Kevin Harvick's crew to appeal against NASCAR's $100,000 penalty

After receiving penalties in the form of a crew chief suspension and a $100,000 fine, Kevin Harvick and his team are ready to contest the same as the team prepares to go racing this weekend. Rodney Childers, the crew chief for the #4 car at Stewart-Haas Racing, was on the receiving end of the penalty after Harvick's Ford Mustang failed to pass the post-race inspection after last Sunday's Yellawood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.

While team engineer Stephen Doran will serve as interim crew chief this weekend at Charlotte Roval, Stewart-Haas Racing has decided to contest the L2-level penalty after Childers remains suspended for four weeks. Childers will not be seen on top of the pit box for Kevin Harvick until the final race of the season at Phoenix Raceway in November.

As per reports, the penalty was levied on the Kannapolis, North Carolina-based outfit on grounds of modifying a 'single source supplied part'. Upon inspection of Harvick's #4 Ford Mustang in NASCAR's Research and Development center, the discrepancies were found under the headings of Sections 14.1 (vehicle assembly) and 14.5 (vehicle body) in NASCAR's rule book. This also meant the team and driver were stripped of 100 points each in their respective championships as well.

Kevin Harvick finished in P29 in last weekend's 500-mile-long race in Lincoln, Alabama, and was one of the two cars that were taken for post-race inspections after the event was complete. It remains to be seen what the outcome of Stewart-Haas Racing's contention of the $100,000 penalty for Rodney Childers is.

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Kevin Harvick's L2-level penalty marks the third Ford-manufactured team to be penalized in 2022

In a strange or perhaps obvious coincidence, all three L2-level penalties that have been issued in the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season have been to Ford-manufactured cars and teams. Kevin Harvick marks the third time a significant penalty has been levied in the highest echelon of the sport this season, with Brad Keselowski of Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing and Michael McDowell of Front Row Motorsports being the early recipients.

The earlier Cup Series races at Atlanta Motor Speedway and Pocono Raceway saw the same level of reprimand being handed out to Keselowski and McDowell respectively, for the same modification of a 'single source supplied part'.

Watch out for any other teams that might manage to step on the wrong side of the NASCAR rulebook as the 2022 playoffs heat up. Charlotte Roval hosts this Sunday's Bank of America Roval 400, which goes live at 2:00 pm ET.