A three-member appeals board appointed by NASCAR has set May 1 as the date for the Penske Racing appeal of points penalties, fines and suspensions for violations uncovered April 13 at Texas Motor Speedway.
NASCAR penalized both Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano 25 points in the driver and owner standings, fined crew chiefs Paul Wolfe and Todd Gordon $100,000 and suspended Wolfe, Gordon, car chiefs Jerry Kelley and Raymond Fox, engineers Brian Wilson and Samuel Stanley and Penske competition director Travis Geisler for six points races. All seven of those suspended were put on probation through Dec. 31.
“I certainly don’t think it’s cheating,” team owner Roger Penske told The Associated Press on Saturday at the IndyCar race in Long Beach. “You are looking at the rules and you are working in a gray area.
“We all work in the gray areas. We’re trying to be as competitive as we can be, we’ve got very creative minds and it takes a lot of creative minds to be competitive.”
NASCAR will choose three from its appeal panel list of 48 people—former car owners, crew chiefs and drivers as well as current track promoters and other industry veterans—to hear the Penske case.
The appeals panel will meet at 9 a.m. May 1 at the NASCAR Research and Development Center in North Carolina. It will first hear from Penske and then separately from NASCAR officials.
Teams cannot have lawyers but can give the appeals board evidence or have experts testify why the appeal should be granted. The panel can ask for any team member or official to testify if it wants more information.
The appeals board will then typically make a decision later that day although it technically has two weeks to decide. The decision—which can include an increase from the original penalties—does not have to be unanimous. The identity of appeals board members will be released publicly after the decision is made.
“There are many different areas we are all working on,” Penske told the AP. “We just looked at a particular rule that maybe NASCAR has a different view of. Now we’ll get a chance to have an unbiased panel look at it.”
If Penske loses the appeal, it could appeal to the NASCAR Chief Appellate Officer, John Middlebrook, who would conduct a hearing with both NASCAR and Penske representatives in the room at the same time. Middlebrook, who gets a transcript of the initial appeal, can ask questions of anyone during the hearing before making his decision. (Sporting News)
