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NASCAR America: How effective are penalties in deterring teams from crossing the line?

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Brad Keselowski was critical of NASCAR's penalties, but points penalties are still effective in providing limits.

This week Aric Almirola’s No. 43 team became the latest to lose its crew chief to a multi-race suspension and lose driver and owner points for an infraction in post-race inspection.

Almirola’s penalty and those levied against Brad Keselowski’s team, were over very small variances found in laser inspection.

On NASCAR America, analysts Steve Letarte and Greg Biffle discussed whether the tough penalties handed out by NASCAR actually keep teams from crossing the line when it comes to the rule book.

“You start the race with a certain amount of tolerances,” Letarte said. “The fans need to understand, the post-race inspection already has tolerances built-in. They understand you have raced the car. They have given a bigger variable.”

After a large amount of infractions last year, NASCAR said “enough” and made larger tolerances and stiffer penalties, said Letarte, who believes they are proper deterrents.

“It’s the perfect balance of a small news cycle, we’re going to talk about the 43 this week, by next week there’ll be something new,” Letarte said. “It’s not a huge shock wave through NASCAR, which penalties used to be. Yet that 43 car is going to feel that penalty all year long.”

Watch the video for the full discussion about penalties.