by -
Hendrick Motorsports and Kaulig Racing are appealing the penalties, but Hendrick has asked the team principal for the four-week suspensions to begin this weekend in Atlanta.
-
Currently, Hendrick isn’t working with Kaulig on the feature, but he noted that there may be some communication in the future.
-
Hendrick Motorsports Vice President of Competition Chad Knaus said it was “very confusing right now” as they tried to determine what angle the appeal would take.
Hendrick Motorsports Vice President of Competition Chad Knaus called NASCAR’s penalties for violating a supplier part a “terrible situation” for the sport and denied on Friday that they incorporated anything learned into the Garage project. 56 on shutters confiscated by the sanctioning body.
Earlier this week, NASCAR suspended all four of Hendrick’s crew chiefs for four Cup races, assessing them with a fine of $100,000 each, a loss of 100 points for each driver and owner, and a playoff deduction of 10 points for each pilot. NASCAR handed the same penalty to the No. 31 Kaulig Racing team.
Hendrick and Kaulig are appealing the penalties, but Hendrick has asked for the crew chief’s suspension to begin this weekend in Atlanta. Kaulig requested that Crew Chief Trent Owens’ suspension be postponed until the appeal was heard. Hendrick’s replacement crew chiefs are Kevin Meendering for Kyle Larson, Tom Gray for Josh Berry, Brian Campe for William Byron and Greg Ives for Alex Bowman.
The feature date has not been set.
Currently, Hendrick isn’t working with Kaulig on the feature, but he noted that there may be some communication in the future.
Knaus said it was “very confusing right now” as they tried to determine what angle the appeal would take.
“I think it’s a terrible situation not just for us, but for the industry,” Knaus said. “It’s ugly. Each of these teams is being held accountable for putting their car out there to pass inspection and perform at the required level… but no one is holding single-source suppliers accountable at the level necessary to provide us with the parts we need. goes through NASCAR’s distribution center and NASCAR’s approval process to get those parts and we’re not getting the right parts.”
When Knaus was asked if he thought the team had been penalized for defective parts or for parts they had modified in a way they felt was acceptable to NASCAR, he replied, “We have a whole new set of these parts that we could use. take it off the shelf now that NASCAR has deemed it illegal, inappropriate for us to race.
“We have a CAD that was sent by the OEM and the OEM provides that CAD to NASCAR and it’s NASCAR’s responsibility to make sure the parts we receive fit that CAD,” Knaus said.
NASCAR Senior Vice President of Racing Elton Sawyer said the shades were modified. Knaus stopped short of agreeing with Sawyer, saying, “We made sure our car parts fit the hood and the hood closed and we did everything that needed to be done.”
Knaus doesn’t understand why penalties were applied for a voluntary inspection. He said the only mandatory inspection when they arrived at Phoenix Raceway for the 50-minute practice session was safety and the engine.
“Usually we choose to go ahead and put the car in for voluntary inspection so NASCAR has the opportunity to say, ‘Hey, we don’t like this or maybe you need to tune this or whatever,’” Knaus said. . “That has pretty much been the default cadence.”
Knaus admitted that had he known there was anything illegal about the blinds, he would have removed and burned them before NASCAR returned for them four hours after the car’s first inspection.
There was speculation that Hendrick incorporated something into the shutters that the team learned in their Garage 56 project, but Knaus said the shutters were not connected to the car being developed for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
“It’s a completely different package,” Knaus said. “It doesn’t even have the same cooling package, the same engine, none of that translates.”
