Kurt Busch: NASCAR will "clean up a lot of what's been going on"

On Wednesday, NASCAR revealed a new set of penalties created to prevent teams from benefiting from "egregious" rule violations.

Although NASCAR will still not strip teams of race wins, they can and will take away any of the Chase benefits obtained through a victory or strong finish. 

We need to discourage some of the things that are going on in the garage area

Jimmie Johnson

According to the new provisions, any team that fails LIS inspection by a predetermined amount (one that has yet to be exceeded in 2016) or has at least three lug nuts missing/unsecured, will have what is being referred to as an "encumbered race finish.”

During Chase Media Day, Motorsport.com spoke with several top drivers about the sanctioning body's decision to take a much stricter approach to infractions with a championship on the line.

Toyota drivers comment

"It makes me nervous that NASCAR is going to be more strict, they’re already pretty strict," admitted Carl Edwards. "But it just makes it such that we have to focus more on getting everything right. We want them to be very tough and make everyone follow the rules and penalize everyone the same."

Another Toyota driver, Martin Truex Jr., failed LIS just last weekend at Richmond. The penalty he received really had no effect on the team since they are already in the Chase and the point penalty was assessed to the regular seasons standings, pre-reset.

"I don’t think we’re any more worried about it than any other week. It’s a really tight tolerance and everybody is trying to get everything they can and sometimes, you step over the line a little bit," said Truex.

"But I think the rules they put in place with the penalties and the lug nut rule, they are good changes. You don’t want a guy hitting four lug nuts on the last pit stop to win the race (at Homestead) and then they can’t penalize them. What’s a point penalty and fine going to do? They won. They definitely had really good foresight to make sure these things don’t happen. I think they handled it well."

Violations aren't always black-and-white

Truex later added, "You just hope you don’t get into one of those situations by accident."

If you're wondering what he means when he talks about failing "by accident," six-time Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson has a clarification. The Hendrick Motorsports driver noted that although the changes are a good move, they also come with an undesirable side effect.

"We need to discourage some of the things that are going on in the garage area, especially post-race. If you win and get a point penalty, a monetary fine, but still get the upside of the win and to transfer on and win the championship, that's not right. So I think it's a good call.

"Crew chiefs are going to get even more stressed out because NASCAR doesn't care why you fail. There have been a few instances where LIS is failed due to parts that have failed or are breaking, not manipulation. They know it, they see it, but the rule is now black-and-white and it can certainly catch somebody out."

Stewart-Haas drivers aren't concerned

Kurt Busch also believes the changes are necessary, saying, "We’re seeing cars like Truex who didn’t pass inspection last week. The week before at Darlington, he won. And there really wasn’t a penalty. There’s a lot of things going on in tech after the race. We’re now right on top of it and we know exactly what the penalties are, which are very harsh now, so that’s going to clean up a lot of what’s been going on this year. 

"You just want things to be clear and more black and white and this will help with that our team really hasn’t had any issues with that."

Meanwhile, Kevin Harvick was quite to the point when asked about the provisions, telling Motorsport.com, "I saw the email with all the new rules and I just deleted it, just for the fact that our team hasn’t had any issues with that."