NASCAR penalty report revealed after Charlotte weekend

The penalty report from NASCAR is out for the weekend at Charlotte and there were no major infractions. In fact, there was only one penalty to report at all.

The team for Taylor Gray in the Xfinity Series was fined $5,000 for a loose or missing lug nut, according to FOX Sports’ Bob Pockrass. The cars for Riley Herbst and Cole Custer were fine at R&D.

Meanwhile, there were no penalties for race manipulation. That can be a factor at this time of year, with drivers vying to make the playoff cut line at the various levels of NASCAR.

In fact, one of the incidents that occurred in the Cup Series race was how Denny Hamlin approached the end of the race while driving next to Ross Chastain. Chastain needed a strong finish to stay ahead of Joey Logano, but Hamlin didn’t seem aware and made a pass on him.

That led to a lot of conversation about what info drivers are given from their crews. Apparently the points standings cannot be referenced by the crews.

Freddie Kraft makes surprising revelation

Denny Hamlin was upset that his team did not notify him of the ongoing points battle between Joey Logano and Ross Chastain on the final lap of Sunday’s Round of 12 finale at the Charlotte ROVAL. Hamlin was not aware that Chastain was a single point ahead of Logano for the final transfer spot into the Round of 8.

Furthermore, Logano owned the tiebreaker on Chastain. So, when Hamlin passed Chastain on the final lap, that was it — Chastain was eliminated from the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs. Chastain made one last effort to get by Hamlin on the last corner but ended up taking both of them out. Hamlin might have done something different had he known the points situation. Freddie Kraft, spotter for Bubba Wallace, said that spotters are “no longer allowed” to inform drivers about points.

“The biggest thing to me to explain to the fans side of this, I know a lot of people can’t believe Denny didn’t know,” Kraft said on Tuesday’s Door Bumper Clear podcast. “We are no longer allowed to mention the word points as a spotter, as a team. I know some teams did and God bless them, they got away with it.

“But on Saturday, it was a playoff driver that was in no threat of losing his position or anything, asked his spotter, ‘What’s the playoffs look like? What’s going on?’ The spotter simply read the standings… no directions, just read the standings. He got a warning from NASCAR, do not talk about points standings because they don’t want race manipulation.”

On3’s Nick Geddes also contributed to this report.