NASCAR is examining what penalties to issue when teams don’t pass inspection before qualifying, will have a different inspection procedure this weekend at Martinsville and remains committed to inspecting cars at the R&D Center, a series official said Monday.
Scott Miller, senior vice president of competition, made the comments on “The Morning Drive” on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
Thirteen cars did not make a qualifying attempt Friday at Auto Club Speedway because they failed to pass inspection in time. Among the drivers who started at the rear in Sunday’s race because of that were Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson, Chase Elliott, Clint Bowyer, Aric Almirola, William Byron, Kasey Kahne, Daniel Suarez and Alex Bowman.
They would have had an advantage with starting on sticker tires while those who qualified had run laps on their tires. Auto Club Speedway’s surface wears tires. Fresher tires produce faster speeds.
NASCAR decided to allow teams that qualified to purchase a sticker set to start the race on, so every team would be on equal footing. For the Xfinity race, NASCAR stated that any team that didn’t pass inspection before qualifying would be forced to pass through pit road at the start of the race. Every car passed inspection.
“Moving forward, I’m not sure either thing will be where we land, but we certainly will be working on something to keep from having to react like that at the race track,’’ Miller said.
At Martinsville this weekend, NASCAR will not have inspection before qualifying. Instead, cars will be inspected after Saturday’s qualifying. That inspection also will serve as inspection before the race since cars will be impounded after qualifying.
If any team fails inspection, their qualifying time will be disallowed and they will start at the rear of the field for Sunday’s race at Martinsville.
“We’re actually kind of looking forward to that as a way forward actually,’’ Miller said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “It would be really good if we could get it down to one major inspection for the weekend moving forward.’’
Miller also addressed the issue of if NASCAR would consider no longer inspecting cars at the R&D Center a few days after the event but complete the inspection process at the track.
Twice this month, NASCAR has announced penalties that were discovered at the R&D Center three days after that particular race.
“We’re looking at a lot of different things that potentially could be something different,’’ Miller said. “We want to make sure that we’re doing a thorough job of inspecting the race cars and right now the R&D Center is our best avenue for doing that.’’
