Denny Hamlin's team agrees to the NASCAR penalty but puts off sanctions

Denny Hamlin and the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 team have decided to put off the suspension of two important members of their over-the-wall pit crew for a week. This means that the suspension will now take place during the races at Kansas Speedway and the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL.

Hamlin won't have "Joel B" Bouagnon and Austin Maloney since they lost a right front wheel during the Bristol Night Race on Saturday. NASCAR has put this safety rule in place to make sure that teams tighten their wheels so they don't fly off during the race.

But NASCAR rules also let teams wait up to a week to put a plan into action. This also stops teams from appealing the sanctions and then dropping them after that race weekend, which is a waste of everyone's time.

The JGR 11 squad might see this weekend, the first of the second round of the playoffs, as their greatest chance to win and make the next two weeks mostly pointless, or they might want to get a lot of points and place themselves up well ahead of Kansas and the ROVAL.

Hamlin's poorest type of track is objectively road courses, therefore it doesn't make sense for him to have his pit crew for that race.