NASCAR crew chief suspended over rule that no longer exists

NASCAR has already suspended a crew chief for a race ahead of the 2022 Cup Series season — and for a rule that technically no longer exists.

The final race of the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season this past Sunday afternoon at Phoenix Raceway was also the final race of the Generation 6 car, as the Generation 7 “Next Gen” car is set to debut in the 2022 season.

The first race for this new car is set to be the preseason Busch Light Clash exhibition event at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Sunday, February 6, one week before Super Bowl LVI and two weeks before the official 2022 season-opening Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway.

One of the many key changes to this new car, compared to the Gen 6 machine, is that the five-lug nut pattern that has been used in the Cup Series for decades has been abandoned.

Instead, the Next Gen car has a single, center-locking lug nut for all four wheels.

But that hasn’t stopped NASCAR from issuing a 2022 crew chief suspension as a result of a lug nut infraction from 2021.

NASCAR has announced that Kyle Busch’s crew chief, Ben Beshore, will be suspended for the Busch Light Clash because it was found that there were two loose lug nuts on Busch’s #18 Toyota following Sunday’s season finale.

So Beshore will effectively be forced to miss a race for breaking a rule that is no longer applicable in the season during which this race is contested.

https://twitter.com/poggerspatrick/status/1458188129916051463

To be fair, if NASCAR based their punishment decision solely on the idea that the nature of such an infraction would change drastically after this past weekend, teams could have taken advantage, knowing that the typical one-race suspension would not be applied simply because it was the final race of the year — and of the Gen 6 car.

With that being said, a suspension in a season during which the nature of this infraction will be quite a bit different does seem odd, given the fact that NASCAR could have simply handed down an increased fine (compared to the fine for having one loose lug nut) and been done with it, as opposed to waiting until after Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Day and, well, the entire offseason to enforce a penalty over what will, in essence, be a former rule when the penalty is actually served.