Cup Series team faces NASCAR grilling after postrace controversy in St Louis

NASCAR will open up discussions this week with a team over its drivers' actions at Gateway last Sunday.

Trackhouse Racing stars Ross Chastain and Shane van Gisbergen were both seen driving through the grass multiple times on the way to pit road after Sunday's race ended, something which was mentioned by at least one other driver on their team radio.

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"Hey," fellow playoff driver Alex Bowman noted, "the Trackhouse cars are driving through the grass. That's kinda cool."

The likely reason for the off-track excursions was for the pair to pick up some extra weight via the loose dirt in the grass, with Corey LaJoie explaining on social media: “They post all the Playoff cars [in inspection]. Trying to pick up a couple pounds of grass, rocks, rubber to let you[r] car chief feel a little better when you roll across the scale.”

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NASCAR director issues warning over rule exploit

Brad Moran, managing director of the NASCAR Cup Series, went on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Tuesday morning and admitted that the organization will be in contact with Trackhouse over the incident.

Moran appeared to imply that the team will be warned – and the warning passed on to the rest of the grid – against driving onto the grass deliberately after the chequered flag, with some possible penalties handed down for repeat occurrences.

“We’ll have be having some discussions with Trackhouse in management as well as their crew chiefs, and we’ll be giving all the teams some information regarding that this week.

“It certainly caught our radar. We have rules that could put the teams in a real bad spot when we see that. So, we’ll make it pretty clear to them, moving forward, starting at Bristol what that means.”

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