What a joke, the guy did not gain any advantage by it and still gets punished severely. He showed up at the All-Star with a 3rd party engine that he had used at Daytona. It passed all inspections down there but failed at Charlotte the next time it was used. NASCAR said the bore was .17 cu in too large which made the engine an eyelash over the 358 max. Carl used it in practice and blew it after 3 laps, NASCAR then took the engine to inspect it and found it to be too large. They can inspect any blown engine's unless you pack up and go home. If you decide to race and drop in a new engine, NASCAR has to inspect the bad one. The bore was said to have been from the engine being worn out. It was originally a Ganassi engine that Ernie Elliott bought and fixed it up. He then sold it to Carl Long who used it at Daytona and then again at Charlotte. The engine was dyno'ed 50 HP less than what he needed to be competitive for the All-Star and again, blew up after 3 laps in practice in which he was dead last on the speed charts as it was.
Penalty:
12 race suspension(he was also banned from ANY NASCAR sanctioned events until Aug. 18th but the appeals committee changed that to Sprint Cup only)
$200,000 fine to the crew chief(the committee said Carl will not be responsible for paying that even though NASCAR said he would be originally)
Loses 200 owner and driver points. He never had any points as it was.
What did he make for racing the All-Star? $5,000 instead of $25,000 because NASCAR changed the payout at the last second. He will probably lose his Cup Series job he had with the #34 team since he cannot do anything in the Cup Series until Aug 18th still. He can try to get a job with a Busch or Truck team but it does not fix how much he's in the hole already. He owes about $20,000 to a businessman who lent him some money so he could pay a pit crew for the All-Star. He also still owed some to Ernie Elliott for that engine. They have just put a small owner/driver out of business and maybe put his family out on the street by "trying to prove a point" since he will have to sell most everything he owns.