Penske drops appeal against Blaney crew suspension

Team Penske has withdrawn its appeal against the four-race suspension for three of Ryan Blaney’s crew members.

Last week, crew chief Jonathan Hassler, jackman Graham Stoddard, and rear tire changer Zachary Price were suspended for the left-rear wheel that came off Blaney’s No. 12 Ford Mustang at Bristol Motor Speedway. Penske initially filed an appeal with a deferment of the suspensions in order to keep the group together for the race at Texas Motor Speedway, the first race in the Round of 12.

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Sunday night’s race at Texas is now in the rearview mirror, and the appeal has been dropped. Blaney finished fourth in the Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 500 and is 15 points above the playoff grid cutline going into Talladega Superspeedway (Sunday, 2 p.m. ET, NBC).

Blaney will be without Hassler, Stoddard, and Price as the suspensions kick in this weekend for the NASCAR Cup Series race at Talladega (Oct. 2) followed by the Charlotte Roval (Oct. 9), Las Vegas Motor Speedway (Oct. 16), and Homestead-Miami Speedway (Oct. 23). Talladega and Charlotte are Round of 12 races and Las Vegas and Homestead are the first two races in the Round of 8.

Miles Stanley, a Team Penske engineer, will serve as Blaney’s interim crew chief.