Hood Louvers – Syndication Server

Hendrick teams regain points lost to hood louver penalties

All four Hendrick Motorsports teams were given their points back Wednesday afternoon as the National Motorsports Appeals Panel amended the L2-level penalty handed out earlier this month. In the amendment, the teams were given back the 100 points and …

All four Hendrick Motorsports teams were given their points back Wednesday afternoon as the National Motorsports Appeals Panel amended the L2-level penalty handed out earlier this month.

In the amendment, the teams were given back the 100 points and 10 playoff points NASCAR had docked them for the modified hood louvers found at Phoenix Raceway. However, the panel agreed the organization violated the rules, and the four-race suspensions to each crew chief stand, as do the $100,000 fines for Cliff Daniels, Rudy Fugle, Alan Gustafson, and Blake Harris.

The panel consisted of Kelly Housby, Dixon Johnston and Bill Lester.

There are two race weekends left on their suspensions — Richmond Raceway and Bristol’s dirt race. All four crew chiefs began their suspension at Atlanta Motor Speedway on March 19, even as Hendrick Motorsports file an appeal of the penalty.

Daniels, Fugle, Gustafson, and Harris are eligible to run at Martinsville Speedway on April 16.

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NASCAR confiscated the louvers after Friday’s practice at Phoenix. Officials deemed the louvers had been modified outside the tolerances.

Hendrick Motorsports, however, said the team did what was necessary to make the louvers fit. Chad Knaus, the vice president of competition at Hendrick Motorsports, said teams are being held accountable with their cars but the same is not being done with the single-source suppliers who are not providing parts to the correct specification.

“We are grateful to the National Motorsports Appeals Panel for their time and attention,” said team owner Rick Hendrick. “Today’s outcome reflects the facts, and we’re pleased the panel did the right thing by overturning the points penalty. It validated our concerns regarding unclear communication and other issues we raised. We look forward to focusing on the rest of our season, beginning with this weekend’s race at Richmond.”

In a statement, NASCAR expressed disappointment with the panel’s decision to amend the penalties.

“We are pleased that the National Motorsports Appeals Panel agreed that Hendrick Motorsports violated the rule book. However, we are disappointed that the entirety of the penalty was not upheld,” the statement read. “A points penalty is a strong deterrent that is necessary to govern the garage following rule book violations, and we believe that it was an important part of the penalty in this case and moving forward. We will continue to inspect and officiate the NASCAR garage at the highest level of scrutiny to ensure a fair and level playing field for our fans and the entire garage.”

One year on, Keselowski understands NASCAR’s penalty predicaments

As the first driver hit with an L2 penalty for modifications made to a single-source supplied part on the Next Gen car, Brad Keselowski understands the situation NASCAR and Hendrick Motorsports are in this week. Keselowski, admittedly, is not …

Keselowski, admittedly, is not educated enough to speak to the specific issue with the Hendrick Motorsports louvers, not having seen the ones confiscated last weekend at Phoenix Raceway. NASCAR officials deemed they were modified and hit the team with 100-point deductions, playoff point deductions and fines.

A year ago, Keselowski’s No. 6 Ford was under scrutiny after the spring race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. His car was one of the random cars taken by NASCAR post-race for further evaluation at the R&D Center. It was found that a tail panel had been modified, which Keselowski later explained was a repair job that could have been better, forcing NASCAR’s hand when it came to issuing a penalty and showing the pieces were not to be touched.

“It was tough,” Keselowski said. “Immediate emotions are to be frustrated and angry, but I don’t feel that way today. In fact, when I saw NASCAR a couple of weeks ago, we had a car get inspected after Daytona, I made a comment to them. Honestly, I told them, ‘Thank you. It’s one of the best things to ever happen to us.’ We came out of it better. It was good for the industry.

“From our perspective, it changed our culture inside of the company to where we had better behaviors. I thought it set a tone for the industry — again, I can’t speak for Hendrick, but with our issues.”

He was forthcoming with information after the process played out with RFK Racing losing its appeal. Not only did Keselowski say he understood the penalty (and later in the year said NASCAR has been too lenient and can control the garage by issuing penalties like candy), but he found the appeals process to be fair and different from what he anticipated. The co-owner continued to share those same sentiments Saturday.

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“I think I made a few comments a month later about the importance of penalties in the garage. They serve a purpose,” Keselowski said. “I think it’s really easy, and I’ve fallen victim to this as well – to look at NASCAR as the boogieman. In a lot of ways, they’re trying to help us and trying to help the sport and make sure that it can be healthy. Whether or not NASCAR is right or Hendrick is right with their penalty, I don’t know to that specific situation, but as a whole, I do understand the inclination and the emotion behind the teams and maybe the fans getting fired up over a penalty.

“But in the end, penalties are there for a reason. They’re there to make this circus somewhat manageable and sustainable, so as to what ends up happening with Hendrick, I can’t speak to it again, not knowing enough, but from my perspective and kind of having lived it, I’m probably 180 from where I was a year ago on it, and I understand it at a high degree.”

Hendrick Motorsports is arguing the parts are not being provided to the teams to the specifications they should be. The organization also said there’s been a lot of dialogue between the teams, manufacturers and NASCAR, but it changes weekly on whether the parts can be cleaned up if they don’t fit properly.

Both a driver and owner, Keselowski acknowledges there are issues with the parts. It comes down to ensuring teams have cleared any work with NASCAR.

“Yeah, there’s always a part somewhere that’s not what you want it to be, and there’s a portal that NASCAR has to submit those parts to, and there’s usually some dialogue and communication around that,” Keselowski said. “Generally speaking, I feel like NASCAR has been amenable to work through those and has gotten significantly better over the last year.

“We have parts, here and there, that are issues, and NASCAR has come up and said, ‘Hey, you can do this,’ or, ‘You can’t do it.’ It’s really more or less about the communication with them.”

Knaus explains Hendrick position on hood louver dispute

Chad Knaus was adamant Friday at Atlanta Motor Speedway that teams are not being given single-sourced supplied parts with correct specifications and Hendrick Motorsports only made the modifications to the hood louvers that resulted in penalties for …

“We made sure our parts fit the hood, and the hood closed and did all the stuff that it needed to do,” said Knaus, Hendrick Motorsports’ vice president of competition (pictured at left, above, with team owner Rick Hendrick).

NASCAR confiscated the hood louvers from all four cars the Friday of Phoenix weekend. Although issues were found beforehand, all four teams were allowed to participate in practice before the louvers were taken.

The teams were penalized earlier this week. In addition to $100,000 fines to all four crew chiefs and suspensions, the Nos. 5, 24, and 48 teams were docked 100 driver points, and all four teams were docked 100 owner points. There was also the loss of 10 playoff points.

“When we started to get parts at the beginning of the 2023 season, we didn’t have the parts we thought we were going to have,” Knaus said. “Through a tremendous amount of back and forth with NASCAR and the OEM and the teams, there’s been conversations about whether we can clean up the parts, not clean up the parts and it’s changed, quite honestly, every couple of weeks. So, it’s been challenging for us to navigate, and we’re going to have to see what happens when we get through the appeal.”

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Hendrick Motorsports did not request a deferral of the suspensions, and all four crew chiefs are not at the track this weekend. Without an appeal date, no decision has been made on whether the organization will continue to have Cliff Daniels, Alan Gustafson, Rudy Fugle, and Blake Harris serve those suspensions going forward.

In a statement issued after the penalty, Hendrick Motorsports said the louvers were taken four hours after the inspection without prior communication.

“It’s really confusing,” said Knaus. “We knew that there was some attention to the area when we first went through technical inspection, and that’s what’s really disappointing to me, quite honestly. We had plenty of time to get those parts off the part if we felt like there was something wrong. I can assure you if we knew there was going to be a four-hour lag and we thought there was something wrong, they would have been in a trash can being burned with fuel somewhere where nobody would ever see them. We had no idea we’d been sitting in this position. So, once again, really disappointing we are in the position we’re in right now.”

NASCAR expects cars to be legal when they show up at the racetrack. However, Knaus said for a voluntary inspection, he doesn’t understand the severity of a penalty seen post-race, such as with RFK Racing and Front Row Motorsports last year.

“Again, from my perspective, I think it’s different,” Knaus said. “A voluntary inspection, I don’t understand why you’d be hung and quartered for a voluntary inspection that typically you’d be told, ‘Hey, you need to go work on that,’ or, ‘Hey, we need to discuss what’s going on here.’”

Elton Sawyer, NASCAR senior vice president of competition, said officials work with the teams to ensure parts and pieces fit correctly. However, Sawyer said the louvers from Hendrick Motorsports were modified beyond that level.

Even with all the back and forth, the Hendrick Motorsports statement said there had been inconsistent and unclear communication from NASCAR.

“We submitted a part through the OEM to NASCAR and NASCAR chose a single-source provider for those components,” Knaus said. “The components haven’t been coming the way we expected them to be for a couple of the OEMs, as far as I know, in the garage, and definitely all of the Chevrolet teams.

“We started to have a dialogue with them in early February about those problems. So, it was us through our aerodynamic departments, through our OEM, back through NASCAR, back to us and back through our OEMs. So, there is a significant amount of communication that’s been had and it’s definitely confusing. The timelines are curious, but they’re there.”

Asked if he thought the parts were faulty or if they modified the parts to be acceptable by NASCAR’s standards, Knaus said, “I can tell you this, we’ve got a brand-new set of these parts that we can go pull off the shelf right now that NASCAR deemed illegal and inappropriate to race.”

Knaus denied Hendrick Motorsports learned something from the Garage 56 program to apply to its Cup Series cars. With a different engine and cooling package, Knaus said nothing translates.

Alex Bowman dropped from the point lead to 23rd in the standings with negative playoff 10 playoff points. William Byron dropped to 29th and has three playoff points, losing the 10 from his Las Vegas and Phoenix Raceway wins. Kyle Larson is 32nd in the standings with negative nine playoff points.

Knaus said every part of the penalty is harsh.

“I think it’s a terrible situation not only for us but the industry, to be quite honest with you. I think that’s what I dislike the most. It’s ugly. We shouldn’t be in this situation and it’s really unfortunate we are because it doesn’t help anybody.

“We as a company and we in the garage, every one of these teams here are being held accountable to put their car out there to go through inspection and perform at the level they need to. The teams are being held accountable for doing that. Nobody is holding the single-source suppliers accountable at the level they need to be to give us the parts that we need. Now that goes through NASCAR’s distribution center and NASCAR’s approval process to get those parts, and we’re not getting the right parts.”

Hendrick to appeal hood louver penalties

Hendrick Motorsports issued a statement Wednesday expressing disappointment over the penalties handed down to its four NASCAR Cup Series teams and announcing its intention to appeal them. “On Friday at Phoenix Raceway, NASCAR identified louvers on …

Hendrick Motorsports issued a statement Wednesday expressing disappointment over the penalties handed down to its four NASCAR Cup Series teams and announcing its intention to appeal them.

“On Friday at Phoenix Raceway, NASCAR identified louvers on our race cars during a voluntary inspection 35 minutes after the opening of the garage and prior to on-track activity,” the statement began. “NASCAR took possession of the parts approximately four hours later with no prior communication. The situation had no bearing on Saturday’s qualifying session or Sunday’s race.”

Kyle Larson won the pole at Phoenix Raceway and led a race-high 201 laps. William Byron won the race, his second victory in as many weeks. Hendrick Motorsports drivers combined to lead 265 of 317 laps at Phoenix.

Hendrick Motorsports said they would appeal the L2-level penalty based on facts that include:

• Louvers provided to teams through NASCAR’s mandated single-source supplier do not match the design submitted by the manufacturer and approved by NASCAR

• Documented inconsistent and unclear communication by the sanctioning body specifically related to louvers

• Recent comparable penalties issued by NASCAR have been related to issues discovered during a post-race inspection

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Despite the appeal, Hendrick Motorsports officials have not asked for a deferral of the four-race suspensions of its four crew chiefs. Those will begin this weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

NASCAR officials fined Hendrick Motorsports a total of $400,000 (a $100,000 fine to each crew chief) for the confiscated louvers from its cars. All four teams were docked 100 points and 10 playoff points, and three of its drivers (excluding the injured Chase Elliott) were docked 100 driver points.

Hendrick team fined record amount for hood louver infractions

Hendrick Motorsports has been hit with the largest fine in NASCAR history as its four teams have been penalized for the confiscated hood louvers at Phoenix Raceway. NASCAR officials found the louvers, a single-source supplied part of the Next Gen …

Hendrick Motorsports has been hit with the largest fine in NASCAR history as its four teams have been penalized for the confiscated hood louvers at Phoenix Raceway.

NASCAR officials found the louvers, a single-source supplied part of the Next Gen car, were modified. The louvers were confiscated at the track and evaluated further this week at the NASCAR R&D Center.

Three of the four teams and drivers have been docked 100 points and 10 playoff points. The No. 9 team was docked playoff points and 100 team points but not docked driver points because Chase Elliott is sidelined with an injury, and Josh Berry is not eligible for Cup Series points.

Additionally, all four Hendrick Motorsports crew chiefs have been fined $100,000. Cliff Daniels of Kyle Larson’s No. 5 team, Alan Gustafson of the No. 9 team, Rudy Fugle of William Byron’s No. 24 team, and Blake Harris of Alex Bowman’s No. 48 team have also been suspended for the next four races.

The $400,000 fine total makes it the largest team total in NASCAR history. It surpasses the $300,000 fine issued to Michael Waltrip Racing in 2013 for race manipulation at Richmond Raceway.

“From time to time, we’ll capture parts and bring them back, and as we continued to investigate and look at parts, compare parts, it was obvious to us these parts had been modified in areas that weren’t approved,” NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer said. “This is a consistent penalty with what we went through last year with other competitors.

“We felt like to keep the garage on a level playing field, the competition level where it needs to be, all the dialogue that went around this car last year working with the owners on what the deterrent model should be, we were put in a position that we felt there was no other way but to write a penalty.”

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Hendrick Motorsports had the louvers taken from their four cars after practice at Phoenix Raceway.

Kaulig Racing was issued the same penalty for the No. 31 team of Justin Haley. The hood louvers from the No. 31 Chevrolet were taken Saturday.

Haley has been docked 100 driver points and the No. 31 docked 100 team points and 10 playoff points. Haley’s crew chief Trent Owens has been suspended for the next four races.

All the penalties are appealable. In a statement, Hendrick Motorsports indicated it would appeal its penalties

Sawyer did not detail what areas were modified. However, he did admit there are approved areas teams and NASCAR work together to ensure pieces fit correctly, but this incident “rose to the level” beyond that.

“We don’t normally get into intent, but I think it’s fair to say there could be performance (advantages) around these modifications,” said Sawyer. “But let’s also give credit where it’s due — they also went out and had an outstanding race on Sunday and performed at a high level without those modifications.”

Byron won the race at Phoenix while Hendrick Motorsports drivers combined for 265 laps led.

Also on the post-Phoenix penalty report was a two-race suspension for crew members of Aric Almirola’s team. Almirola lost a wheel from his Stewart-Haas Racing Ford Mustang during the event and will be without crew members Ryan Mulder and Sean Cotton at Atlanta Motor Speedway and Circuit of The Americas.