NASCAR explains decision to not issue Daytona penalties

Typically when NASCAR blows the whistle and confiscates parts and pieces from a team, it comes back a few days later and announces a penalty. So when NASCAR on Wednesday said it would not penalize 16 Sprint Cup teams and 15 Nationwide teams found with illegal roof-flap spacers last week at Daytona International Speedway, it certainly raised eyebrows.

All cars at New Hampshire have the correct spacers in them, NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton said Friday. Roof flap are designed to keep cars on the ground during spins and crashes at high speeds.

"We realize 31 teams didn't roll over on Monday morning before the week and decide to do that," Pemberton said.

"It's our job to do some research, talk to some different teams and get to the bottom of it. We came to the conclusion that it's probably not the first time stuff like that is run. & As the years have evolved in the 17 years of running roof flaps, the kits were updated but old parts and pieces sometimes weren't deleted out of the kit." NASCAR will work with Roush Industries to "update and upgrade some of the parts and pieces in that kit," Pemberton said. NASCAR wants all the teams to have the same spacers because those are the ones that it uses when doing roof-flap testing. Pemberton indicated that the fact recent major penalties were significantly decreased on appeal wasn't given significant weight in deciding not to penalize teams. Sporting News