Stewart-Haas Racing drivers Noah Gragson and Ryan Preece have been docked 35 points by NASCAR for having illegal roof air deflectors ahead of Sunday’s Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Both Gragson, driver of the No. 10 Ford, and Preece, who pilots the No. 41 Ford, had their roof air deflectors confiscated during a pre-qualifying inspection Friday afternoon. The roof air deflectors are bars that go across the roof of the car to help with aerodynamics. NASCAR took the parts back to their R&D Center in Concord, North Carolina, to further evaluate them before levying the penalties.
NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Tuesday that a discussion of the illegal roof rails would happen that morning.
“We will discuss that this morning,” Sawyer said, via Sportsnaut. “Obviously, that’s not a NextGen certified [spec] part. It’s a team part but it has to meet the CAD drawing. And in this case, it didn’t meet that so we will discuss what the next steps are this morning.”
Noah Gragson, Ryan Preece have uneven days at Atlanta
Preece raced his way to a 16th place finish after notching a P23 result in the Daytona 500. Gragson, coming off a P9 result in the Daytona 500 the week prior, finished 36th at Atlanta. He was involved in the 16-car pileup on Lap 2, the largest wreck in the history of the racetrack.
“It’s definitely a bummer,” Gragson said, via NBC Sports. “They started stacking up on the top and I thought we were gonna miss the 3 [Austin Dillon] and then got tagged in the right-rear by someone. I just got hit from behind and the car was pretty torn up. We tried to keep it going. But then the rack started falling out of it, so we started losing steering and had to bring it in. It’s just a bummer, but we’re gonna go to [Las] Vegas and rebound.”
Stewart-Haas faced multiple penalties for using counterfeit parts last season. Chase Briscoe notably received a 120-point penalty for counterfeiting a Next Gen part during the Coca-Cola 600. NASCAR also issued a six-race suspension for crew chief Johnny Klausmeier and hit him with a $250,000 fine.
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