LAS VEGAS — NASCAR displayed a clearly altered glove Saturday that Joey Logano wore in qualifying at Atlanta Motor Speedway, where aerodynamic-deflecting alterations were so obvious it looked as if he was wearing part of an amphibious costume.
The black glove for Logano’s left hand had webbing made of an unspecified material in between every finger. The theory is that Logano, who qualified second at Atlanta last weekend, had the glove altered in order to place his hand out his window as an aerodynamic blocker during qualifying.
At Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Saturday, NASCAR would not speculate on the motivation of the two-time Cup champion or Team Penske, which did not appeal a penalty imposed on Logano. NASCAR said it discovered the glove during a random inspection — and not, as Denny Hamlin suggested, in a tipoff from a rival team - and that it did not know if Logano was wearing the glove when he won the pole for the season-opening Daytona 500.
Rival driver Corey Lajoie didn’t flinch when asked Saturday if Logano was wearing the glove in Daytona 500 qualifying - “yes,” he said - and insisted Team Penske would have done computer simulation on the glove before using it on the track. LaJoie estimated the webbed glove was worth three counts of drag for Logano.
Brad Moran, NASCAR Cup Series managing director, said the No. 22 Ford was one of five cars randomly selected for post-qualifying inspection and the in-car camera immediately alerted officials that something was amiss.
“We spotted something that was honestly concerning,” Moran said ahead of Saturday activity at Las Vegas. “As you can see, the entire glove is webbed. The reason for that is you can obviously block more air, the drivers do put their hand up against the (window) opening, which we’ve never really had a rule against.
“This obviously goes one step further, and that glove becomes not only a competition problem but it goes one step further because it becomes a safety violation.”
All equipment must be approved by The SFI Foundation Inc., which is a nonprofit organization that has administered the standards for the quality assurance of specialty performance and racing equipment since 1978. NASCAR was unsure the material used to create the webbing effect was even fire retardant.
Logano was penalized last Sunday morning when he forfeited the second-place starting position and was dropped to the back of the field at Atlanta. He also had to serve a drive-through penalty on pit road once he took the green flag as the competition penalty.
Logano this week was fined $10,000 for violating NASCAR’s safety code, under “Driver Responsibilities & Driver Protective Clothing/Equipment.”
Team owner Roger Penske earlier this week twice told The Associated Press, “I didn’t like that at all,” about Logano’s infraction and expressed his disappointment in the veteran Penske driver.
“It’s not good. Period. I told him,” Penske said. “He’s the leader of the team. Look, we are under so much scrutiny and the last thing we need to do is have any noise like that. It’s not good for us. It’s not good for him. We’ll take our punches.”
Reigning Cup champion Ryan Blaney, who in November gave Penske back-to-back NASCAR championships, said there was no internal conversation among the three Penske cars to try the glove. Blaney further said he was unaware that Logano was using an altered glove.
But Blaney acknowledged all teams are consistently trying to work within a gray area - but not push the boundaries to the point that their boss, Penske, is irked with the efforts and optics of the organization.
“That was something they found and they just wanted to try, but that wasn’t something they tried to talk about,” Blaney said. “It’s always tricky, you want to be fast. But I feel like we’ve always been very good. We’ve always been very respectful - like we never get in trouble - because that’s Roger’s way, right?
“So it’s a real balance because you are always trying to find speed, but sometimes you have to kind of get a little in that gray area to find it.”
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