P5 penalty was upheld on Thursday, although point penalty and fines reduced
RELATED: P5 penalty upheld against No. 31 team
BRISTOL, Tenn. — According to NASCAR officials, Richard Childress Racing has filed the necessary paperwork requesting an appeal to the National Motorsports Final Appeals Officer regarding the penalty assessed to the No. 31 team with driver Ryan Newman.
David Higdon, NASCAR’s Vice President of Integrated Marketing Communications tweeted the news right at 6 p.m. ET.
RCR has appealed #31 team P5 penalty to Final Appeals Officer (Bryan Moss). Administrator has granted deferral of suspensions, fines #NASCAR
— David Higdon (@HigNASCAR) April 17, 2015
The date and time of the hearing are to be determined.
National Motorsports Final Appeals Officer Bryan Moss will hear the case.
Following an audit of tires taken after the Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway earlier this year, NASCAR penalized the No. 31 team for illegally altering the air pressures of its tires.
Tires were also taken from other teams at Auto Club, and some — NASCAR has not specified which ones — were sent to an outside group for examination.
The infraction, a P5 level penalty, resulted in the loss of 75 driver and owner points for Newman and team owner Richard Childress. Crew chief Luke Lambert was fined $125,000 and suspended for the next six points races; team engineer Philip Surgen and tire technician James Bender were also suspended for the next six points races. Lambert, Surgen and Bender were also placed on probation through Dec. 31.
On Thursday, the National Motorsports Appeals Panel heard the initial appeal by the Sprint Cup Series organization. While the panel ruled that the infraction was a P5 level violation, the points deduction and amount of the fine were reduced.
After hearing nearly seven hours of testimony at the NASCAR Research & Development Center in Concord, North Carolina, the panel reduced the points penalties from 75 to 50 for both Newman and Childress and reduced Lambert’s fine from $125,000 to $75,000.
The points change moved Newman from 24th to 20th in the current Sprint Cup Series points standings.
The adjustments to the initials penalties were made, according to the panel, “because there is no written explanation of what constitutes a post-race inspection.”
NASCAR conducts extensive post-race inspection following races at the track, then normally will take up to three entries, the race winner and two others, back to the R&D center for further evaluation.
Veteran crew chief Todd Parrott was named interim crew chief for the team in Lambert’s absence, and was at Bristol Motor Speedway for Friday’s practice. But Lambert was reportedly performing crew chief duties during Saturday’s opening practice session.
“I’m very familiar with what is going on here (at RCR),” Parrott said Friday at BMS. “… I have a lot of years in the Cup garage. Hopefully, it shows the depth of RCR, while Luke is going through his deal here with the suspension and stuff. We have a great bunch of guys — the engineers, tire guy and everybody that is filling in for the guys back at home. So we just go out and do our job and make the best of it.”
As was the case after the initial penalties were announced and RCR officials stated they would appeal, the suspensions, the deferral of suspensions and fines has been granted until the final appeal is heard, meaning the suspended parties can resume their at-track duties.
Thursday’s panel consisted of John Capels, former president and chairman of the board for the U.S. Auto Club; Hunter Nickell, former president of the SPEED Channel; and Dale Pinilis, longtime operator of historic Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, N.C.
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