Free Republic

Stewart-Haas Racing's Kevin Harvick's guaranteed place in the NASCAR Cup Series championship shootout at Homestead has been lost due to a L1 penalty incurred at Texas Motor Speedway.

On 'The SPEED Report,' Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on SPEED, SPEED NASCAR reporter Bob Dillner reported that the winner of the first race in the Chase for the Nextel Cup and his Richard Childress Racing teammate had a performance advantage. As darkness falls upon New Hampshire International Speedway, we have learned that there was an issue with the winning car of Kevin Harvick and also his teammate, Jeff Burton, in postrace tech. That issue surrounded the actual rim of the race car. The team apparently manipulated that rim to act as a bleeder valve to release air pressure from...

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- NASCAR has announced that rule infractions this past weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway have resulted in the suspension of three Nextel Cup Series crew chiefs. The No. 48 Chevrolet team received three penalties, due to the car's roof height being too low in post-race inspection... (snip) A penalty of 25 driver points dropped Jimmie Johnson -- the race winner at Las Vegas -- back to second place in the standings, 10 behind reigning series champion Kurt Busch. Chad Knaus, Johnson's crew chief, has been suspended from competition for the next two races and fined $35,000;...