Haas CNC still deciding whether to appeal penalties

By Bob Pockrass - Associate Editor

Sunday, June 01, 2008

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DOVER, Del. – Haas CNC Racing has not yet decided whether it will appeal the penalties for illegal wing mounting locations found May 24 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, team competition director Matt Borland said Sunday morning.

NASCAR penalized the drivers and teams 150 points and suspended the two crew chiefs as well as the car chiefs for six races. In the past, NASCAR has docked 100 points and only suspended crew chiefs. NASCAR also has confiscated and kept the cars.

The team has another six days to decide whether to appeal.

“It’s their decision to make and we’ll deal with what we’ve got to deal with,” Borland said at Dover International Speedway. “I don’t know [about an appeal] right now.

“I feel bad for all the guys that aren’t here right now. To take four guys out of an organization is a hard thing to deal with. We’ll get
through it and get back after it in six weeks.”

Borland said there had been no indication that NASCAR would begin suspending car chiefs.

“It was pretty shocking,” Borland said. “[The penalty] is huge. … We’ve got a two-car race team. We get a lot of our equipment from other places so we don’t have that staff of people building those things.

“To take four of the top managers out of our program is a tough deal to handle.”

A former crew chief for Ryan Newman at Penske Racing and Dale Jarrett at Michael Waltrip Racing, Borland is serving as crew chief for driver Scott Riggs while Robert “Bootie” Barker is suspended.

A not as familiar face is crew chief of the No. 70 team, which failed to make the race with driver Jason Leffler at Dover. Steve
Genenbacher is the crew chief while Dave Skog is suspended.

Genenbacher had worked as a truck chief at MRD Motorsports (a Haas CNC Racing affiliate that competes in the truck series) last year and at the start of this year before moving to work with the Haas CNC Racing research and development team.

“Steve did a great job on the truck program,” Borland said. “He turned that program around to where they were in position to win a couple of races at the end of last year as well as this year. He’s got some experience to draw from there, [but] obviously not as much as he wants stepping into a Cup program halfway through the season.

“He did a great job on Friday and we’ll just try to make it better next week.”