Team had been hit with P5 penalty for Auto Club infraction
When the penalties assessed to the Richard Childress Racing No. 31 team were left unchanged in severity but diminished only slightly in cost after an initial appeal, crew chief Luke Lambert made a statement that clocked in at a tidy 100 words — 102, if you were to count the “thank you” at the end.
One word kept coming up — “facts.” Lambert said it four times.
Whether or not the repetition was a gesture of special emphasis or an unintentional echo, Lambert and his RCR crew will have their last chance to prove their case Wednesday in the final appeal of P5 penalties against the No. 31 Chevrolet team and driver Ryan Newman. The team’s last attempt to have the punishment either reduced or rescinded will be heard at the NASCAR R&D Center in Concord, North Carolina by National Motorsports Final Appeals Officer Bryan Moss.
Richard Childress Racing was first assessed the P5 penalties — the second-harshest in NASCAR’s deterrence system — on March 31, nine days after the Sprint Cup Series’ race at Auto Club Speedway in California. During the race, NASCAR officials confiscated tires from the No. 31 organization, later subjecting them to an off-site tire audit. The move came after weeks of swirling suspicion about teams illegally altering or “bleeding” tires to better regulate air pressures over the course of a green-flag run.
NASCAR handed down a six-race suspension and probation to Lambert and two RCR crew members, a $125,000 fine, and a deduction of 75 championship points in both the driver and team owner standings. The punishment hit the upper reaches of the NASCAR Rule Book’s deterrence scale because the infraction fell under one of three so-called “no man’s land” technical areas — tires, engine and fuel.
Childress appealed the decision to the three-member National Motorsports Appeals Panel on April 16, rolling in tires and lugging thick binders and placards into the R&D Center as supporting evidence. After a hearing that lasted several hours, the panel opted to lessen the fine to $75,000 and cut the deduction in the standings to 50 points. The ruling, however, kept the penalty’s severity at a P5 grade, leaving the six-race suspensions and probation through Dec. 31 intact for all three RCR personnel.
WATCH: Luke Lambert responds to appeal decision
The Childress operation indicated the next day that it would seek a final appeal, deferring Lambert’s suspension and keeping him atop the pit box.
The final appeal will be the second one heard by Moss, the former president of Gulfstream Aerospace who accepted the role in NASCAR’s appeals process last season. In February, Moss heard the final appeal of a behavioral penalty assessed to Kurt Busch and ultimately decided to uphold NASCAR’s ruling.
Unlike the No. 31 team’s previous appeal, the burden of proof now shifts to Richard Childress Racing‘s responsibility. In the earlier hearing, the burden of proof rested on NASCAR’s shoulders.
If Childress’ appeal is successful and the team’s points are restored, Newman — who has four top-five finishes in 10 races this year — would rise in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver standings from 14th place to fifth. Such a move would slot Newman below fourth-place Joey Logano, the Daytona 500 winner, and would bump Dale Earnhardt Jr., last weekend’s winner at Talladega Superspeedway, down to sixth.