Matt Kenseth and his No. 20 team could be facing points penalties, fines and crew suspensions after his race-winning engine from Sunday at Kansas Speedway has failed post-race inspection according to the AP.
According the AP report, one of the connecting rods on Kenseth's car did not meet minimum weight requirement. It's unclear what advantage, if any, that could have given Kenseth.
Kenseth started on the pole Sunday and inherited the race lead when a caution flag flew during the race's final pit stop cycle. After sprinting out to a lead on the race's last restart, Kenseth held off Kasey Kahne over the final laps. Based on past precedent, it's likely that Kenseth will keep the win despite any forthcoming penalties. Joe Gibbs Racing has won four of the season's eight races. All race-winning engines are inspected and there have been no issues with the first three.
On Tuesday, NASCAR announced that the appeal for the infractions found against the Penske Racing cars at Texas Motor Speedway awould be April 1. The Penske cars were penalized 25 points and had their crew chiefs fined $100,000 and suspended for six races along with other team members. Kenseth may face a similar points penalty, but the fine and crew punishment could be bigger. In 2009, Carl Long was penalized 200 points (under NASCAR's old points system) and fined $200,000 and initially suspended 12 races after his engine was deemed illegal. Long drove for his own team.
We'll update this post when more information becomes available.
