CONCORD, N.C. -- A NASCAR appeals board on Thursday reduced the points penalty and fines but upheld suspensions to three Richard Childress Racing crewmen for bleeding air out of tires.
After a seven-hour hearing at the NASCAR Research & Development Center, a three-member appeals board announced it had reduced the points penalty to Ryan Newman from 75 to 50 and reduced the fine to crew chief Luke Lambert from $125,000 to $75,000. The six-race suspensions to Lambert, team engineer Philip Surgen and tire specialist James Bender will stand.
With the reinstatement of 25 points, Newman improved from 24th to 20th in the Sprint Cup Series standings.
The points and fines were reduced to the standard P5 penalty on NASCAR's P1-to-P6 scale but without the additional 25 points and $50,000 fine added for a violation found in postrace inspection. The tires that NASCAR confiscated were during the race, not after the event.
"The panel amends the original penalty levied by NASCAR because there is no written explanation of what constitutes a post-race inspection," the panel stated in its decision.
Lambert said afterward that RCR would assess its options on whether to appeal to NASCAR final appeals officer Bryan Moss. If RCR files that appeal, it can ask that the suspensions and fines be deferred until its hearing with Moss. But the team has opted to have its crewmen start serving their suspensions this weekend at Bristol.
"I'm thankful today to have had the opportunity to present our facts to the appeals panel," said Lambert, who declined to answer questions afterward. "I appreciate their consideration of those facts in making the decision to reduce the fine and reduce the points penalty based on the facts that were presented. However, I am disappointed in the decision not to completely overturn the penalty."
NASCAR confiscated tires during the March 22 race at Auto Club Speedway and sent at least some of them to a third party for analysis. Of the four teams that had tires confiscated, only the RCR No. 31 team was found to have intentionally altered the tires. Newman finished fifth in the race.
NASCAR began taking tires during races late last season amid rumors of teams bleeding air from them. Bleeding air out of a tire, typically done by poking a small hole, is considered both a safety and a competition issue. It would keep the tire from increasing air pressure and losing grip during a run while also increasing the possibility of the tire going flat. Drivers have said they believed teams were doing it but that it was difficult for NASCAR to determine whether the tires were compromised intentionally or through racing wear and tear.
Hearing the case were former U.S. Auto Club president John Capels, former Speed executive Hunter Nickell and Bowman Gray Stadium promoter Dale Pinilis.