Team Penske failed Tuesday in its final appeal of penalties issued to Brad Keselowski and his team for having too much skew in the rear suspension following the March 19 race at Phoenix International Raceway. Keselowski, who finished fifth in that race, was docked 35 points while his crew chief Paul Wolfe received a three-race suspension and a $65,000 fine. Wolfe has already served two races of his suspension, and he will miss the race this weekend at Kansas Speedway.
NASCAR final appeals officer Bryan Moss was unavailable Tuesday and was replaced by veteran television executive Roger Werner, who is chairman of the racing sanctioning-body coalition Automobile Competition Committee for the United States that serves as the U.S. representative in meetings with world-wide racing sanctioning body Federation Internationale de l’Automobile. Werner upheld NASCAR’s penalty as the Penske car had more than 0.56 degrees of skew in its rear suspension when measured from one rear wheel to the other. NASCAR’s new rules this year have eliminated all rear skew, and teams are given a tolerance for what NASCAR would consider the amount of movement that could occur naturally during the race and not be an egregious competition advantage. Wolfe served two races of his suspension by missing the race at Auto Club Speedway in California and the race Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway. The points already had been docked from Keselowski’s total (but would have been reinstated if the appeal was successful). He remains in third, seven points behind second-place Martin Truex Jr. and 14 ahead of Chase Elliott.(ESPN)
