Team owner Rick Hendrick and #48 crew chief Chad Knaus will get to explain next Tuesday why they think NASCAR erred in penalizing Hendrick Motorsports for the C-posts on the Daytona 500 car of Jimmie Johnson. NASCAR confirmed that the appeal will be heard Tuesday morning at its Research & Development Center in Concord, N.C. A three-member panel will determine whether NASCAR officials were justified in suspending Knaus and car chief Ron Malec for six weeks as well as penalizing five-time Cup champion Johnson 25 points and fining Knaus $100,000. Both Hendrick and Knaus have said they believe templates should have been put on the car before it was confiscated Feb. 17 at Daytona International Speedway. While teams often aren ‘t successful on appeal, Hendrick has won one appeal of a suspension of Knaus in 2005. Knaus has been suspended three other times in his career.(Sporting News)(2-8-2012)
UPDATE: This is the scene of the National Stock Car Racing Commission. There are 45 members, but they rotate through for hearings. Two members and the chairman, who doesn ‘t vote, hear each case. They will be listening to the Hendrick Motorsports appeal of the hefty penalty given to Jimmie Johnson’s team for violations discovered last month during initial inspection for the Daytona 500. Team owner Rick Hendrick doesn ‘t believe the six-race suspensions that NASCAR handed to crew chief Chad Knaus and car chief Ron Malec ‘ as well as the 25-point penalty given to Johnson ‘ are fair. He ‘ll argue that the governing body confiscated the C-posts deemed illegal before they went through tech. He ‘ll argue that the same car with the same C-posts ‘ pillars that come down from the roof to the rear quarter panel ‘ passed NASCAR’s inspection 16 times previously. Odds are, he ‘ll lose.
Not necessarily because he doesn ‘t have a good case, but because the commission seldom overturns decisions. When Richard Childress Racing appealed Clint Bowyer’s 150-point penalty in the fall of 2010, the commission had upheld 88 of 132 decisions between the Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Truck Series, reduced 42 and increased two. Most of the reductions were in the lower series. The last time a Cup penalty was reduced was in 2008 with Robby Gordon’s team. The last time a Sprint Cup penalty was completely overturned came in 2005, when insufficient evidence was found that Michael Waltrip made an inappropriate gesture during a television broadcast.(ESPN)(3-13-2012)
