Things not looking good for Hendrick Motorsports after suffering $550k blow in penalties this season

NASCAR has fined Hendrick Motorsports once again after finding violations with both the No. 24 and No. 48 cars. The crews were found to have illegally modified the greenhouses of both cars.

The No. 24 and No. 48 teams have both received L1 penalties. There were 60 points for the driver and owner, as well as five points for the playoffs. Brian Campe and Greg Ives, the interim crew chiefs, have been suspended for the next two races and fined $75,000 apiece.

Bowman dropped from first to seventh in the regular season standings as a result of the points penalty, while Byron fell from fourth to fourteenth.

This is the second time NASCAR has found the Hendrick organization in violation of regulations during the 2023 season. NASCAR penalized all four Hendrick teams on March 15 for modifying single-source provided equipment, notably the hood louvers.

Each team was deducted 100 driver/owner points and 10 playoff points in addition to a $100,000 fine and a four-week suspension of the crew chief. Despite the fact that the appeals panel adjudged HMS to be guilty, all points penalties were reversed last week. They determined that suspensions and monetary punishments were adequate.

In response to the recent fines, Hendrick Motorsports issued the following statement:

"We are reviewing the penalties issued today by NASCAR and will determine next steps following Sunday’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway."

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NASCAR makes a number of adjustments to its appeals procedure

NASCAR released a regulatory bulletin Thursday modifying how the appeals process would be handled in the future in reaction to inconsistent findings in two recent appeals.

Over the previous week, two separate three-member National Motorsports Appeals Panels determined that four Hendrick Motorsports Cup teams and one from Kaulig Racing had made illegal changes to a single-source item such as the hood louvers.

However, one panel completely reversed the points penalty for the Hendrick teams, while the other panel only made a small decrease for Kaulig, despite the fact that both were deemed to have committed identical infringements.

NASCAR revised the appeals procedure established in its series of rulebooks to avoid future contradictory findings. The changes are as follows:

• The Appeals Panel (and Final Appeal Officer) may not completely remove any element of the originally assessed penalty provided in the Penalty Notice as defined in Rule Book Section 10.5.2 Determination of Penalties; modifications to a penalty are limited to the minimum and maximum ranges as listed in the Rule Book.

In simple terms, if an appeals panel (or the Final Appeals Officer) determines that a team committed the accused offense, it can no longer remove any part of the penalties; it can only change it within the minimum and maximum penalty ranges.

In the case of Hendrick Motorsports, the four teams would still have been penalized with points, but the number may have been lowered, similar to what happened in the Kaulig appeal.