Chase Briscoe and his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing team have been assessed a major penalty following the Daytona 500 this past week.
The car was one of the random selections from the sanctioning body taken back to its R&D department after the race, where its spoiler was shown to be illegally modified. NASCAR also took back the Hendrick Motorsports No. 9, Team Penske No. 2 and Trackhouse Racing No. 99 to R&D for further inspection but those cars all came back clear.
As per NASCAR:
“JGR was found to be in violation of Section 14.1 of the Rule Book, which pertains to overall assembled vehicles rules, and 14.5.8, which deals with the spoiler. Specifically, the spoiler base was found to be modified on the No. 19 car. The spoiler base is a single-source part and cannot be modified.”
Specifically, the team used a tall spoiler base that was not purchased from Roush Advanced Composites.
Briscoe has been assessed the loss of 100 driver points and 10 playoff points. The No. 19 car was issued the same penalty for owner points purposes as well. Briscoe finished fourth in the Daytona 500 and was 10th in points but is now 39th in the standings and has -67 points.
That’s 89 points out of a playoff spot.
In other words, Briscoe now likely needs to win to even make the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs but even then, he would need two wins at five playoff points each just to break even on where he stands now. It’s a massive blow to his championship hopes just after one week.
Joe Gibbs Racing was fined $100,000 and crew chief James Small has been suspended for the next four races.
The organization said it would appeal and “the issue in question was caused in the assembly process when bolts used to attach the spoiler base to the deck lid caused the pre-drilled holes to wear due to supplied part interferences.”
Briscoe was the pole-sitter for the race after Wednesday time trials.
In other penalty news, the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports team and No. 51 Rick Ware Racing teams were penalized for a safety violation for added ballast to their cars. Their respective drivers, Todd Gilliland and Cody Ware have been docked 10 driver points and their teams lost 10 owner points.
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.
