NASCAR has arrived at Atlanta Motor Speedway for the second weekend of the 2024 season, and one notable team could be in trouble. On Friday night, NASCAR revealed that it had confiscated roof rail deflectors from [autotag]Stewart-Haas Racing[/autotag] drivers [autotag]Noah Gragson[/autotag] and [autotag]Ryan Preece[/autotag]. The roof rail deflectors are a team-supplied part, so a single-source part penalty is not expected.
This is not the first time that NASCAR has dinged Stewart-Haas Racing. In 2022, Kevin Harvick and the No. 4 team were penalized for modifying a single-source part. In 2023, Chase Briscoe and the No. 14 team were handed the biggest penalty in NASCAR history after Stewart-Haas Racing was found to be using counterfeit NextGen parts.
Stewart-Haas Racing has been heavily penalized in every season with the NextGen car.
NASCAR hasn’t even completed 2 official race weekends in ‘24 and Stewart-Haas Racing has 2 cars with confiscated parts.
Noah Gragson/Ryan Preece have confiscated roof rail deflectors.
— Austin Konenski (@AustinKonenski) February 24, 2024
No penalties have been handed out; however, Stewart-Haas Racing should know more details when the penalty report is released on Tuesday or Wednesday next week. This is a disappointing development to start the season after Gragson earned a top-10 finish in the Daytona 500. Stewart-Haas Racing hopes the penalty will be nonexistent or too big after Atlanta.
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