Christopher Bell disqualified by NASCAR after failing tech inspection

The car of Christopher Bell failed three points in the NASCAR inspection at Chicagoland Speedway

Christopher Bell drove to a 3rd place finish on Saturday at Chicagoland Speedway. However, the Joe Gibbs Racing #20 car still needed to pass post-race inspection.

It did not.

Around 7pm NASCAR announced that Christopher Bell had failed the inspection. The car was too low on both front end measuring points. In addition, he was also too high on the rear.

As a result, Christopher Bell has been disqualified from the event. He will have an official result of 38th, last place in the field.

Disqualifications are new for the 2019 season. Ahead of this year, the last disqualification came in 1960.

Bell’s disqualification marks the second one this year. The other happened to the NASCAR Truck Series winner of Ross Chastain at Iowa Speedway.

In both cases, at least one of the reasons for disqualification was the front end of the car sitting too low.

Cole Custer took the win at Chicagoland Speedway. His car passed inspection with the exception on one loose lug nut which result in a crew chief fine later in the week.

Wayne Auton discusses the disqualification of Christopher Bell

“We took the #20 car to the impound after finishing 3rd in today’s race,” Wayne Auton, the NASCAR Xfinity Series managing director explained.

“We rolled it up to the inspection station and our guys checked the air pressures. Then, we did our procedures that we do. We fill it up with gas, that way everybody is checked the same.”

“One crew member can raise the hood on the front and unhook the shocks. They have the opportunity to reach in on the front end of the car. They bounce the car. Once they had those opportunities they said the were ready to go up on the height sticks.”

“We rolled the car up onto the ramp. We put the height sticks up and the car failed both front height measurements and the right rear.”

“The front was extremely low. The right rear was a little high. Which is what you’ll usually see when a car tilts in on the front. The rear’s going to come up. It’s gotta go somewhere.”

Auton spoke with crew chief Jason Ratcliff himself on the infraction.

“Things happen and we feel 100% confident that we did our job the way we do every car,” Auton said.

“We checked every car the same way. We had five other cars that went right through the same process at the end of the race … and they all cleared the heights just fine. Since we started this in Daytona back in February, this is the first one that we’ve even seen close.”

“I think Jason was a little surprised, and I’m sure they’ll go back and do their due diligence to see exactly what may have happened.”

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