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‘Glitch’ plays role in inspection issue for some Sprint Cup teams

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Kyle Busch’s car goes through inspection before qualifying at Pocono. (Photo by Dustin Long)

LONG POND, Pa. — After some Sprint Cup teams were unable to go through the Laser Inspection Station on Friday morning when the system suffered a “glitch,’’ NASCAR waived the first failure for those teams.

That didn’t prevent some teams from receiving a warning, including Kyle Larson’s team, which got its fourth warning and will lose pit stall selection for Sunday’s race.

“We had a little bit of a glitch this morning at the opening of inspection with our laser platform,” Scott Miller, NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition and racing development told NBCSN. “We got it rectified quickly.”

Because many teams were unable to go through the Laser Inspection Station in pre-event inspection, their first time through was before qualifying. Many missed. With other teams also failing template inspection, the line grew.

NASCAR pushed qualifying back 20 minutes to ease the congestion in the garage, but the cars of Matt Kenseth, Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr., who went on to win the pole, were in the garage when engines fired for the first round.

Busch was the last car to make it to pit road, not leaving the garage until seven minutes remained in the opening 20-minute session. He advanced and qualified 14th.

Crew chief Adam Stevens explained what happened to the No. 18 Toyota in inspection:

“We rolled through for qualifying, and we had too much rear toe on one side by just a little tiny bit and we made an adjustment. The opposite side showed the adjustment. So it showed like it moved, liked we changed the toe. The side that we failed on went three times as much the wrong way. It’s a solid axle, it can only move one direction. I don’t know what happened. It’s like we cut the housing in half and welded it back together. So we made another adjustment, one side showed the adjustment, the other side didn’t move

“All we know is what the machine shows. It’s a solid axle. They have to move the same amount. One side is moving and the first time moved the other way like we bent the housing. You can’t bend the housing. That was a little bit confusing. We had to roll through three times.’’

The cars of Busch, Kenseth and Truex did not go through the Laser Inspection Station until before qualifying.

Jason Ratcliff, crew chief for Kenseth, said the long line of cars having to go through inspection held up his team.

“There were so many cars that failed it that the line just kept stacking up,’’ Ratcliff said. “It wasn’t anything we couldn’t fix. It was just that the line got so long it took forever to go through again.’’

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