Nascar Blog

Remember the confiscated brackets from the wing on Dale Jr’s car of tomorrow? Well, apparently it was bigger than first thought, or they have done something else because Nascar has just levied some heavy fines on Jr’s team. They have been docked 100 driver and owners points, and the crew chief is gone for six races. The wing was mounted wrong and it would’ve given the car more down force, or it should have anyway.

Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s crew chief, Tony Eury Jr., has been suspended six races, fined $100,000 and the team docked 100 driver and car owner points by NASCAR for improperly mounting the rear wing of Earnhardt Jr.’s No. 8 Chevrolet last weekend at Darlington, S.C., multiple sources confirmed Tuesday afternoon.

An official announcement of the penalty is expected later today. The violation was found during pre-race inspection on Saturday. Source: NASCAR slams Earnhardt Jr team with COT violation

Nothing yet on Nascar.com detailing what happened, although they did let everyone know that any modifications to the COT would result in serious penalties. Whose next?

Added: Nascar has posted an article about it now, Junior docked 100 points for illegal rear mounting.

According to NASCAR, the No. 8 team was found to have violated Sections 12-4-A (actions detrimental to stock car racing), 12-4-Q (car, car parts, components and/or equipment used do not conform to NASCAR rules), and 20-3.1.3B (the NASCAR-approved upper and lower rear wing mounting brackets must not be modified to obtain a rear-wing angle of less than zero degrees or more than 16 degrees) of the 2007 NASCAR rule book.

The penalty knocked Earnhardt from 12th in the standings — the final qualifying position for the Chase for the Nextel Cup — to 14th. He’s now 721 points behind points leader Jeff Gordon, and 54 points out of Chase contention.

They said they will appeal the ruling since the rule is not spelled out in the rule book.