NASCAR punishes Gibbs team for breaking rules

NEW YORK (Reuters) - NASCAR punished Joe Gibbs Racing on Wednesday for rules violations after inspectors found the Nationwide Series cars driven by Tony Stewart and Joey Logano had been tampered with to mask their horsepower.

The cars were found to have a "magnet spacer attached under the gas pedal with the intent of compromising the chassis dynamometer test," after Saturday's race at Michigan International Speedway, NASCAR said on its website (www.nascar.com).

NASCAR took 150 points each away from Stewart and Logano, who finished third and seventh respectively in the race, and indefinitely suspended their crew chiefs, who were also fined $50,000. Five other crew members were suspended indefinitely.

Both teams were placed on NASCAR probation until December 31.

Joe Gibbs, owner of both of the cars, was penalized 150 championship owner points for each of those entries. He issued a statement apologizing to NASCAR but said he and his drivers were unaware of the deception.

The Toyotas run by the Gibbs team had dominated the series, winning a combined 14 of 25 races, leading NASCAR to order all Toyota teams to cut about 15 horsepower in their motors.

(Writing by Larry Fine, Editing by Clare Lovell)