Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

NASCAR examining what to do about teams failing inspection

Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Toyota Owners 400

RICHMOND, VA - APRIL 30: The #88 Nationwide Chevrolet is seen in inspection before the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond International Raceway on April 30, 2017 in Richmond, Virginia. (Photo by Sarah Crabill/Getty Images)

Getty Images

NASCAR is looking into what else it should do after more than a fourth of the field failed make a qualifying attempt last weekend at Kansas Speedway because teams could not pass inspection, a senior NASCAR official told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

Eleven cars failed to get through inspection in time to make a qualifying attempt at Kansas. Among those who did not make a qualifying attempt were Jimmie Johnson, Clint Bowyer, Kasey Kahne, Erik Jones and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Last month at Texas Motor Speedway, nine cars did not make a qualifying attempt because they could not pass inspection.

Scott Miller, NASCAR senior vice president of competition, told “The Morning Drive’’ on Monday that NASCAR will examine the issue.

“It’s not a great situation for the competitors,’’ he said. “It’s certainly not a great situation for us or the fans or the broadcast partners. We know we can’t keep having those situations come up.

“Right now the rear steer of the race cars is a real hot topic, is a real performance metric for the teams. We have a rear-end spec and a tolerance that rear-end housing can be put in the car. More often than not what we’re seeing when people struggle, they’re building the rear end housing to the tolerance and then they have no room to actually move it around in the car and make it meet the numbers.

“It’s a bit of a learning process. We certainly have some meetings this week on how we kind of move forward. I’m not sure if we have more penalties. Right now it’s not good for anybody but there’s not a lot of consequence to it, other than the teams not getting out there.’’

Asked about how some competitors claim they pass the Laser Inspection on one attempt but don’t pass it another time, Miller told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio:

“It’s hard to explain, it would take an hour to kind of go through all the technical things about the process, but it is conceivable if they’re .01 of a degree to the good that the next time they’ll be .01 of a degree outside of the good.

“Every piece of measurement equipment has a tolerance that it can work in and they seem to think that this thing should be absolute when no measuring equipment is absolute. It’s just one of those things. They’re trying to get to the edge. We’re trying to make sure we have a level playing field.’’

Follow @dustinlong and on Facebook