NASCAR Cup

Garage Chatter: Bristol

Berrier's penalty upheld: While NASCAR saw fit to overturn the suspensions of No. 48 crew chief Chad Knaus and No. 5 crew chief Alan Gustafson they were not so kind to the No. 29 team. Kevin Harvick's crew chief's month long suspension was upheld ...

Published: Apr 2, 2005, 8:50 PM

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Berrier's penalty upheld: While NASCAR saw fit to overturn the suspensions of No. 48 crew chief Chad Knaus and No. 5 crew chief Alan Gustafson they were not so kind to the No. 29 team.

Kevin Harvick's crew chief's month long suspension was upheld by the sanctioning body this week In addition to the suspension, the car owner and driver were docked 25 points and fines were levied. All decisions were upheld.

"It is impossible for me to describe how disappointed I am with NASCAR's penalty and appeal process,' noted a statement from Richard Childress Racing. "First of all, what Todd Berrier did was wrong and we deserve to be penalized. But I think suspending him for four weeks, in light of everything else that has happened in the past several weeks, is wrong. The infraction took place during qualifying and we were sent to the back of the field to start the race.

"Penalizing Kevin Harvick, who knew nothing about the infraction before the fact, is also wrong. NASCAR's decision to deduct driver points, whether it's Kevin Harvick or any other driver, does an injustice to the sponsors and everyone involved with the racing organization. There is no consistency in NASCAR's penalty and appeal process. It's black and white. You're either legal or you're not."

Burton to appear on "One Tree Hill": Jeff Burton will play himself on an episode of the wildly popular WB teen drama "One Tree Hill" during May sweeps. The storyline will be based on Burton mentoring one of the characters and their dream of becoming a stock car racer.

No. 14 to go part time: ppc Racing announced earlier this week that the No. 14 team of John Andretti will scale down to a part time schedule effective immediately.

In a statement from the team:

"We did not anticipate the major shift in the qualifying rules which force a non-locked-in team to qualify for a race or to go home, as it happened to us in Atlanta. The combination of the new qualifying rules and the fact that most events are impound races is a combination that does not work when you are forced to use a qualifying setup just to make the field. A qualifying set up will not race competitively. We have decided to turn our efforts to improving down force on our bodies to assist in the qualifying effort. This will also allow our primary cup sponsor to regroup their sponsorship package for the remainder of the year. In the near future we will announce a part-time schedule for this year and return stronger than ever full time in 2006."

Nextel still unsure of 2006 plans: With the merger of Sprint and Nextel rumors are swirling about how the company will deal with any name and/or signage changes for the 2006 season.

No changes will be made to anything this season but next year may see the incorporation of a new name and new color scheme to the sport.

Nextel representatives state that no decisions have been made regarding their NASCAR sports marketing program.

Although insiders are a fan of "Sprinting to the Nextel Cup" as a one of a myriad possibilities.

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