Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin, William Byron, Chris Buescher and BJ McLeod will be held out of the final 15 minutes are Saturday’s first Cup practice at Pocono Raceway.
The 50-minute session on the 2.5-mile track will begin at 9 a.m., the first of two practices Saturday at Pocono for Sunday’s race. The five drivers are being penalized because their cars failed prerace inspection twice at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Reed Sorenson and Timmy Hill also will be held from the final 15 minutes for being late to prequalifying inspection at Chicagoland Speedway last month.
Under a new qualifying schedule being used at a few races this season (most recently at Chicagoland), Cup Series cars won’t be inspected prior to Cup qualifying at 4:10 p.m. Saturday.
Prerace inspection will occur directly after qualifying ends at Pocono, and any cars that fail will have their qualifying times disallowed.