NASCAR displays Joey Logano's altered racing glove

On Saturday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Cup Series managing director Brad Moran showcased the glove NASCAR confiscated at Atlanta from Logano, which featured webbing between each of the fingers, including a large section between the thumb and index finger.

Logano – who had qualified second – was sent to the rear of the field for Sunday’s race and had to serve a pass-through penalty after taking the green flag. He also was handed a $10,000 fine this week for utilizing gloves that were not SFI certified.

Team Penske did not appeal.

“As you can see, the entire glove is wrapped. So, the reason for that is obviously you can block more air,” Moran explained. “You know the drivers do put their hand up against the (window net) opening which we’ve never really had a rule against it.

“This, obviously, goes one step further and this becomes not only a competition problem, it also becomes a safety violation, because that glove is no longer SFI approved. Regardless of what the material is made of, regardless of who put it on there, it’s not as delivered.”

In Fox Sports video of Logano’s qualifying lap at Atlanta, he can be seen taking his left hand with the webbed glove up against the window netting several times.

Moran said the issues with the glove were discovered by a random safety check down through in-car cameras throughout the race weekend. Because of the black colour of the gloves, it made the webbing difficult to discover.

Glove of Joey Logano, Team Penske

Photo by: Jim Utter

Rule changes needed?

Asked if the glove’s discovery could prompt a rule change, Moran said, “They’ve been doing it for decades, you know, and it gets talked about. So, I wouldn’t sit here and say it might not ever change, but as of right now, we don’t (foresee a change).

“It’s very hard to control and we don’t tell the drivers where their hands need to be when they’re qualifying.”

Moran said he had never seen gloves modified to such an extent.

“For me, this is a one-off,” he said. “It’s pretty, you know, pretty smart I guess in one way. Whether it’s been used in the past, we wouldn’t know that. We certainly have never caught it.”

Also Saturday, Moran displayed the roof deflectors that were confiscated from Stewart-Haas Racing’s Nos. 10 and 41 Fords at Atlanta. Both teams lost 35 owner and driver points for the infraction.

The deflectors had indentations added around the bolts which prevented them from lying flat on the car roof’s surface.