The No. #18 of Kyle Busch failed inspection with a unique infraction at Pocono Raceway – The car had too many fans
Adam Stevens: “I just got to maybe read the whole rulebook in my down time. Maybe I’ll do it on the plane ride home.”
On Saturday, the No. 18 of Kyle Busch was one of thirteen cars that failed post-qualifying inspection. That was out of the norm as teams pushed the envelope with the lack of pre-qualifying inspection on the enhanced race weekend.
A bulk of those were body issues. Some were rear skew issues. Then, there was Kyle Busch, who just had an illegal fan as he crew chief was unaware of the rule.
Kyle Busch started from the tail of the field on Sunday at Pocono Raceway. He drove from the back to the front and won the NASCAR Cup Series race.
With the win, Kyle Busch ties Tony Stewart on the all-time NASCAR wins list at 49.
Adam Stevens on failing inspection
“The issues that we had in tech… The reason we failed was completely my oversight,” No. 18 crew chief Adam Stevens said from the Pocono Raceway media center after the win.
“There’s a rule with the number of fans that you’re allowed to cool the tires and brakes. I didn’t misread it. I just neglected to read it.”
“It says plain as day that you can only have one. When you have two, you’re outside of the rules.”
“They can point to it and tell you. And you say, ‘Oh yeah, I’m an idiot.’ You fix it and you move on.”
“But, we’re on post race tolerance, post qualifying. Then, we had to go to pre-race tolerance for some of the chassis measurements.”
“I wasn’t really concerned that it was going to effect our car. I was gravely concerned that it was going to hurt our pit selection. And have a negative impact on us every time we came down pit road.”
“But, the speed of the car… Not so much.”
How do you communicate that lack of oversight to Kyle Busch?
“Kyle and I don’t really do a lot of apologizing. He knows I’m trying to do my best and I know he’s trying to do his best. And you’ll make mistakes and you’ll have oversights.”
“I’m embarrassed about it but I’m not sorry about it. It’s not that big of a deal, nobody died. Nothing caught on fire.”
“It’s just one of those things. I just got to maybe read the whole rulebook in my down time. Maybe I’ll do it on the plane ride home.”
Enhanced schedule
The enhanced schedule is designed to condense the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series portion of the race weekend. The MENCS field is only on the track for two days, Saturday and Sunday.
Do you like the enhanced schedule and are you good with teching everybody after qualifying?
“Yeah. Honestly, anything that keeps us home an extra day is good for me.”
“I have family and most of us do. We can spend some extra time with them. It takes a little stress off the year.”
“I really liked it. It takes a little bit of getting used to. You’re into your routines and I probably had a little bit of a foggy head all weekend. Just not knowing what was next and not being as prepared as maybe I could have been.”
“We do this a couple more times and it will be old habit to everybody. I can tell you that I think it’s the right way to go.”
“Our issues was completely avoidable. It was an oversight. I don’t know what all the other issues were. The more we do it the better everybody will get at it.”
“It’s a little surprising that we went from 2 to 13 failures. That’s part of it. But, I don’t think that’s a reason not to do it by any means.”
More
Related: Kyle Busch isn’t sure about the NASCAR medical staff forcing drivers out of the seat
Related: Pocono Race Results – July 29, 2018
Related: 13 cars fail NASCAR inspection at Pocono Raceway
Links
Kyle Busch | Adam Stevens | NASCAR | Pocono Raceway
