Weekly NASCAR cheaters report

NASCAR officials confiscated unapproved lug nuts from the Busch Series cars of rookie Brad Keselowski and Nextel Cup driver Casey Mears prior to the start of Saturday's O'Reilly Challenge at Texas Motor Speedway. NASCAR likely will levy additional penalties to the JR Motorsports and Hendrick Motorsports teams sent to the back at the start of the Busch Series race Saturday for lug nuts that did not meet specifications at Texas Motor Speedway.

The No. 88 team with driver Brad Keselowski and the No. 24 team with driver Casey Mears had to replace all of the lug nuts on the tires on the car as well as the on the tires in the pits after NASCAR had an issue with them.

Further penalties are anticipated, said NASCAR spokesman Kerry Tharp.

JR Motorsports and Hendrick Motorsports are in the process of merging their Busch Series programs, with most of the operation already based at the JR Motorsports shop.

"We had some lug nuts that had a thread turned out of them, just trying to make pit stops faster," said JR Motorsports director of competition Tony Eury Sr. "We've got a Busch crew here against all these Cup crews it's hard to compete against them. We just stepped over the line a little bit trying to be even." Scenedaily.com