NASCAR: What exactly is an ‘encumbered’ race win?
By Nick Tylwalk
Joey Logano just got the first ever encumbered race win — but what exactly does that mean?
NASCAR brought the hammer down on Joey Logano and the No. 22 team today, issuing an L1-level penalty for a rear suspension violation on the car that won last weekend’s Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond. It’s a serious penalty that carries no possibility of an appeal but does bring fines, an automatic suspension for crew chief Todd Gordon and the loss of both owner and driver points.
It also means that the win is considered encumbered, a term that NASCAR has had in place since last season but never used until now. What exactly does that mean?
Essentially, even though Logano is still officially listed as the winner of the race, it’s like he didn’t win anything for the purposes of the 2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series playoffs. The win doesn’t “count” toward helping Logano secure a playoff position, nor does he receive the five bonus playoff points a regular season victory would usually grant.
It’s somewhat similar to when teams in stick and ball sports have to vacate victories in the sense that everyone still knows who won but the benefits no longer apply. The differences are that NASCAR still declares the winning driver the winner (the sanctioning body has long been loathe to name anyone a race winner who didn’t take the checkered flag) and that vacated victories in other sports usually take place down the road, not within the season currently being contested.
It’s a bit of a black eye for Team Penske, to be sure, but its impact on Logano is likely to be minimal. The loss of 25 driver points only drops him one spot in the standings, from fourth to fifth. There are still 17 races left before the playoffs and only six drivers are currently locked in because of race wins. For Logano to miss the playoffs, 10 drivers who don’t already have victories would have to win a race, which is possible but very, very unlikely — and that’s assuming that Logano doesn’t snag one of those victories himself.
Next: Toyota Owners 400: 5 takeaways from Richmond
On the other hand, an encumbered race win could be devastating for a driver like Kurt Busch, who is low enough in the points standings right now that he absolutely needs his victory to make it into the playoffs. Chris Buescher in 2016 is an even better example. Logano may not actually fit the dictionary definition of encumbered when it’s all said and done, but his situation is one that has to be on the minds of other teams throughout the NASCAR Cup Series garage as the season rolls on.