NASCAR penalizes Kevin Harvick 100 points for modifications to car found after Talladega

NASCAR announced Wednesday that Kevin Harvick experienced been penalized 100 details and his crew main Rodney Childers would be suspended for four of the five remaining races of the year simply because of unlawful car or truck modifications at Talladega.

Harvick’s motor vehicle was a single of the two automobiles from Sunday’s race taken back to NASCAR’s R&D heart for more inspection. NASCAR, as usual, did not supply details relating to Harvick’s penalty and the penalty report only referred to the infraction as violating parts of part 14.1 and 14.5 of the rule e book.

People elements of the rule e-book relate to the modification of single-source pieces on the vehicles such as an entry that claims “except in cases explicitly permitted in the NASCAR regulations, installation of added parts and/or modifications of current areas to impact the aerodynamic properties of the car or truck will not be permitted.”

Harvick was eliminated from the playoffs in the to start with spherical and this penalty will go a extended way to guaranteeing that he finishes 16th between the 16 playoff motorists. Harvick was in 16th and 18 factors out of 15th in advance of the penalty. Now he’ll be 118 points back of Kyle Busch in 15th if the team does not efficiently enchantment the penalty.

Childers was also fined $100,000 for the violation.

Harvick made a cryptic tweet in the minutes in advance of the violation was announced. The veteran driver has gotten again on the social media platform in current months and has made use of his voice to chime in on myriad NASCAR matters such as the Cup Sequence schedule and the security of NASCAR’s new cars.

Childers also feigned surprise at the penalty.

Penalties for modifications to the 2022 Cup Collection vehicle are considerable for the reason that of the various single-resource parts made use of. Teams are essentially developing kit autos from the exact same parts and items as an alternative of building vehicles from sections they designed in-household. Brad Keselowski became the initially driver to get penalized for illegal pieces modifications early in the time and was also docked 100 details for the way his team illegally modified pieces on his damaged automobile at Atlanta.

Tale continues

A 100-stage penalty is 40 additional than the highest total of points a driver can earn in a solitary race. Harvick scored two wins more than the summer to make the 16-driver playoffs but was rapidly eradicated following finishes of 33rd and 36th in the first two races of the postseason. Harvick finished 33rd in the playoff opener mainly because his auto randomly caught fire as he was racing on track. He was compelled to pull around to the within of the track and park his vehicle as the fireplace came through his dashboard and after the race blamed NASCAR’s “crappy-ass parts” for the trouble.

Wednesday afternoon, NASCAR president Steve Phelps advised the Associated Push it was “absurd” to think that Harvick’s vehicle had been taken back again to the R&D centre and inspected and penalized for his new criticism of NASCAR.