RFK Racing's Chris Buescher kept his eighth place finish in Sunday's AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway, but NASCAR cracked down on the No. 17 team after finding a major violation on the No. 17 Ford at the R&D Center in Concord, North Carolina.
The No. 17 Ford was found to be in violation of Sections 14.1.C (overall assembled vehicle rules) and 14.5.4.G (front bumper cover) of the NASCAR Rule Book, as the team went over the maximum reinforcement allowed for its front bumper covers.
NASCAR docked Buescher 60 points in the driver standings, and they docked the No. 17 team 60 points in the owner standings. Additionally, Buescher and the No. 17 team were each docked five playoff points. The team was fined $75,000, and crew chief Scott Grave was suspended for the next two race weekends.
Graves' suspension is set to include this weekend's NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway and next weekend's Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Chris Buescher drops out of playoff picture
Prior to the penalty, Buescher was sitting in 12th place in the point standings and 33 points above the playoff cut line. Now, however, he finds himself down in 24th and sits 27 points below the cutoff.
Additionally, he has not scored any playoff points yet this year, so his playoff point tally is now officially negative-five.
It marks the second time in the last month that NASCAR has effectively removed an RFK Racing driver from the provisional playoff picture. Ryan Preece was initially inside the playoff picture after his runner-up finish at Talladega Superspeedway, but he dropped out of it when NASCAR disqualified him from that race and thus stripped him of the points he had earned.
Ironically, Preece is the driver who is now back in the playoff picture thanks to the fact that Buescher dropped out. Preece had been seven points below the cut line, which was set between himself and Hyak Motorsports' Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Now he is seven points above it, and it is Richard Childress Racing's Kyle Busch who is the first driver below it.
The next points race on the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the Coca-Cola 600, which is set to be shown live on Amazon Prime Video from Charlotte Motor Speedway beginning at 6:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, May 25.