NASCAR QNA: Upon review, quite a points week for Kyle Larson; is Denny Hamlin next?

When was the last time a driver collected 152 points in a week?

Nearly 13 years, it turns out. You gotta go back to the points system NASCAR used from 1975-2010, when the race winner earned a minimum of 180 points.

But Kyle Larson went old-school in a roundabout way for his 152-point week — 52 were gathered the hard way, by winning Sunday’s Richmond race, where he collected 12 stage points to go along with his 40-point victory.

The other 100 came courtesy of the three-person appeals panel, which overturned the points deletion of Hendrick Motorsports’ penalty from a few weeks back (fidgeting with air ducts, if you recall).

For some reason, the panel upheld the $100,000 fines and four-race suspensions of crew chiefs for the four Hendrick teams.

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For 'some' reason? Surely there has to be some justification from NASCAR, right?

One man’s guess: The four Hendrick teams tinkered with the hood louvers, which are delivered to every team by one supplier and not supposed to be messed with.

They were modified to some degree, which seems to justify upholding the fines and crew chief suspensions. But the panel must’ve determined the small adjustments did nothing to help the drivers and therefore they shouldn’t be punished.

That’s a tough needle to thread, but they managed.

And by the way, Denny Hamlin, penalized and fined for admitting to wrecking Ross Chastain a few weeks back, gets his appeal this week.

Can they go ahead and make it a BOGO for Denny Hamlin

Denny will make his case on appeal. He’s gone very public with the suggestion his Chastain punt was what NASCAR and stock-car racers have long deemed “hard racing.”

The only reason he was later penalized, he’s said, is because he publicly admitted to wrecking Ross as payback for earlier dust-ups between the two. His penalties were $50,000 and 25 points.

Might be a harder appeal than thought, given the grand slam Denny delivered to JJ Yeley at Richmond. If he had to choose which part might be overturned on appeal, it’s easy to assume Denny rather get back the points, since 50-grand is merely milk-and-egg money to big-league racing organizations.

But have you priced milk and eggs recently?

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: NASCAR: An appealing week for Kyle Larson, Hendrick; Denny Hamlin next?