NASCAR VP: “We’ve got the most talented engineers in the world working on the race cars.”
NASCAR saw more pre-qualifying inspections issues at Kansas Speedway. 5 cars failed to make it through inspection to turn a lap in qualifying.
Cars that failed to make it through inspection at Kansas: Matt Kenseth; Clint Bowyer; Kasey Kahne; Michael McDowell; Timmy Hill
Two weeks ago, there were issues in pre-race inspection. Kyle Larson, the pole sitter at Dover International Speedway failed pre-race inspection multiple times and thus was forced to the forfeit the pole position and start at the tail of the field.
It’s an ongoing issue…
“It’s really a frustrating topic for us,” Executive Vice President, Chief Racing Development Officer Steve O’Donnell explains to the Morning Drive via Sirius XM NASCAR Radio.
“You’ve heard me come on and say we’ve got the most talented engineers in the world working on the race cars and we believe that. And it’s certainly frustrating because it is on the teams to present their cars for inspection.”
“It’s become really the equivalent of a Kris Bryant (Chicago Cubs) coming to the plate with a bat you can’t use. The umpire says ‘you can’t use that,’ comes back with a bat you can’t use, the umpire says it again and then the third time says ‘you can’t make your plate appearance.’ “
“Then the batter runs to the media and says, ‘I can’t believe they did this.’ At some point it’s frustrating on our end and at some point we’ve got to get the teams to be able to show up and get through tech inspection. It’s the same every week and it’s one of those things that most teams are able to do it.”
Related: Clint Bowyer says the team didn’t do anything to the car between inspection failures
Over time, NASCAR has increased the penalty for failing pre-race or pre-qualifying inspections. Over the winter, a new term was introduced to the NASCAR rulebook, ‘Ejection’.
However, that hasn’t appeared to discourage any of these teams to present their cars in legal compliance at the NASCAR inspection tent AKA the ‘Room of Doom’.
“We feel like we’ve done that. It hasn’t seemed to work,” O’Donnell said.
“I think we’ll go back and just look at it collectively and continue to focus on the teams that are doing it right and really make that be the narrative and continue to do so. Where we can make an adjustment we certainly will. Last thing we want to do you know is penalize any team. We don’t want that to be the narrative. We want the narrative to be around the race product.”
More
Related: Kevin Harvick is happy to see NASCAR ruled with an iron fist in the inspection area
Related: Kyle Larson’s car chief ejected at Texas Motor Speedway
Related: Car chiefs ejected from Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Related: Car chiefs ejected from Atlanta Motor Speedway
Related: Car chiefs ejected from Daytona International Speedway
Related: Take a look at NASCAR’s new inspection tent
