NASCAR Hands Down Punishments Following Cup Series Event

By ESPN

NASCAR docked Brad Keselowski 35 points and suspended crew chief Paul Wolfe for three races and docked Kevin Harvick 10 points and suspended crew chief Rodney Childers for one race for rules violations found in inspections following the Cup series event Sunday at Phoenix Raceway.

Keselowski's fifth-place car failed postrace inspection Sunday as it had a rear steer of more than 0.56 degrees of skew. Cars start the race with no rear skew, and teams are given a tolerance for wear and tear on the car during a race. Harvick's sixth-place car had an unapproved track bar slider assembly, a violation found in inspection Wednesday at NASCAR's research and development center, where it analyzes the top-two finishers and a random car. Harvick's Stewart-Haas Racing Ford was the random car.

Wolfe, who will be replaced by engineer Brian Wilson this weekend at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California, was also fined $65,000. Childers, whose replacement wasn't immediately announced, was fined $25,000.

Teams can appeal the penalties and ask for the suspensions to be deferred.

"The race cars returned to the race shop today and we are in the process of evaluating the area in question," Team Penske said in a statement, indicating it had not decided whether to appeal the ruling against Keselowski's No. 2 Ford.

The exact penalty for Keseowski is specified in the rulebook, meaning that NASCAR had virtually no other penalty option in announcing its decision Wednesday. This is the first suspension and points penalty since NASCAR revised its rear suspension rules in September that eliminated lower tolerance levels and the points penalties accompanying them.

The penalty dropped Keselowski from second to fourth in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup standings. Keselowski already has won a race in 2017 to virtually secure a spot in NASCAR's playoffs, but regular-season points have increased significance this year, as the top 10 in the final regular-season standings earn "playoff points" that drivers carry with them throughout the first three playoff rounds. The regular-season champion gets 15 playoff points, second gets 10 and the rest earn points on a 8-1 scale, with eight points for third place and one for 10th place.

If Keselowski finishes in a tie at the end of the regular season, he can't use the fifth-place finish as part of NASCAR's best-finish tiebreaker.

The same is true for Harvick's sixth-place finish. Harvick has not won this year, and the points penalty dropped him from seventh to eighth in points. NASCAR gave Harvick the lowest of its options for what is considered an "L1" penalty on its L1-L2 scale. Its options were 10 to 40 points, a suspension of one to three races and a fine of $25,000 to $75,000.

NASCAR did not fine Austin Dillon, who used his car to pinch Cole Custer into the wall under caution at Phoenix during the Xfinity race. NASCAR had parked Dillon for the remainder of the race, although Dillon's car was already too damaged to continue.

In other penalty news, JTG Daugherty Racing lost its appeal to a three-member panel on a penalty issued following the Atlanta race earlier this month. The panel upheld the penalty for AJ Allmendinger's car having three or more lug nuts loose or missing after the race. Allmendinger lost 35 points and his crew chief, Randall Burnett, was suspended for three weeks (he already has served two weeks) and fined $65,000.