Although post-race inspection was completed without any issues following Sunday's race at Kansas Speedway, a significant penalty was handed down on Thursday to Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing's Chris Buescher.
Buescher's car was taken to NASCAR's R&D Center in Concord, North Carolina, following the race at Kansas. While that does not typically result in a penalty, NASCAR assessed the team with an L1-level penalty for a front bumper cover violation. As a result of the penalty, team and driver were each docked 60 championship points and five playoff points. The team was fined $75,000 and crew chief Scott Graves is suspended for the next two races through the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte on Sunday, May 25. According to Bob Pockrass of Fox Sports, the penalty had to do with the front fascia of Buescher's No. 17 Ford.
Veteran Doug Randolph is listed as the team's crew chief going into All-Star Weekend at North Wilkesboro. Buescher finished eighth at Kansas after qualifying second and left the speedway 12th in points, 33 points above the elimination line. The 60-point penalty drops him out of the 16-driver playoff field to 24th (-27), completely shaking up the standings with a third of the points-paying races complete.
How does Chris Buescher's penalty affect NASCAR points standings?
Since Buescher was 12th in the standings before the penalty, the top 10 remains the same with Kyle Larson holding a 35-point lead over Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron. However, Buescher's drop means several drivers move up, including a change in the 16th and final position in the playoff standings.
After Kansas, Hyak Motorsports' Ricky Stenhouse Jr. held a seven-point advantage over Buescher's RFK Racing teammate Ryan Preece. With Buescher dropping all the way down to 24th, Stenhouse moves up to 15th and Preece vaults to the 16th and final playoff spot (+7) over Richard Childress Racing's Kyle Busch. Only a third of the way through the season, things are still going to change, but Buescher's penalty definitely caused a shake-up to the standings.
Shortly after the penalty was announced, the team said it is still reviewing the details regarding whether it should appeal or not. Should it decide to appeal, the deadline to do so is Monday, May 19, at 5 p.m. ET, according to Pockrass.
The series gets a break from its points-paying grind with the All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro on Sunday (8 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) before next weekend's Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte. If the penalty holds, Buescher is still in good shape to point his way into the playoffs if he can put solid results together. Still, he is outside the playoff field at this point, so the pressure is intensified even more as he looks to overcome the lost points.