Penalties served by NASCAR are something that creates a moment of equilibrium among all the parties partaking in the sport. It is a necessary factor to make sure that everyone stays in line. However, there have been times when inconsistencies have crept up in dishing out penalties for violating the playbook. But this season it seems that NASCAR is hellbent on making sure that the playing field remains equal for everyone.
Advertisement
At the onset of the season, Hendrick Motorsports and Kaulig Racing bore the brunt of NASCAR’s stringent penalties and fines for employing illegal parts. However, NASCAR has recently issued what could be one of its harshest penalties in a long time. This time, the team finding itself amidst this whirlwind of controversy is Tony Stewart’s Cup Series team, Stewart Haas Racing.
Talking about how NASCAR has been going about with the penalties, Denny Hamlin recently spoke about how this was a good thing. He further mentioned how NASCAR’s consistency might actually help the sport in the long run, especially when it comes to maintaining the sport’s integrity.
Denny Hamlin praises NASCAR’s decision to send cars for inspection
While speaking on his own podcast, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver spoke about how sending cars to the R&D center was a positive thing for the integrity of the sport. He also elaborated on how “thorough” NASCAR is with the inspections of the Cup cars.
Hamlin stated, “I think someone probably knew. It’s hard to speculate because you’re not in that building. But somebody was sweating bullets for that car getting taken to R&D. They’re just like, ‘Oh boy.’ Because they take apart I mean our 45 car when they took it… They took a picture of it and it’s just a bunch of parts laying on the garage floor.”
“It’s like, they go through everything. It is very thorough investigation, but it’s what we need in our sport. NASCAR needs to continue doing this for sure because it helps. It really helps the integrity of our sport stay true to what it’s supposed to be,” Hamlin continued. “They did say at the beginning of the year that every car will go to the R&D Center at some point. Now, I think that if you have cars that are dominant, maybe they need to go multiple times. Make sure you get everyone at least once.”
“But then you don’t want to have, let’s just say the #11 team. Well, we’ve already gone through there. So now we can start to push it like because we’re not going to go back. Like you’ve always got to have a chance that you’re going to go back there that would keep all of us in line for sure.”
Tony Stewart’s racing team slapped with the harshest penalty by NASCAR
Following the race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Chase Briscoe’s number 14 team was found to have been using counterfeit parts in their cars. If the previous slew of punishments handed out to other teams were not harsh enough, this one knocked the ball out of the park.
As per NASCAR’s Senior Vice President of Competition, Elton Sawyer, “In the post-race inspection here at the R&D Center we found the No. 14 car to have an engine panel NACA duct not to compliance within the rulebook. It’s a counterfeit part and that is an L3 penalty that was have assessed to the team.”
This level-L3 violation requires the team to face significant repercussions.
Moreover, both the owner and driver of the team have been hit with a penalty of 120 points each along with the #14 team getting slapped with a substantial fine of $250,000.
Of course, the severity of the penalty is undoubtedly harsh for the team, but it serves as a potent deterrent set by NASCAR. But hopefully, this decisive action will encourage other teams to tread carefully whenever they feel tempted to experiment with unauthorized components.
