Joe Gibbs Racing will have its day in (figurative) court regarding the significant penalty issued to Chase Briscoe, crew chief James Small and the No. 19 team but the shorthand version of their defense was laid out on Thursday.
Briscoe was docked 100 championship points and 10 playoff points, a massive setback to his championship hopes. Even if he wins in his first season driving the No. 19, Briscoe would still need a second win just to get out of negative playoff points for the season.
Small was suspended for four weeks, although an appeal has him on the road until that decision reaches a resolution, and the organization was charged $100,000 for the defense.
Team president Dave Alpern was on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Thursday and discussed their general defense of the infraction.
“My best explanation is like when you buy furniture from IKEA, and you get a couple of pieces you gotta line up the holes and you gotta put the screws in,” Alpern said. “Well, when they attached the spoiler to the base, it has 21 pre-drilled holes and they don’t all line up perfectly, so we screwed the spoiler on, it passed inspection, it raced legally, it passed inspection afterward. When they took it off, some of the screw holes were offset, again because when you go to install it, they don’t line up perfectly.”
Alpern says that is not modifying a spec part in his eyes.
“To me, that’s not modifying a part, like it didn’t make us go faster, we screwed something on and it met the perfect template, just some of the screw holes were offset because they didn’t line up perfectly and that’s my simple explanation of what happened.”
“They will articulate that to some degree by showing the variations in the holes, talking to other teams, and saying if you take theirs off, you’re probably going to see the same kind of thing, so that’s the best way I can explain it.”
Briscoe is in his first season with Joe Gibbs Racing after a four year stint at Joe Gibbs Racing. Alpern agreed that this is not the dynamic that a team trying to establish momentum, chemistry and an indentity needs this early in the season.
“That stinks,” Alpern said about the possibility of Small and Briscoe being separated for four weeks. “That’s not what you want, obviously, teams all have the war rooms and they can communicate and things, but there’s a reason you pair these people together and the best scenario is him sitting on the box at the racetrack.
“I’m not sure Chase anticipated being negative in points at the beginning of the season but we’ll bounce out of it and I expect the 19 car will have a great season and we’ll get him in victory lane and come playoff time we ca make up this deficit, but it’s a huge hole, it’s a huge discouragement, and hopefully we can get a positive outcome with that.”
The appeal hearing is set for March 5.
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