“This is not right”: Senior NASCAR executive on discrepancies between penalties for Kaulig Racing and Hendrick Motorsports

NASCAR has finally acknowledged and responded to the matter of disprepancies between the penalties handed to the two Cup Series teams over the last few weeks. The governing body dished out L2-level penalties to Kaulig Racing and Hendrick Motorsports for running altered hood louvers in their cars a few weeks ago, with both teams electing to appeal the same.

Hendrick Motorsports' appeal saw the National Motorsports Appeals Panel rescind their points penalty and uphold the fines and personnel suspensions. However, Kaulig Racing's penalties were reduced by 25 points out of a total of 100 deducted points, along with fines and personnel suspensions.

This led to a lot of chatter in the stock car racing world around the significance of penalties handed by NASCAR, along with alleged favoritism for Hendrick Motorsports.

To combat another such incident in the future, the governing body has also implemented changes in the rule book, which have been in effect since Thursday (April 6).

NASCAR Chief Operating Officer Steve O'Donnell elaborated on how he would attempt to explain the discrepancies to Kaulig Racing in an interview and said:

"We issued a penalty that was consistent. We don't control the appeals panel. We were as surprised as anyone about that ruling when someone was found to have violated a rule and the appeals panel chose to take away points and I think how we would explain it is going forward, we're going to change that. This is not right."

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NASCAR Cup Series team owners boycott scheduled meeting

NASCAR's attempt to keep an open dialog between the governing body and team owners seems to be falling short. In what was a scheduled meeting between the governing body and Cup Series team owners, only one call-in was present, as per various sources.

It was speculated that the talks surrounding the budget allocation that came along with the future TV rights deal were the cause behind the owners' absence at the meeting. After the 2024 season, NASCAR's existing TV deal expires, and talks to replace it are expected to start in earnest later this year.

With teams seeking a larger share of the profit over their current 25% as the sport's deal with FOX Sports and NBC comes to an end, team owners certainly did not hesitate to make their feelings clear to the governing body.

Meanwhile, drivers are preparing to go racing at Bristol Motor Speedway this Sunday for the Food City Dirt Race.