Suspended crew chief David Hyder has returned to work at Michael Waltrip Racing. Hyder was put on an extended leave of absence at MWR when NASCAR suspended him indefinitely after an illegal substance was found in Michael Waltrip’s engine during a post-qualifying inspection for the Daytona 500. He was asked last week to return to the shop, but he can’t return to the track until NASCAR lifts its suspension. There is no indication that will happen this season, and officials indicated it could be a matter of years.

“We’re trying to figure out how to utilize his talent and experience without him being a traveling crew chief until we get all the answers we’re looking for,” MWR general manager Ty Norris said Friday at Las Vegas Speedway. “The real world lives in ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ We have no more proof of his innocence and no more proof of his guilt. He is standing strong to his initial statements that he was not involved.”

Sources said after the Daytona incident that Hyder would be fired, but because there is no tangible proof he put the substance in the fuel system there are legal implications preventing that. NASCAR series director John Darby said during the recent “Car of Tomorrow” test at Bristol there are no plans to reinstate Hyder or MWR competition director Bobby Kennedy until somebody steps forward to admit guilt. Norris doesn’t expect that to happen.

“This isn’t going to be a Perry Mason moment,” he said. “Someone is not just going to break down on the stand because the show is about the end and say, ‘Hey, I did it.’ “We know we’re not going to have that moment. The only thing we can do is plead to get our hands on something substantive to investigate.”

Norris said pleas for NASCAR to hand over some of the evidence to help in MWR’s in-house investigation have fallen on deaf ears. NASCAR has had Waltrip’s car since the substance was discovered. “It’s more important to us to get closure to this than it is to them,” Norris said. “We can’t have closure if we don’t know what we’re looking for.”

ESPN.com