38 cars fail Daytona inspection on first pass through the NASCAR inspection line
Update: NASCAR stated that a piece of inspection equipment failed which caused most teams to fail on their first pass.
Moments from now, the NASCAR Cup Series will roll to the track for qualifying.
This session will lock out the front row for the Daytona 500. Everyone from 3rd on back will set their starting position in the Daytona Duels.
Teams rolled through inspection last night. One team in particular (Jeremy Bullins) was a .5 inch to the good on rear spoiler angle.
This morning, pre qualifying inspection opened at 9am. Off the bat, 38 cars failed inspection on their first pass through the line.
The bulk of the failures are related to rear spoiler angle.
Multiple engineers and crew chiefs are under the impression that something changed since last night. Whether that be that the scale was zero’d out since last night or something else, nobody knows.
Many teams passed with flying colors last night. With no changes, they rolled through the line during an official inspection this morning and failed.
There’s no penalty for failing pre-qualifying inspection, the first time. Teams are just sent to the tail of the NASCAR inspection line and they get to make another attempt.
*Teams are still rolling through on their second attempt. This story will be updated if any teams fail on their second pass through the line.
Crew chief perspective
“Everybody failed for a similar thing,” Michael McDowell’s crew chief stated.
“Things change on these platforms. The weather changes and these gauges change. It’s nothing NASCAR did. It what you’re doing to try and go fast, for one lap.”
“It sounds silly when only two positions matter today. But, that’s in our DNA, to get every once of speed you can out of the race car,” the NASCAR Cup Series crew chief added.
NASCAR statement/reaction
NASCAR stated that a piece of inspection line equipment failed which caused most teams to fail on their first pass.
Usually, there’s a penalty for failing inspection on the second pass through the line. In this case, NASCAR has made an exception. Teams will be allowed to fail a second time, with no penalty.
A third failure would net a crew member ejection.
Pre-Qualifying Penalties
Here are the new penalty formats regarding NASCAR inspection:
1 NASCAR inspection failure: No penalty. Go to the tail of the line and start again.
2 NASCAR inspection failures: Teams would lose a crew member.
3 NASCAR inspection failures: If a team failed three times then they would not be allowed to qualify.
4 NASCAR inspection failures: If a team failed four times then they lose a car chief, miss qualifying and they have to make a pass through on lap 1 of the race.
No team failed 3 times or more during this morning’s inspection session. However, more inspections remain ahead of next Sunday’s Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway.
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Daytona qualifying practice results
