SHR withdraws appeal, Harvick's crew chief suspended for Martinsville

A NASCAR spokesman confirmed Tuesday night that the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing team had withdrawn its appeal of a penalty it received following the March 19 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix.

During inspection at NASCAR’s research and development center in Concord, N.C., the Wednesday following the race, NASCAR officials found an unapproved track bar slider assembly on the car.

Childers was fined $25,000 and suspended one race for the infraction. Harvick and the team were each docked 10 points, respectively.

When the team elected to appeal, Childers’ suspension was placed on hold until the hearing. With the appeal now withdrawn, he will serve the penalty this weekend.

On the debut of his radio show, “Happy Hours” on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Tuesday night, Harvick confirmed Childers would be on a “one-week vacation” this weekend.

“Basically we got in trouble for a part that was drawn a certain way and didn’t appear that way on the car,” Harvick said. “The way NASCAR works now is you submit drawings of pretty much every part on your car and it has to meet those specifications and that part didn’t meet it.

“Rodney’s going to get to go on vacation this week. I know this is probably one of the most painful weeks for him to go on vacation because Martinsville really hasn’t been our best track. He and everyone at our No. 4 team have put a lot of effort into trying to go a different direction and make our Martinsville stuff better than it has been.

“He’s obviously not too thrilled about not being at the race track this week.”