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DGM Racing wins appeal, gets back 75 driver, owner points

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Denny Hamlin believes track position played a key role in Sunday's result at Michigan and says that he hates giving up wins to the No. 4 of Kevin Harvick.

Xfinity Series team DGM Racing has won its appeal of a L2-level penalty assed by NASCAR regarding an alleged violation of its private testing policy.

On Wednesday, the three-person National Motorsports Appeals Panel overturned a penalty that docked DGM Racing 75 owner points and 75 points for driver Alex Labbe. It also overturned a $50,000 fine for team owner Mario Gosselin.

Getting 75 points back puts Labbe at 323 points entering Saturday’s race on the Daytona road course (3 p.m. ET on NBCSN). That puts him 16th in standings. Fifteenth is Daniel Hemric at 328 points. Brandon Brown holds the final Xfinity playoff spot at 403 points. Labbe is 80 points out of final playoff spot with eight races left until the playoffs.

The overturned penalty was issued Aug. 4 following an SCCA event the previous weekend on the Daytona road course that Labbe participated in.

NASCAR Cup, Xfinity and Truck teams will race for the first time on the Daytona road course this weekend. There will be no practice before each race. Drivers are not permitted to compete in more than one series event as a way to get extra track time.

Labbe was listed in Regional Race Group 7 in a 2019 Chevrolet Camaro. The 2019 Chevrolet Camaro is the approved model for Chevy teams in the Xfinity Series.

NASCAR viewed that as an illegal test because of the car used. Section 5.1.a of the Xfinity rule book states: “Private vehicle testing by any race team, employee, contractor, affiliate, associate, subsidiary, or surrogate is strictly prohibited.”

Section 5.1.d of the Xfinity rule book states: “NASCAR, in its sole discretion, will determine in advance what constitutes an authorized test. In general, only tests conducted under the NASCAR National Series Unified Testing policy are considered to be authorized tests.”

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