Punished team speaks

"There isn't a whole lot you can say under the circumstances," said team boss Michael Kranefuss. "Mistakes were made and there were certainly some grave errors in judgment. We won the pole at Talladega by following the rules, which NASCAR has confirmed.

"Needless to say, we accept the penalty, we have taken disciplinary action within our team, and we apologize to our fans, our sponsors, NASCAR and the other teams. We will make sure nothing like this will ever happen again. We will continue to work to put the best possible race car on the track each week within the rules.

"We win as a team, we lose as a team and we stay together as a team regardless of the circumstances. People make mistakes, but we have to move forward. That's what we intend to do."

Driver Jeremy Mayfield added "we're all embarrassed and we're all going to make sure nothing like this happens again. Everything we've accomplished so far we've accomplished within the rules.

"I feel really bad for our fans and our sponsors. We hate what happened, but we have to keep going forward.

"There were some things done that were wrong. But we're going to work together as a team to get back to where we were before. We are a good race team. Everyone has been supportive of each other. From our owners to our sponsors to the guys in the shop, we're a family here. We've done a lot of good things together and we'll continue to be a family."