13 Cup teams did not make a qualifying attempt for the Auto Club 400 after they failed to pass inspection Friday.
Those teams include all four Hendrick Motorsports cars (Jimmie Johnson, William Byron, Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman), Denny Hamlin, Clint Bowyer, Aric Almirola, Kasey Kahne, Daniel Suarez, Timmy Hill, Cole Whitt, Ross Chastain and AJ Allmendinger.
All 13 cars will start from the rear Sunday.
“The first time through there were a lot of failures at all the stations, it was basically kind of split between chassis, weights and measures and the body scan, ” Scott Miller, NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition told Fox Sports 1. “The second time through it seems like most of it centered around the actual body scan itself, which honestly this is the most aerodynamic track we’ve gone to, so kind of no surprise that they would be pushing the limits here more than some of the other places.”
Jeff Andrews, Hendrick Motorsports’ competition director, said the issues on the four Hendrick cars were “similar” in the area of the deck lid.
“We’ve got to go back, we need to talk internally and talk with NASCAR,” Andrews told FS1. “We felt like we were making changes in the area affected and we were not seeing the results when we went back through.”
Typically, teams must start a race on the tires they used in qualifying.
NASCAR announced late Friday night it would allow all teams that made a qualifying lap to purchase a new set of sticker tires to start Sunday’s race one. They must return their scuff tires to Goodyear.
