Robby Gordon Appeals NASCAR Penalty

NASCAR dropped the hammer Wednesday on Sprint Cup, Nationwide, and Craftsman Truck Series teams who came down on the wrong side of the rule book during Daytona Speedweeks.

In all, crew chief suspensions totaled 40 weeks and over $220,000 was earmarked for the NASCAR Foundation by way of monetary penalties.

Hit the hardest of those was Robby Gordon, who's team made the mistake of installing the wrong noses on its Dodges prior to coming to Daytona.

Gordon's self-owned team switched to Dodge just one week before, and when his team was the sent the Dodge noses from the manufacturer, they were incorrect. Instead of having the current nose pieces, Gordon's team was sent a prototype that has yet to be approved for competition in NASCAR.

NASCAR officials caught it during inspection, and Gordon's team changed out the nose prior to qualifying practice, and also had to change out the noses on the rest of its fleet at the shop.

Robby was penalized 100 owner and driver points, $100,000, and his crew chief was suspended for six weeks.

A little bit harsh?

Robby certainly thought so, and plans to appeal:

This penalty is way out of proportion when you compare it what happened last year when a team was penalized 100 points for adding a substance to the fuel, or when a team deliberately changed the bodies of the COT. To penalize my team the same amount when we didn't even make the mistake, and the mistake was nothing more than inadvertent human error by someone else is just not fair. Other teams who have had similar issues to what happened with the nose on my car were only penalized 25 points.

I hope that NASCAR can reconsider when they have all the facts. In the meantime, we have no choice but to appeal this penalty.

That statement was located on Robby's website.

Most of the time, it's my belief that a lot of the problems that Robby has had during his racing career have been brought on by himself, but in this instance, you can't even blame his team.

One would think that the manufacturer would send the correct noses, and a team that has never installed them before wouldn't ever know the difference. Gordon never competed with the nose, and switched it out soon after the mistake was found.

I do hope Robby wins this appeal because it really doesn't seem fair to that team -- especially looking at Michael Waltrip's and Hendrick Motorsports violations that netted the same penalty a year ago.

However, NASCAR does run into an interesting problem when dealing with intent. Needless to say, its a gray area.