He held off the rookie in the final 14 laps to win the Alliance Truck Parts 250 at Michigan International Speedway and extend his lead in the series standings. He took the checkered flag minutes before a light rain began to fall on the race track.

Parker Kligerman gambled rain would end the race short of the scheduled 125 laps but lost the lead when he had to pit with 13 to go. That opened the door for Smith, who kept his No. 7 Chevy ahead of a charging Larson in the final 10 laps.

“I felt confident even though he was drafting up to me,” said Smith, who found himself near the front after a Lap 99 stop for fuel.

“It seemed like once we got the car out front it really came to life. (Crew chief) Greg (Ives) made some really good calls to get us the track position.”

Ives said he did all he could to make sure his driver got as close to the front of the pack as he could in the closing laps.

“The strategy was to get him up front and let him get confident and comfortable,” he said.

It made for a pleasant homecoming for Ives, a native of Bark River in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

There was no caution flag after Austin Dillon brushed the wall with five laps to go and Larson, who was steadily gaining on Smith in the closing laps, never got a chance to take the lead.

Sprint Cup Series regular Paul Menard gave Chevy a sweep of the top three spots and Kyle Busch and Trevor Bayne rounded out the top-five finishers.

It was the second win of the season and third career series win for Smith, who also was first at Talladega in early May. It’s the 11th straight time he’s finished in the top 10.

Smith, who started 11th, paid tribute to late driver Jason Leffler by displaying a decal over the door pillar of his car and promised a portion of his $45,440 winnings to the trust fund created to assist Leffler’s 5-year-old son.

Leffler, a two-time winner on the Nationwide circuit, died last week after his sprint car crashed at a dirt track in New Jersey. A moment of silence in his honor was held before the start of the race.

Larson, the series’ top rookie, finished in the top five for the fourth time this season and matched his career-best runner-up finish at Bristol.

“It’d be nice to hurry up and get the win,” he said. “I think it’s coming soon. We’re getting better every week. Once we go to the tracks a second time I hopefully should start out the races better and hopefully maintain track position.”

Drivers qualified under warm conditions earlier in the day but took the green flag under overcast, muggy skies that made the track slick. The forecast was threatening, but rain never came.

Pole winner Dillon looked strongest in the first half of the race but opted not to pit with the rest of the lead pack after a lap 64 caution. A flat left-rear tire soon dropped him a lap down and he ended the day 20th after his late-race contact with the wall.

Joey Logano took the lead after a lap 86 restart but gave it to Kligerman when he pitted 13 laps later. Kligerman was 19th in the unofficial standings but was dropped to 25th after speeding onto pit road for his final stop.

Dillon set a new track qualifying record with a lap of 191.882 mph earlier in the day to earn his fourth straight Coors Light Pole Award, a Nationwide Series record.

It was the second straight hard-luck outing for Dillon, who led 207 of 250 laps a week earlier at Iowa but finished second to Bayne.

Sam Hornish Jr., who started the day second in the standings, left the race on lap 81 after a piece of debris broke his oil pump. It dropped him to 32nd and widened his deficit in the standings.

Hornish fell from 23 points behind Smith to 58. Justin Allgaier crept to just a point behind him.

“There is nothing wrong with our Roush Yates engine other than we hit a piece of debris,” Hornish said. “We knew we had a good car that was capable of winning. It just wasn’t our day.”

The race wasn’t quite a lap old before the first caution came out. Alex Bowman and Travis Pastrana spun in turn 4 before Brian Vickers crashed into Jeffrey Earnhardt. The latter two cars sustained significant damage.

Vickers, seventh in the series points standings before the start of the race, got back on the track but finished 33rd, 45 laps off the lead. The lead dropped him back to 10th in the standings.

Dexter Stacey brought out the day’s second yellow flag when he struck the turn 3 wall on lap 7.

The 22-year-old joked over the radio that he should have gotten married a long time ago after he concluded a stunning and exciting late-race comeback Sunday.

Bayne exchanged vows with new wife, Ashton, on Tuesday and celebrated their honeymoon by winning the NASCAR Nationwide Series DuPont Pioneer 250 at Iowa Speedway. He endured the long day that included a more than one hour rain delay for his first Nationwide win this season and second of his career.

The married couple was reunited in victory lane, Bayne’s pass with 11 laps remaining to pass Austin Dillon, who had led a whopping 207 laps.

“It’s such a special week for me,” Bayne said. “I was teared up at the altar on Tuesday and teared up on victory lane on Sunday.”

The Roush Fenway team was all smiles, including Ashton, who attended the post-race press conference. The victory was the fourth in the last five Nationwide races at Iowa Speedway for crew chief Mike Kelley, who guided Ricky Stenhouse to three straight wins here in 2011 and 2012.

“This team at Iowa has been so good,” Bayne said. “It’s such an opportunity and a blessing to be a part of this team.”

Bayne closed the gap and pulled alongside Dillon with about 15 laps remaining when Dillon seemed slower due to lap traffic.

The pair made contact and Dillon became loose, allowing Bayne to pass and pull away for the victory.

“We ran him down,” said Bayne, who earned a second straight top-five finish and fourth overall this season. “We were able to race him pretty hard.”

The long runs seemed to benefit Bayne more than Dillon. It played a factor that the race remained green for the last 72 laps after the fifth and final caution. The goal was to keep Dillon in sight for the late surge and it became a strong possibility about five laps before the final lead change, according to Bayne.

“We weren’t great on the short run, but the long run we could really get after him,” Bayne said. “I knew we had to keep that lead to a minimum, while he was fast on the restart, so we could catch him at the end of the run.”

It also marked the 200th win for a Ford car on the Nationwide Series, which began in 1982 and ranks second to Chevrolet (376). Kelley said the team had to make huge progress on the car’s setup to contend for a win and provide that wedding present they wanted for the happy couple.

“Actually, when we unloaded we weren’t that good,” Kelley said. “Trevor did a really good job of telling us where we were wrong and what we needed to work on.”

They had to make numerous adjustments during a day of inconsistent conditions that varied between sunny and cloudy and dry and rainy. They had to constantly adapt, preferring the cloud cover. The race originally was scheduled for Saturday night but postponed due to rain.

“Our car changed very dramatically when the clouds were out to when the sun was out,” Bayne said. “We picked up two-tenths versus the competition as soon as the clouds were out. That was part of the reason we caught Austin at the end of that run.”

The team has faced adversity on and off the track all season long. They have persevered through tests, so the conditions, including the long delay, were easy to handle.

“Days like today are becoming (easier) for us because of all the things we’ve had to go through,” Kelley said. “We’ve had people in and out, crazy things happen to us on the race track we’ve seen happen to us before (and) we have to go back and rebound.”

Dillon dominated nearly the entire race, leading 156 of the first 187 laps.

Instead, the power wasn’t there at the end to close out the dominating performance. He said the No. 3 car didn’t have enough drive into the corner and Bayne was better at the end.

“We could get a big lead but started fading fast at the end of those runs,” Dillon said. “That’s just part of it.”

He didn’t seem to have an issue with the late contact with Bayne, who made contact with Regan Smith during a restart before the rain delay that helped Dillon jump from fourth to first before the red flag.

“That was good racing,” Dillon said. “Nothing wrong there.”

Dillon posted his best finish of the season, earning his third straight pole. He now has six top-five finishes and seven in the top 10.

“We’ll keep improving,” Dillon said. “It was a good points day.”

Elliott Sadler recorded another top-five finish at Iowa Speedway. He placed third, but was too far away to challenge the top two. Sadler rebounded from a disappointed finish at Dover International Speedway last week.

Things appear to be moving in the right direction.

“We knew coming into Iowa we could be competitive and run up front,” Sadler said. “We showed that today. This is a good momentum builder for me and my race team.”

Sam Hornish Jr., who battled Dillon for early, finished fourth after leading 22 laps. He now trails season points leader Regan Smith by 23 points. Smith finished seventh.

Kyle Larson, the highest finishing rookie, rounded out the top-five.

Logano trailed race leader Kyle Busch by five seconds with 40 laps left, but a two-tire under the fifth and final caution got Logano out front for a restart with 34 laps left, while a four-tire choice on the same pit stop buried Kyle Busch in traffic and changed the course of the race.

The victory was Logano’s first of the season, his third straight at the Monster Mile and the 19th of his career. Brian Vickers ran second, .576 seconds behind Logano. Matt Kenseth finished third, followed by Trevor Bayne. Busch passed Sam Hornish Jr. for the fifth spot in the closing laps.

“It feels great to get back in Victory Lane,” Logano said. “This is my favorite race track. I love coming up to the Northeast — that’s where I’m from (Connecticut)…

“Really the winning call was on that last pit stop, when (crew chief) Jeremy (Bullins) made an audible and decided to do two tires.”

Bullins made the decisive call after observing that Busch was taking four and that there were enough other cars taking two tires to form a buffer between Logano and Busch.

Bullins said he made the snap decision as his crew was dropping the jack on the right side of the car.

“We had to let the jack man run around, but, luckily for us, there was still enough room for us to let the jack man come around the front of the car, leave pit road and still come out with the lead,” Bullins said. “That was really the difference. It was late (making) the call, but that’s just the way it plays out, and a lot of times you have to make a split decision like that.”

Kasey Kahne was an integral part of the third caution, on Lap 113, when he made Mike Wallace pay for repeatedly holding him up by punting Wallace’s car off Turn 2. Kahne used the opportunity to grab the race lead, thanks to a two-tire call under the yellow on Lap 114.

Kahne held off Busch after the restart on Lap 121, but a quick caution a lap later — after Reed Sorenson’s Chevy stalled at the exit from pit road — gave Busch another shot at a restart on Lap 129. Busch cleared Kahne into Turn 1 on the restart lap and opened a lead of nearly one second.

But a caution for Dexter Stacey’s spinoff Turn 4 on Lap 161 turned the race upside-down.

Busch and Kahne took four tires on a Lap 163 pit stop under caution, while nine other lead-lap cars went with two-tire calls and came out ahead of Busch and Kahne, who restarted 10th and 11th, respectively.

Mired in traffic, Busch struggled to move forward, and Logano, who led the field to green on Lap 167, drove away.

Vickers, the 2003 Nationwide Series champion, mirrored Logano’s tire strategy on the final caution and left the track with the satisfaction of a runner-up finish — but with an unsated hunger for a victory.

“Today was a good run for us,” said Vickers, who is in his inaugural Nationwide season with Joe Gibbs Racing. “As much as I want to win, I can’t deny that. We’ve got to take those moments when they come. Starting with a new team, a new organization, a new crew chief, a new everything this year, it’s most certainly taken us a little bit of time, probably a little longer than we wanted to really get into the rhythm of things.”

Annett suffered the broken sternum in an accident during the season-opening Drive4COPD 300 at Daytona International Speedway.

Annett underwent surgery for his injuries and has spent the last three month healing. To prepare for his return, Annett began physical therapy three weeks ago.

Kyle Busch held off Kasey Kahne during a closing, 13-lap green-flag run to win Saturday’s History 300 Nationwide Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway and continue his wholesale revision of NASCAR’s record books.

Busch beat Kahne to the finish line by .939 seconds to claim a record seventh NNS victory at Charlotte, breaking a tie with Mark Martin for supremacy at the speedway. In winning for the sixth time in nine starts this season, Busch extended his record for all-time NNS wins to 57.

Busch led 186 of 200 laps, a personal best on a 1.5-mile speedway.

Before the race started, Busch mentioned that he’d like to break the tie with Martin, Clearly, the record was on his mind.

“Every time you’re tied with somebody, you want to beat ‘em,” Busch said after the race. “But when you’re tied with the greats in this sport, like the Mark Martins or the Jack Ingrams, it makes it pretty special to beat those guys and the records they set at different tracks, whatever’s been done before.

“It’s never easy, but I felt like we had a good car, and we were in good position. I told (crew chief) Adam (Stevens), ‘If this track gets hot, these guys are in trouble,’ because they seem to slide around a little more than we do. I felt like our car was really good, so I’m proud of the fact that what I felt actually came true today.”

Joey Logano ran third, followed by rookie Kyle Larson and Kevin Harvick. Trevor Bayne, Justin Allgaier, Matt Kenseth, Parker Kligerman and series leader Regan Smith completed the top 10.
Kahne got to the bumper of Busch’s No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota with eight laps left, but Busch adjusted his line and inched away.

“I got there and just didn’t get to his outside,” Kahne said. “I came close but didn’t get to him, and then he went to the top, and from that point I was a little bit on the tight side. I just wasn’t turning quite good enough…

“I couldn’t keep up. He kept good momentum on the top and was able to creep away a little bit. I thought we were close, and if he didn’t move up, I thought we would have had a really good shot.”

Busch, however, hadn’t run the top of the track all afternoon and wasn’t certain what would happen when he moved up.

“There towards the end, I did have to race hard with Kasey,” Busch said. “He was catching me a little bit on the outside think he was beating me down the straightaway, so I moved up to protect my momentum and do the same thing he was doing, and it seemed to help me. It seemed to allow me to drive away from him a little bit.

“I hadn’t been up there all day, so I was kind of worried about the fact that my car wouldn’t work up there, but it felt good, and it was certainly fast.”

Logano, who got the most out of his afternoon after an early flat tire, knows only too well how difficult it can be to beat Busch. Logano and Busch were teammates at JGR before Logano moved to Penske Racing this year.

“You have a great team there–guys I worked with for the last six years or so–so I know they’re a good team,” Logano said. “I know Kyle Busch is a good driver. Put all that together, and you’re going to have one heck of a deal trying to beat these guys. We’ve got to go back and work harder than them.”

With 50 laps left, Busch had a lead of 3.897 seconds over Sam Hornish Jr. immediately after a round of green-flag pit stops, but a caution on Lap 153 bunched the field for a restart on Lap 158.

Busch pulled away again, but caution flew again on Lap 165 when Travis Pastrana’s Ford spun off Turn 2 and plowed nose-first into the inside wall. Busch and Kahne were among eight drivers who stayed out under the yellow, but Harvick came to pit road for fresh tires, restarted 10th on Lap 173 and was up to fourth when Reed Sorenson’s spin caused caution No. 6 on Lap 178.

Despite the older rubber, Busch held the top spot after a restart with 17 laps left, but a collision between Michael Annett and Dakoda Armstrong on Lap 184 reset the field again, with Busch, Kahne, Harvick and Kligerman running first through fourth for a restart on Lap 188.

Notes: Smith added one point to his series lead over second-place Hornish, who finished 12th Saturday but led nine laps. The margin is 29 points… Annett finished 17th in his first race since the season opener at Daytona, where he was sidelined by an injury to his sternum… Busch recorded the 17th perfect driver rating of his NASCAR national series career. That was his second straight such performance, following a perfect 150-point rating May 10 at Darlington.

Stevens has been fined $10,000 and is also on probation until the end of the year.

The rules violations referred to Sections 12-1 (actions detrimental to stock car racing); 12-4J (any determination by NASCAR officials that the race equipment used in the event does not conform to NASCAR rules detailed in Section 20-A of the rule book); 20A-2.1E (streamlining of the contours of the car, beyond what is approved by the series director will not be permitted. Installation of air directional devices, underpans, baffles, shields or the like beneath the car or the car’s hood and fender area, front firewall, floor, rear firewall area, rear deck and quarter panel area will not be permitted. If, in the judgment of NASCAR officials, any part or component of the car not previously approved by NASCAR has been installed or modified to enhance aerodynamic performance, will not be permitted. Addition of body fillers of any type, to the underside of the body, chassis or suspension components will not be permitted. All cars must remain standard in appearance); 20A-3.10A (front upper bumper cover must be from the respective OEM manufacturer and must be approved by NASCAR. The front lower bumper cover and rear bumper cover must be from an approved manufacturer and must be approved by NASCAR. Once approved, the front lower bumper covers may be used on all approved models. NASCAR officials may use bumper covers provided by the respective manufacturer as a guide in determining whether a competitor’s bumper cover conforms to the specifications of the NASCAR rule book. Unless otherwise authorized by the series director, cutting and reshaping of bumper covers will not be permitted.)

Jackson L. Dodson II, a crew member in the Sprint Cup Series and Frank W. Earnhardt, a crew member in the Nationwide Series, were indefinitely suspended from NASCAR for violating Sections 12-1 (actions detrimental to stock car racing) and 19 (violation of the NASCAR substance abuse policy) of the 2013 NASCAR Rule Book.

The strategy was basic—win the pole, stay out front and win the race with the strongest car, and Busch did an admirable job in every category. He dusted the rest of the field at the venerable track in the South Carolina sandhills, pulling away to win the VFW Sport Clips Help a Hero 200 by .935 over Elliott Sadler, who recovered from an early spin to finish second.

Brian Vickers came home third, followed by Joey Logano and Matt Kenseth. With cars in first, second, third and fifth, Joe Gibbs Racing became the first organization to place four cars in the top five of a Nationwide Series race.

Rookie Kyle Larson ran sixth, followed by Regan Smith, who extended his series lead by 28 points over eighth-place finisher Sam Hornish Jr.

The victory was Busch’s fifth in eight NNS starts this season. Busch, who led 107 of 147 laps, extended his career win record in the series to 56. Busch scored a perfect Driver Rating of 150.0, his 16th perfect rating since NASCAR started keeping the statistic in 2005.

Busch won the race on a track that has started to regain the abrasive characteristic of the racing surface that was a hallmark of the Darlington before a repaving project in 2008. Realizing that, Busch insisted on a four-tire stop on lap 121, even though his tires were only eight laps old, and that move helped win the race.

Busch also was able to pull away from his rivals trough Turns 1 and 2, the wider end of the egg-shaped track.

“You want to be good at both ends here, but there’s a lot of speed in 1 and 2, so you’re going to have to take advantage of that as best you can,” Busch said. “Three and 4 is an end where—I’m not going to say slower is faster—but maintaining a minimum speed is faster down there.

“But it seems like it’s a little easier to do than not having a good-handling car in 1 and 2. There’s a littler margin of error in Turn 1 and 2.”

Sadler found that out the hard way when he spun in that corner while trying to keep up with Busch. Sadler explained that he simply misjudged the corner and got loose.

“I was pushing it, trying to keep up with the 54 (Busch),” Sadler said. “I wanted to get up there and try to lead some laps and just went in there too hard and got loose and had to make a decision whether to spin out or try to correct it, and I overcorrected and spun out.

“Lady Luck helped me from not hitting anything.”

About the only thing that could slow Busch’s progress was an issue on pit road. Busch came out sixth after a slow stop on Lap 51 under yellow for Sadler’s spin.

Charging forward after the restart, Busch was on Kenseth’s bumper, challenging for the lead by the time the race reached Lap 74, just past halfway.

For the next eight laps, Busch hounded Kenseth, finally clearing his teammate for the lead on Lap 82. Busch held the top spot until a caution on Lap 119 for Kyle Fowler’s wreck changed the running order again.

Logano and Austin Dillon stayed out on old tires and led the field to a Lap 125 restart. Sadler restarted third after a two-tire stop, while Busch took the green in fourth on four fresh tires.

Busch made short work of the drivers on older rubber and passed Logano for the lead on Lap 130. Game over.

With a push from teammate Kasey Kahne, Smith roared out of the pack during the final 400 yards of a green-white-checkered-flag finish and won a race decided when NASCAR called the seventh and final caution an instant before the four cars battling for the win crossed the finish line.

Smith was the leader as the field was frozen when NASCAR called the caution. Kahne was first across the stripe but was scored in third place behind Smith and Joey Logano, who were the two lead drivers when the caution lights came on.

This was the same Regan Smith who was deprived of victory in a race he thought he had won at Talladega in 2008, when NASCAR demoted him to the 18th position for passing Tony Stewart below the yellow boundary line as the cars approached the checkered flag.

“I was having flashbacks, sitting on pit road–I’m not going to lie–when they were making the decision,” Smith said. “I was like ‘Man, I hope we got it–I’m pretty sure we got it when the flag came out and I saw the lights come on… They only thing I didn’t know was if they took it all the way to the stripe.

“I don’t know if it’s vindication or not. I think I’d gotten over that and gotten past that, but I definitely wanted to win here … but you want to win every week, and it definitely helps wipe that bad memory away of sitting on pit road and finding out you’re 18th instead. So, yeah, that was kind of cool.”

Smith took over the series lead, by 27 points over Sam Hornish Jr. in a race whose start was delayed three hours because of rain. It’s the first time JR Motorsports has led the Nationwide Series standings. It was also the first victory as a crew chief for Greg Ives.

Kahne was surprised NASCAR called the final caution instead of letting the race play out to conclusion.

“I think there’s been plenty of times (when) there’ve been wrecks in (Turn) 4 or 3, and we’ve just raced to the line at the end,” Kahne said. “As soon as they started wrecking, I saw the caution. I still raced to the line, and we had a good enough run to get there and be first there, but I was surprised the caution came out.

“I knew I was third when the caution came out, and I knew I was first at the line… My spotter after the race was like, ‘I think we won,’ but I was thinking the whole time, ‘There’s no way. The caution was out.’”

Busch was leading on Lap 93 when contact between Hornish’s Ford and Eric McClure’s Toyota ignited a spectacular 12-car wreck that sidelined the series leader entering the race (Hornish), among others.

NASCAR then opted to shorten the race by 10 laps because of impending darkness, but four laps after a restart on Lap 101, Joey Coulter’s contact with the outside wall caused the sixth caution and set up the two-lap dash to the finish.

On Lap 14, Danica Patrick spun off the bumper of series rookie Kyle Larson, her Turner Scott Motorsports teammate-for-a-day and slid though the waterlogged infield grass, damaging her No. 34 Chevrolet extensively. After losing a lap on pit road, Patrick brought the car to the garage and called it a day.

Patrick, hardly a grizzled veteran herself, attributed the wreck to Larson’s inexperience with the tandem racing that characterizes the Nationwide Series at restrictor-plate tracks. Larson, who was attempting to push Patrick’s car when the wreck occurred, found trouble of his own on Lap 35, when he blew a tire, spun and took Jeffrey Earnhardt’s Ford with him.

The hardest hit of the race, however, came on Lap 71 when pole sitter Travis Pastrana nosed into the outside backstretch wall during a three-car incident that started when Brian Scott turned the Ford of Reed Sorenson.

Sorenson hit the outside wall and spun back across the track into Pastrana’s path. Pastrana blamed himself for being in harm’s way and for not reacting quickly enough when he saw Sorenson spin.

“I just get an award for being stupid,” Pastrana said after leaving the infield care center. “We had the two fastest cars on the track (with Roush Fenway Racing teammate Trevor Bayne). We could have been a half-lap down just pushing each other, not worrying about anything.

“We all said we were going to sit back the whole race, and then, all of sudden, we’re up there racing just like a bunch of fools up front… Everything kind of happened.”

In the closing laps of the race, Scott was limping to a 15th-place finish when he got together with Nelson Piquet Jr, which knocked Scott out of the groove in Turn 2. Scott dropped from 15th down to 20th.

On the cool down lap, Scott, of Richard Childress Racing,  cut in front of Piquet, or Turner Scott Motorsports.

When the two cars stopped on pit road and exited their cars, Piquet pushed and kicked Scott, a kick Scott called “below the belt.” The two crews almost came to blows.

Scott said:

I was just showing my displeasure with him after the race and then things escalated. I went to talk to him, I was a little heated and the camera probably shows it, but he kicks me right below the belt, which I think is a below-the-belt type of shot.

Scott and Piquet were called to the NASCAR hauler.

Evidently, an earlier incident between Dillon, also of RCR, and Allgaier, of TSM, caused the tension between the two teams. The incident between Scott and Piquet only intensified the tension.

Later, Henrico County police were called to the driver/owner lot at Richmond and two RCR crew members were arrested. Michael A. Scearce and Thomas F. Costello, of RCR’s No. 2 team, the car driven by Scott, were taken into custody for their part in an alleged assault in which two adult males were injured. Both were charged with misdemeanors and released.

Richard Childress talked about the incident:

I didn’t witness what took place last night outside of the race track. Our team members were walking to their cars and words were exchanged with members from another team, which led to an altercation. I am still learning all the exact details and, because it did happen outside of the track, local authorities became involved. We are working with them to resolve this matter.

Turner Scott Motorsports released a statement:

Turner Scott Motorsports can confirm that an incident occurred near the Driver/Owner parking lot of Richmond International Raceway following the NASCAR Nationwide Series race on Friday, April 26th. Several members of another race team confronted a group that included Nelson Piquet Jr., resulting in the arrest of two individuals from the other race team. TSM will have no further comment on the incident as the matter is an active case with the Henrico Police Department.

Update: NASCAR found that Richard Childress Racing crew members Thomas Costello and Michael Scearce were in violation of Sections 12-1 (actions detrimental to stock car racing) of the NASCAR rule book. Both crew members were suspended for four Nationwide Series events, and both were each fined  $15,000. They were also put on NASCAR probation until the end of the calendar year.

Update 2: Richard Childress Racing appealed the penalties handed down by NASCAR. After reviewing the facts,  the National Stock Car Racing Appeals Panel decided to uphold the original penalties. RCR can now appeal this decision to the ational Stock Car Racing Chief Appellate Officer John Middlebrook.