Denny Hamlin reacts to Chase Briscoe appeal reversal for No. 19 team

Some of the biggest news in NASCAR this season came down last week, when the National Motorsports Appeal Panel overturned a penalty against Chase Briscoe. Not just any penalty, but a massive penalty.

Briscoe had been docked 100 points, 10 playoff points and fined $100,000 for modifications to his car’s spoiler at the Daytona 500. The panel overturned the ruling and the penalties.

That put Chase Briscoe back on the map. A 100-point deduction would have put him way behind the 8-ball.

“Whoa, man, Briscoe, it’s a good thing he got those points back or this would have been a nightmare start,” Denny Hamlin said on the Actions Detrimental podcast. “I mean it’s not been great as it is, but obviously a great turn of circumstances, them winning their appeal. I can tell you firsthand it is very, very hard the way things are set up to win an appeal in NASCAR. You’re essentially appealing to the same people that gave you the penalty.”

The initial overturning of the penalty took Chase Briscoe from 46th in the points standings to 17th. So there’s still plenty of work to be done.

And Briscoe’s year has not started off hot, as Hamlin pointed out. His best finish was a P4 result at Daytona. Outside of that, Briscoe has finished 14th (COTA), 21st (Atlanta) and 35th (Phoenix).

He’ll have to get it going. But at least now he doesn’t have a giant weight hanging from his neck.

“It’s just, man, it’s great for them,” Hamlin said. “Obviously I don’t know the circumstances of it, I don’t know what their argument was. I’m way too busy to get into the nuts and bolts of it to figure out what happened, how did it happen. But obviously three people that they had on the board there looked at it, saw all the facts and felt like it was warranted to reverse it.”

Of course, Chase Briscoe is coming off a very disappointing finish at Phoenix. His day was ended after he got into a wreck with Justin Haley and other drivers.

Haley was pinned to the inside of the track by Ty Gibbs coming up, and Briscoe’s car then made contact with Haley’s coming down. Both cars careened out of control and that was the end of the day for them.

To his credit, Chase Briscoe admitted fault for the wreck. He did so in a post-race interview on FS1.

In any case, penalty behind him now, Briscoe and his team will be looking to string together a few more positive results. That starts this weekend in Las Vegas.