Race fans, vote now on the hottest issue in NASCAR after the decision was made earlier in the week to change the way the sanctioning body will assess penalties for the remainder of the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
We pose the question in the wake of NASCAR’s decision not to penalize Martin Truex Jr. and Jimmie Johnson after their cars flunked laser inspection following the first Chase race at Chicagoland Speedway last weekend.
NASCAR decided that giving a 10-point P2 penalty for both drivers for being minimally out of spec at the post-race laser-inspection station (LIS) wasn’t fair.
By virtue of his win, Truex automatically was going to advance to the second round of the Chase, even with the penalty. However, 10 points could have knocked Johnson out of the Chase in the first round for the second year in a row.
If applied as it would have been during the regular season, therefore, the same exact penalty was going to treat two drivers very differently. NASCAR officials said they realized that and therefore rectified it — and changed the way such issues will be treated going forward in the Chase.
From now on, no more “minor” LIS infractions. The car is either legal or it’s so far out of bounds that the benefits of a victory, such as automatic advancement into the next round of the playoffs for the Chase, get taken away.
Now it’s your turn to weigh in on the issue. Did NASCAR make the right call to take away the 10-point penalties from Truex and Johnson?
