DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – NASCAR announced Friday (Feb. 18) that it had confiscated wheels from Team Penske and RFK Racing.
A NASCAR spokesperson told Frontstretch the wheels had been examined during a “spot check” Friday morning (Feb. 18) and NASCAR officials found something they didn’t like.
NASCAR declined to say which cars the wheels had come from.
RFK Racing driver/co-owner Brad Keselowski told Fox Sports that wheels were taken from both of the team’s cars. He said RFK Racing made “safety changes” to the wheels.
Brad Keselowski on NASCAR confiscating RFK and Penske wheels. “Not a performance-related item. … We made some safety changes to the wheels. Once NASCAR sees all the data behind it, I think we’ll be fine.” pic.twitter.com/9Awekzauai
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) February 18, 2022
The confiscated wheels will be taken to the NASCAR R&D Center in Concord, North Carolina, for further inspection.
Any penalties will be determined following the R&D Center inspection.
With the introduction of the Next Gen car in the Cup Series, NASCAR recently announced a new three-tierd penalty system as a deterrent to cheating. The tiers go from from L1 to L3.
Punishment for violating L3 penalties could include the deduction of Cup Series points, playoff points, crewmember suspensions and postseason bans among the penalty options.
DAYTONA RACE WEEKEND CENTRAL
Daniel McFadin is a 10-year veteran of the NASCAR media corp. He wrote for NBC Sports from 2015 to October 2020. He currently works full time for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and is lead reporter and an editor for Frontstretch. He is also host of the NASCAR podcast "Dropping the Hammer with Daniel McFadin" presented by Democrat-Gazette.
You can email him at danielmcfadin@gmail.com.