If you ask Chad Knaus of Hendrick Motorsports, this whole penalty situation is out of line. He does not agree with NASCAR and its decision. So, don’t expect that appeal to get pulled any time soon. Knaus made it clear he doesn’t believe his organization is in the wrong.
Four interim crew chiefs have been picked. $400,000 has been fined from Hendrick. And 400 points and 40 playoff points have been taken as well. No one expected Hendrick Motorsports to be happy about the decision.
Knaus talked to the media at Atlanta about the situation.
“There’s so many areas that we have to continue to improve upon. That’s where I am probably the most disappointed. We are going down this path, working collectively as a group for quite some time and for this to pop up like this is really disappointing,” Knaus said, via Hendrick Motorsports.
However, that isn’t all that Knaus had to say to the media in Atlanta. Reporters wanted to know if there was any way that Hendrick modified the parts or if they just installed them as they came.
Ultimately, that is the question in all of this. It doesn’t matter if the parts were faulty from the factory. What matters is did Hendrick modify them, and if so, did they do it without NASCAR’s approval?
It was interesting what he had to say.
Did Hendrick Motorsports Modify Parts?
The louvers in question were taken from all four Hendrick cars and a single louver was taken from Justin Haley’s car. So, there is a lot wrapped up in this. For Chad Knaus, this might have been a situation where he should have ended questions early.
Listen to the quote below, it sounds like Hendrick Motorsports modified these parts. After this week, we will have a better idea of how this will play out.
“We made sure that our car, our parts fit the hood and the hood closed and did all the stuff that it needed to do,” Knaus said to the media.
Between Denny Hamlin appealing penalties that he admitted to on his own podcast and this, I think NASCAR folks should just keep their cards close to the chest. Hendrick Motorsports is going to try and ignore all of the noise and get themselves back on track this week with more strong performances.
What do you think, Outsiders? Are we going to see the appeals panel flip te decision here? While that would be exciting, I’m not sure there’s much room for Hendrick to argue.