NASCAR revealed Saturday that the entirety of Joey Logano’s left glove was webbed last weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway when he was penalized before the start of the Cup Series race.
The two-time champion from Team Penske was sent to the rear of the field and required to serve a pass-through penalty. Earlier this week, NASCAR also fined him $10,000.
It was a twofold penalty. NASCAR penalized Logano at the racetrack for a competition infraction by using the webbed glove to block air, while the fine was for a safety violation. The alteration to the glove modified an SFI-approved piece of safety equipment.
Brad Moran, NASCAR Cup Series managing director, showed the webbed glove to the media Saturday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Moran explained the violation was found during a review of in-car camera footage from Logano’s car, which was viewed in slow motion. NASCAR was not tipped off about the glove, but it was a random safety check as NASCAR reviews in-car footage to see a driver’s helmet height, headrest height and movement in the cockpit.
“We have our safety cameras inside all the Cup cars and we review them quite often during practice and qualifying, and we look for oddities,” Moran said. “All on driver input from last year — they want safety improved and cleaned up. We’ve done a lot of shop visits over the last two years. We look for head surrounds. We look for hoses going to the helmets. We look for everything in the car to make sure it’s safe and we don’t catch anything. A lot of the new drivers, we’ll review them as well to make sure they’re sitting in their seats properly.”
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Moran said Logano was included in “about five cars” randomly checked at Atlanta. However, NASCAR does not know if Logano was using the same glove at Daytona International Speedway the week before, where it would also be common for drivers to put their hands up against the window net or in the opening between the window net and A post to keep air from coming into the cockpit.
“An SFI piece of protective equipment cannot be modified in any way,” Moran said. “It’s as delivered; that’s how SFI approves it, and SFI does not approve any glove with any webbing, obviously for safety reasons. … So the reason for that is obviously you can block more air. The drivers do put their hand up against the opening, which we’ve never really had a rule against it, but this obviously goes one step further, and this becomes not only a competition problem, it becomes a safety violation because that glove is no longer SFI approved.
“Regardless of what the material is made of, regardless of who put it on there, it’s not as delivered, it’s not as tested, and it’s an unapproved piece of SFI safety equipment.”
Moran also showed the roof rails confiscated from the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 10 and No. 41 cars. Both pieces came from the right side of the vehicle. The roof rails are team pieces and not single-sourced supplied parts.
Stewart-Haas Racing was docked 35 driver and owner points to both teams. Moran explained it was only the Nos. 10 and 41 cars with the infraction. The other two Stewart-Haas Racing cars and the rest of the field were checked and found to be within compliance.
“They’re a team part that is designed to be built off a CAD file, so there’s really no gray (area),” Moran said. “They have to be built exactly to CAD. Unfortunately, we had the No. 41 and the No. 10…the right side – there are three per side; they sit in a groove on top of the greenhouse — they’re meant to sit flat. So the problem we had with these, and they were the exact same for both cars, you’ll see they have like a pressed mark. So that’s been pressed.
“That dent is not supposed to be there. These are supposed to be flat … and that’s not done from tightening any bolts or anything else. The head of the bolt is not that big.”
