NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer said Tuesday that an additional penalty could be coming to Joey Logano and the Team Penske No. 22 for illegally modifying a driving glove ahead of Sunday’s Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
NASCAR forced Logano to start from the rear of the field and serve a pass-through penalty, with NASCAR saying the glove did not meet “SFI specification,” violating rule 14.3.1.1 of the NASCAR Rule Book. Now, it appears another punishment could be on the way, Sawyer told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
Joey Logano facing potentially severe penalty
“I want to be really clear on this one” Sawyer said, via Sportsnaut. “If you take exactly what happened on track from a competition perspective and trying to enhance the performance on the racetrack… Obviously, we see time and time again at superspeedways and other events, drivers stick their hand out the window. That’s not something we’ve been all that alarmed about. When you take it to the level that you have modified one of the safety equipment, gloves in particular and then using that, the penalty at the track was based off that. We disallowed the qualifying time and sent the 22 to the back and sent them to a pass through.
“The next step is when you look at safety equipment. We look at it very closely and take it very seriously. There have been numerous meetings over time about safety of the car and the equipment and the driver. When you take it and alter it, that is something we will discuss today and if it needs to have an additional penalty added to that. The reason I want to be really clear on that, is that what happened at the racetrack and the way it was handled was based on performance and using that device. Now altering a SSI certified safety piece of apparel, that’s a topic we will discuss today.”
The glove had a web used to deflect air away from the window. Chris Knight of Catchfence reported that NASCAR informed the media the glove was “altered” in order to gain a competitive advantage when blocking air with his hand.
Joey Logano rebounds from penalty for illegal glove
The penalty didn’t impact Logano one bit, thanks to a Lap 2 caution while he was serving the pass-through penalty. Logano was right back on the lead lap and wasted no time making his way to the front. Logano, who had qualified second, had one of the fastest cars at Atlanta, leading 27 laps.
His bid for a win came to an end on Lap 160-of-260. Logano threw an ill-advised block on Chris Buescher, causing a wreck which involved Denny Hamlin as well. Logano finished the race 27th.
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