Reminding teams about rules made a change.
Remember when Brad Keselowski brought up the fact that some cars "looked funny" in the rear end department? It did not take long for NASCAR to pick up a couple of cars and do some extra inspecting. Two weeks later NASCAR came out and said " There is nothing illegal about the Hendrick cars." and put some emphasis on the shock mount front bushings explaining how Hendrick was setting it all up.
Why would NASCAR even do that? Wouldn't it be considered a shop secret ? Not all teams had figured this out and when the news started to spread, some teams even said that they had never even thought of doing such a thing to their cars! It's one thing for NASCR to want a level playing field but it's another to divulge what teams are actually doing to their cars. Either instate a rule or shut up! Don't give out one team's trade secrets.
Now that all but the specs are out, Roger Penske's #2 team is running faster than ever before. Funny how it was Brad that brought up the whole set up thing to begin with!?!
In my opinion, NASCAR has gone too far on this one and as far as I can remember they have never done this type of thing in the past. question is, what is the real motive of doing it and if the team engineers can come up with a set up that is completely legal, let the team run with it, no harm in that.
This simple yet extremely effective "adjustment" that the Hendrick teams were running didn't cost extra money, wasn't in the outer realm of impossibilities to figure out and certainly was not dangerous to the drivers and or fans, it goes beyond my comprehension why NASCAR would even bother addressing the matter, let alone with a dedicated press conference.
So did it make a difference for the #2 team, of course it did, I'm sure Mr. Penske had his engineers all over the new found information and had them copy the pivoting bushings, why not, it's legal and for Penske, it's free. No research and development went in to this at all for him. Roger must be laughing all the way to victory lane, literally!