Joey Logano's win at Richmond won't count towards playoffs

— -- Joey Logano will not be able to use his win Sunday at Richmond International Raceway to make the NASCAR playoffs and will not be allowed to carry the five "playoff points" he earned from that win throughout the playoffs after NASCAR discovered in its Tuesday follow-up inspection that his car had an illegal suspension.

NASCAR also suspended Logano crew chief Todd Gordon two races, fined him $50,000 and docked Logano 25 points for the violation, which centered on the truck trailing arm spacer and pinion angle shim and how much they can move during a race. Depending on how they move, it can enhance a driver's ability to drive through the corner.

There was no immediate word from Team Penske whether it would appeal the penalty and ask for Gordon's suspension to be deferred this weekend at Talladega Superspeedway (and possibly next week at Kansas Speedway). Penske already has a final appeal set for Tuesday on penalties to Logano teammate Brad Keselowski from a race in March.

NASCAR has been focused on cracking down on teams manipulating the rear suspension in correlation with rules this year that outlaw rear suspension skew at the start of the race -- making the cars more difficult to drive in hopes of encouraging more passing. Logano and Matt Kenseth lost 30 minutes of practice time Friday at Richmond for swerving their cars on their cool-down lap in the previous race at Bristol Motor Speedway, a maneuver that NASCAR considers suspicious of a driver trying to adjust the car back into compliance.

Losing the 25 points drops Logano from fourth in the standings to fifth, behind teammate Keselowski. Regular-season points matter more this season because of the "playoff points" that drivers can earn based on the regular-season final standings.

As part of the new 2017 points system, drivers earn one playoff point for a stage win and five playoff points for a race win, plus the top-10 in the final regular-season standings earn playoff points on a 15-10-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 scale. Those playoff points are added to a driver's total when points are reset for each of the first three rounds of the playoffs -- the more playoff points, the better chance a driver has of advancing to the next round.