 600, drivers have been repeatedly warned not to bump draft in the corners at Daytona. It then happens during the race and nothing comes of it, save for another warning prior to the next race.

NASCAR should take a cue from the past and bring back the penalties that will matter.