WHY KYLE LARSON RECEIVED NO ADDITIONAL PENALTY AFTER TALLADEGA INFRACTION

A lot of comparisons have been made to the penalty Kyle Larson and the Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 team received, or didn’t receive, over the weekend at Talladega compared to those issued to a pair of Stewart-Haas Racing teams due to an inspection failure in February at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

The comparisons were addressed on Wednesday by NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer during his weekly appearance on the league’s SiriusXM Radio channel.

Unlike most components on the seventh-generation Cup car, the roof rails can actually be manufactured by the teams and do not need to be purchased from a single source supplier. In the case of the No. 10 and No. 41 cars at Atlanta, those rails were not made to compliance, where the Hendrick No. 5 team brought a compliant roof rail but adjusted it in some form on pit road while pushing out to qualify.

The Stewart-Haas cars were each assessed fines and 35 driver and owner points for the infractions.

Larson was forced to start at the rear of the field, was assessed a drive through penalty at the start of the race, with car chief Jesse Saunders ejected from the facility on Sunday.

“First of all, no additional penalties on the 5, but I do want to back up to Atlanta … where in pre-inspection, before cars were on the race track, we had SHR cars that had shown up with roof rails that were not in compliance of the rule book,” Sawyer said on Wednesday. “They had been built wrong. So they were confiscated, taken off, and additional penalties were added on Tuesday.

“With the 5 car, this past weekend at Talladega, they showed up with a legal car and parts, particularly the roof rails, but what happened there, as the car was being pushed to pit road, that particular part, the roof rail, was manipulated in a way that was not in compliance with the rule book.

“Instead of allowing them to correct it, we sent them back to the garage and talk about it after qualifying. The car chief was ejected from the event and then a drive through penalty was assessed and we were done with that issue.”

Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.

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2024-04-24T20:22:07Z dg43tfdfdgfd