Kenseth Wins Most Of His Appeals

NASCAR got most of it right.
From ESPN: A NASCAR appeals panel sided with Joe Gibbs Racing on Wednesday and eased some of the penalties imposed for having an illegal part in Matt Kenseth's race-winning engine at Kansas last month.
NASCAR punished JGR after discovering during a post-race inspection that one of eight connecting rods in the engine at the April 21 race did not meet the minimum weight requirement. The part was too light by 3 grams, less than the weight of an envelope.
JGR did not dispute the part was illegal, but argued the penalties were too severe because it leases its engines from Toyota Racing Development and is not permitted to touch anything inside of them. Toyota accepted responsibility and insisted one light rod did not give Kenseth a performance advantage.
The three-member National Stock Car Racing Appeals Panel agreed and dramatically reduced almost every penalty.
The points deducted from Kenseth were reduced from 50 to 12, which moves him from 11th in the standings to fourth. The panel also reinstated the three bonus points he earned for the victory for seeding in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship.
The panel also reduced crew chief Jason Ratcliff's suspension from six races to one race, and eliminated the six-race suspension for owner Joe Gibbs. It let stand Ratcliff's $200,000 fine. The only action the panel took was increasing Toyota's penalty from a five-point fine to seven points.
"Glad to have today behind us so we can get our focus back on racing. I respect NASCAR and the appeals process, I feel like they got it right," Kenseth posted on Twitter.
Gibbs said he was done with the process and would not appeal anything further.
"Right now, we just want to get back to racing," the team owner said.  http://espn.go.com/racing/story/_/id/9255440/nascar-reduces-penalties-matt-kenseth-joe-gibbs-racing
Jason Ratcliff still got screwed with his fine and hopefully Toyota will pay his fine and any other money lost by Kenseth and Joe Gibbs racing.