BRISTOL, Tenn. — Kyle Busch has felt the same whiplash that Denny Hamlin feels right now.
He’s been in a similar position, he said.
“I’ve been through some of those appeals before,” Busch told reporters on Saturday at the Bristol Motor Speedway media center. “You think you’ve done a good job selling your case, and (the appeals panel) actually kind of backed down on the other side, and so you think you have a really good shot of getting something reversed or overturned.
“And then it just completely side-swipes you, and it doesn’t happen that way.”
Busch, along with an assortment of NASCAR Cup Series drivers, weighed in on the appeals result Hamlin was delivered earlier this week. The driver of the No. 11 Cup car was penalized by NASCAR for for “attempting to manipulate the outcome of the race,” for “wrecking or spinning another vehicle, whether or not that vehicle is removed from competition as a result” and for taking “actions made by a NASCAR member that NASCAR finds to be detrimental to stock car racing or NASCAR” a few weeks ago — and then the National Motorsports Appeals Panel upheld that ruling and the accompanying 25 driver points and $50,000 fine earlier this week.
Hamlin said he initially felt good about his appeal and expected the appeals panel to rule favorably with him after being in the room. He provided 35 previous instances of drivers “policing themselves,” he said, in an attempt to explain that making retributive contact with opponents doesn’t just happen all the time in this sport — it’s integral to it.
But then he got the unfavorable news along with the rest of the public on Thursday afternoon.
Hamlin’s prevailing feeling?
That the appeals process was fair, yes — but that the result was confusing nonetheless.
“I still don’t understand the ruling considering all the data, and all the precedent — even the real data that I brought to the table,” Hamlin said. “It still doesn’t make sense, which is the disappointing part.”
Hamlin’s appeals result is one of a handful of appeals decisions that thrust NASCAR into controversy earlier this week. The other big one involved Kaulig Racing, which received a harsh points penalty for modifying a single-source supplied part — only a few days after Hendrick Motorsports was essentially let off the hook after committing the same infraction.
Fans and drivers and even NASCAR itself publicly disagreed with the discrepancy. Some suggested that the two rulings illustrated the unwritten double-standard in this sport — that Hendrick Motorsports was starting with a proverbial lead before the game even started.
NASCAR went about trying to rectify this as best as it could and as fast as it could. On Thursday of this week, the sanctioning body announced a few big changes in its rule book.
One change says that the National Motorsports Appeals Panel (as well as the Final Appeal Officer) “may not completely remove any element of the originally assessed penalty provided in the Penalty Notice as defined in Rule Book Section 10.5.2 Determination of Penalties.”
Another says that NASCAR now has the right to publish the Appeals Panel/FAO justification for modifying or rescinding a penalty.
These changes seem to be appreciated.
“I feel like it should be super transparent,” said Alex Bowman, driver of the No. 48 car for Hendrick Motorsports.
Even with the favorable appeals ruling a few weeks ago, HMS officials expressed some frustration with the fact that the appeals panel didn’t provide justification for its decision.
“I feel like everybody wants that. I mean, the fans want more transparency,” Bowman added. “I want more transparency. I think we all want that.”
Kevin Harvick, the sport’s eldest statesman, thinks the transparency could be amped up even more.
“I think as transparent as everything is now, I think we should do them publicly,” Harvick said, chuckling but wanting his point to be taken seriously. “Why not, right? If it’s truly fair, let’s just do it publicly. Live stream them on NASCAR.com. Let’s go for it.”
Brad Keselowski, driver of the No. 6 Cup car who was slapped with a race-changing points penalty last year, referenced another change NASCAR is instituting: If certain car parts are deemed illegal, NASCAR now reserves the right to display said parts out to show the rest of the garage what teams can and can’t do.
“The biggest takeaway I got was they’re going to let you see the parts again,” Keselowski said. “I think that’s so critical. So I’m certainly welcoming that because without seeing the part, I don’t know what to make of anything to be 100 percent honest (with the Kaulig/Hendrick appeals). I mean, you hear different rumors in the garage, but nobody knows what’s true and what’s not.”
Even with these changes in the appeals process — even with the drastic measures NASCAR has taken to be more transparent — some drivers are still unclear and unhappy with certain parts of the rule book that were thrust in the limelight recently.
Busch is among those frustrated drivers.
“I have no clue how that is a penalty, when in the rule book, if you get into somebody or wreck somebody then it could be a penalty (whenever) they want to enforce on you,” Busch said. “At the Clash, Joey Logano wasn’t penalized for wiping me out. Every chance somebody crashes from somebody else from car contact, it could be a penalty, it could be a fine, it could be whatever.”
He added: “So the rule book contradicts itself quite a lot. And all of us have a very hard (time) understanding knowing exactly what’s what.”
