Penske bumper covers removed

Penske Racing’s Nationwide teams spent Thursday afternoon replacing the upper front bumper covers of the cars of Brad Keselowski and Sam Hornish Jr. at Talladega Superspeedway.

Bumper covers appear to have been a point of emphasis for NASCAR officials at the last two races. Last week at Richmond, NASCAR confiscated the bumper covers of all three Richard Childress Racing cars and all three Turner Motorsports cars.

The Penske teams will be allowed to participate in all track activities—practice is scheduled for Thursday afternoon but heavy rains are putting those sessions in jeopardy. Any penalties will be announced next week.

NASCAR did not issue a points penalty nor suspensions to the RCR and Turner teams but did fine the crew chiefs $10,000 and put the crew chiefs and car chiefs on probation through the rest of the year.

NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton said Tuesday that harsher penalties were not issued because Nationwide Series teams are still learning about the new car, which was introduced for select races in 2010 and used for the first full season in 2011.

But Pemberton indicated that NASCAR would ramp up Nationwide penalties for recurrences.

“There will come a time when we’re done with the schooling process and we’ll move forward like we have in the past," he said. “It was a big undertaking for those folks over the last 18 months or so to do all of this stuff, and we still feel like it’s best for us to work with them the best that we can." Sporting News