NASCAR issued written warnings to Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s team and four more from last weekend’s Sprint Cup inspections at Texas Motor Speedway.
Earnhardt lost his pit stall selection for Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 because of the warning for failing the laser inspection twice in prequalifying inspection. Since NASCAR revamped its warning system in August, a fourth cumulative warning results in loss of pit selection. Earnhardt’s cumulative warnings total has been reset to zero after the penalty.
The teams of Jeb Burton (failing prerace laser inspection twice), Joey Gase (failing prequalifying laser inspection three times), Michael McDowell (failing prequalifying laser inspection twice) and Ryan Preece (failing prequalifying laser inspection four times) also received warnings. The teams of Gase and Preece will be held out of practice for 15 minutes at Phoenix.
In the Xfinity Series, the teams of Daniel Suarez (failing prerace laser inspection twice) and Erik Jones (violation of installation and modification of existing components to affect aerodynamic properties) also received warnings.
There were no problems discovered with the cars taken to the R&D Center after Sunday’s race (race winner Jimmie Johnson’s No. 48 Chevrolet, runner-up Brad Keselowski’s No. 2 Ford, Austin Dillon’s No. 3 Chevrolet).