The NASCAR champions must clear a teardown after the finsh
NASCAR inspections are nothing new. Every week the sanction has a detailed inspection process to make sure teams are within the rule book.
Typically, this means every team will pass multiple inspection points before cars even touch the track. After the race, all cars must pass weights and heights.
NASCAR will then select a handful of cars to take back to their R&D Center for a full teardown in Concord, North Carolina.
But, for the championship race this weekend in Phoenix, the post-race teardown inspection process happens at the track. The champion will need to clear a full engine teardown.
It usually takes 90 minutes for NASCAR to clear the winner from inspection. With the added engine teardown, the process is expected to take 3-4 hours.
NASCAR comments
“To add several hours to what is already a pretty long day would be really putting both teams and officials on a time constraint of how long they had been working, and you want people to be fresh in that role,” NASCAR senior director of racing communications Amanda Ellis stated via the ‘Hauler Talk’ podcast.
“Because the Cup event essentially kind of ends the weekend, obviously, you want to be able to know who your champion is on Sunday evening for a lot of reasons.”
“That’s truly the last step, when you think about crowning a champion officially, is the completion of the engine teardown.”
In the NASCAR Cup Series, the engine teardown will take place on Sunday night. The NASCAR Xfinity Series and Truck Series will both race under the lights. For those series they will see the teardown completed the following morning.
