Joe Gibbs Racing president doubles down on Chase Briscoe NASCAR penalty, outlines defense

Following the Daytona 500, Chase Briscoe was penalized when NASCAR broke down his No. 19 Toyota Camry at the R&D Center. There they found an issue with the spoiler of the car. Joe Gibbs Racing has an explanation and will appeal the decision today with oral arguments.

JGR is hoping the National Motorsports Appeals Panel sees things their way this week. The defense is rather simple. Joe Gibbs Racing did nothing to the actual parts they were given, they were simply not produced correctly.

President Dave Alpern explained on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio earlier today. Chase Briscoe might have a chance to get some points back.

“We have rules for a reason,” Alpern said. “I give NASCAR credit, it’s really hard to keep track of all this stuff. So, when something happens and I’ll give you my personal perspective. The first thing you want to do when you hear this, you get the call and you’re like, ‘Okay, what in the world happened?’ My best explanation is like, when you buy furniture from IKEA and you get a couple of pieces, you know you gotta line up the holes and you gotta put the screws in. Well, when they attach the spoiler to the base, it has 21 predrilled holes in it. And they all don’t line up perfectly.”

Chase Briscoe team did what they were supposed to

Dave Alpern went on to explain what went wrong. With the predrilled holes not lining up perfectly, the JGR team had to do what they had to do. You can’t show up to the track without a spoiler attached.

Chase Briscoe passed inspection in pre and post-race. But having the car taken apart at the R&D Center earned him a massive penalty.

“So, we screwed the spoiler on, it passed inspection, we raced legally, and it passed inspection afterwards,” Alpern continued. “When they took it off, some of the screw holes were offset. Again, because when you go to install it, they don’t line up perfectly. To me, that’s not modifying a part. Like, it didn’t make us go faster. We screwed something on and it met the perfect template, just some of the screw holes were offset because the screws didn’t line up perfectly. So, that’s my simple explanation of what happened.

“They will articulate that to some degree by showing the variations in the holes, talking to other teams and saying, ‘Hey, if you take theirs off you’re probably going to see the same type of thing.’ So, that’s the best way I can explain it, that again, unfortunate. Certainly wasn’t by my definition of modifying a part, something you would modify to give yourself a performance advantage at all.”