When NASCAR’s penalty report came out last week it included a suspension for members of the RFK Racing 17 car after the car driven by Chris Buescher lost a wheel while racing at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Two days later, RFK announced that they would be appealing the penalty.
Over the weekend at Phoenix Raceway, RFK explained their reasoning for making the appeal. Co-owner Brad Keselowski (the K of RFK) noted that it takes time to train a new crewman to change the single lug tires on the Cup Series Next Gen cars. One of the two crew members suspended is the rear tire changer.
Speaking to reporters at Phoenix, Keselowski said, “to bring in a new tire changer, a jackman, it’s a major undertaking. These guys are really good. They’re highly skilled athletes. Most of them are college athletes that have played for quite some time, and by the nature of where the race teams are, we don’t carry a depth chart of people that you wish you could carry. It’s expensive. And so, you’d like to have as much time as possible to bring somebody up to make sure you don’t have the same problem again. …”
He added, “You want to have an extra week of practice of working out whoever that new guy is going to be, and the jitters that they might have before they jump over the wall in front of 100 thousand-some fans and a car that’s moving 50, 60 miles an hour. You want to get every little bit of time you can with that person, especially when it’s two people. I think we’re working through that right now.”
ON Monday, RFK Racing has withdrawn their appeal of the penalty and the suspensions of jackman Nicholas Patterson and tire changer Jakob Prall will begin this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway. The crew members are suspended two weeks and can return to the track at the end of the month.
Travis Juedes will serve as the front tire changer and Samuel Wright will serve as the jackman during the suspensions. The two crewmen were a part of the over the wall crew for David Ragan in the number 60 car for the Daytona 500.