NASCAR announced Wednesday that its final appeals officer upheld reduced penalties imposed on Richard Childress Racing and Ryan Newman's team for illegal modifications to the tires on the No. 31 car.
Bryan Moss heard an appeal of the penalties issued March 31 to team owner Richard Childress, Newman, crew chief Lucas Lambert, tire technician James Bender and race engineer Philip Surgen. The modifications were discovered during an audit after the March 22 race at Auto Club Speedway.
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After nearly seven hours of discussion, Moss upheld six-race suspensions for Lambert and the two other crew members. They will return for the July 4 weekend race at Daytona. RCR will lose 50 championship driver and owner points and will have to pay a $75,000 fine.
The original penalties called for a loss of 75 championship driver and owner points and a $125,000 fine, but those figures were reduced in the team's first appeal on April 16.
Childress insists his team his team did nothing wrong.
"We do not agree with the final appeal ruling. We feel we had a compelling case and still feel we were in the right and the facts presented today would have proved that," Childress said. "We do appreciate the opportunity to be heard. We stand behind our suspended team members and look forward to their return. We will now move on and continue or goals of winning races and making the Chase for the Champion(ship)."
Lambert will remain on NASCAR probation through Dec. 31, joining Brian Scott's crew chief, Slugger Labbe, and Brad Keselowski's crew chief, Paul Wolfe, as team leaders on probation throughout 2015.