So, it looks like NASCAR is going the Carl Long route with Kenseth’s penalties – 50 points, $200,000, and suspension of the owner’s license and crew chief for the 20 car for the next 6 weeks.

Note – suspension of owner’s license means that the 20 car will not receive owner’s points for the next 6 points races.

This seems to be confirmation of a new era of consistency for NASCAR as far as penalties go.

Mechanical issue causing post race inspection fail? 6 points, $25,000 fine.

Attempt to cheat or use illegal parts (engine excluded)? 25 points, $100,000 fine.

Something wrong with the engine? 50 points, $200,000 fine.

So even though I’m not a fan of the Penske “not in the spirit of the rules” infraction, I do applaud NASCAR for trying to set a consistent precedent for fines and penalties.

Now it’s up to the crew chiefs and car owners to determine if the penalties outweigh the possible benefits of “gray area” performance gains.

On the heels of the Penske rear end penalties (heh), Matt Kenseth’s #20 TRD engine failed post race inspection due to one of the connecting rods that was too light. Since there are eight of them, and only one was under weight, it almost seems like a quality control issue, and would not offer any sort of competitive advantage.

So the question is – will NASCAR pull a Carl Long type penalty ($200,000, 50 points, suspension from competition), a Penkse type penalty, or a Truex penalty (6 points, $25,000, probation)?

As the exclamation mark in the title probably indicates, I’m very excited for the new qualifying format for the road courses.

Previously, road course qualifying was done just like all the other tracks – one car at a time, best lap wins the pole. The only difference is that the road courses typically time just one lap due to the amount of time it takes to get around the track.

The new format now specifies that cars will go out in groups for a set period of time, and the best lap by each car will be their qualifying lap of record.

They’ve used this in the Nationwide qualifying at road courses before, and I loved it.

This is yet another reason why road courses are awesome, and should be a bigger part of the sport.

Hear hear to another piece of good news!