NASCAR 101: Teams Are Refusing to Learn From Prior Penalties

Y’all know that line from SpongeBob SquarePants where someone shouts, “How many times do I have to teach you this lesson, old man?”

That’s how I felt when I woke up May 15 and saw the news that Chris Buescher and the No. 17 RFK Racing team were handed a 60-point, $75,000 penalty for a front bumper cover violation.

In year four of the Next Gen car, teams are still doing everything in their power to modify parts and skirt the rules without getting caught. I’d be worried if they weren’t, honestly, because as the old saying goes, “if you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin.”

But if you play with fire for long enough, you’re eventually going to get burned. NASCAR’s iron fist approach to modifying single-source parts was made clear from the advent of the Next Gen car, and it’s not a bad thing. For all of the things that anyone and everyone love to bash NASCAR for, the sanctioning body has stuck to its word and dropped the hammer on any teams that break these rules.

That’s why, even in a sport where cheating has run rampant since the first NASCAR Cup Series race, it’s time for teams to reconsider if the risk is worth the reward.

Sixty points is only one less point than the maximum you can earn in any Cup race besides the Coca-Cola 600. For a driver such as Buescher who typically earns few stage points but usually claws out a 10th- to 15th-place finish, it’s essentially the equivalent of a two-race suspension from a points perspective.

Buescher went from holding a provisional playoff berth to 24th in the standings, 27 points below the cut line. That’s far from an insurmountable gap with 14 regular season races remaining, but when you look at the drivers he’ll have to beat, it becomes much more daunting.

It’s ironic that RFK is the subject of the latest infringement, given that it was Brad Keselowski and the No. 6 team that kicked off the Next Gen era with a 100-point, $100,000 L2 penalty that got crew chief Matt McCall suspended for four races.

In 2023, Chase Briscoe and Stewart-Haas Racing were given a penalty with twice the docking of points given to Buescher after the Coca-Cola 600. A counterfeit part was the source of a 120-point, $250,000 penalty that carried a suspension of six weeks for crew chief Johnny Klausmeier.

Less than three months ago, Briscoe was bopped again with a 100-point, $100,000 penalty that carried a four-race suspension for crew chief James Small. The punishment was handed down after the No. 19 was found to have had an illegal spoiler for the Daytona 500. The penalty was eventually overturned, but the sentiment was the same: Do NOT, under ANY circumstance, mess with a single-source part.

And no, not even NASCAR’s winningest team of all time could escape NASCAR’s wrath regarding this issue. In 2023, all four Hendrick Motorsports entries — along with Kaulig Racing’s No. 31 — had hood louvers confiscated before a race at Phoenix Raceway. Like Keselowski’s aforementioned penalty, Hendrick’s attempt at skirting the rules entailed a loss of 100 points for all four drivers, a $100,000 fine and a four-race suspension for all four HMS crew chiefs. The points penalty was eventually rescinded, but it was another clear sign from NASCAR that nobody was immune to the punishment that would stem from modifying what had essentially become the sacred components of the car.

No matter the era, every team will do their best to find whatever advantage possible by whatever means possible.

But at a time when NASCAR hasn’t missed a beat in terms of handing out penalties, it’s probably best for teams to pull on the reins and realize that NASCAR isn’t playing around, nor is it ever going to, with teams modifying single-source parts.