NASCAR to disqualify cars — yes, even the winner — for post-race inspection failures
NASCAR is making a big change to its inspection process in 2019.
The sanctioning body announced Monday that it would start disqualifying cars who fail post-race inspection for significant violations. NASCAR has previously been issuing points deductions and fines to cars and teams who had failed post-race inspection. The change means a race-winning driver and team will officially have the victory taken away from them if the car fails post-race inspection.
In 2018, Kevin Harvick’s car failed post-race inspection twice after race wins. In each instance, his team received a hefty points penalty and the win didn’t count toward NASCAR’s playoff points system. However, Harvick still was recognized as the official race winner.
In 2019, the second-place driver will be elevated to race winner status if the winning car fails inspection and the third-place car would be elevated to second. A car that fails post-race inspection will be ruled to have only earned one point and a last place finish.
Inspection announcements will be made much sooner
NASCAR has been announcing inspection penalties in the days after a race’s conclusion. That won’t happen any longer either. The sanctioning body will conduct post-race inspection on chassis and car body components — typically the cars that finished first and second and a third car selected at random — at the track. It will be done within two hours and any disqualification announcements will be made at the conclusion of inspection.
Engines will still be inspected at NASCAR’s research and development center during the week. While that means an engine penalty could be announced during the week, most inspection violations are because of chassis or body infractions.
Disqualifying the winner and doing so within a reasonable post-race timeframe is a long overdue change to the way NASCAR does inspections. The sanctioning body’s reluctance to officially take wins away from illegal cars stretches back, in part, to founder Bill France Sr.’s desire for fans to know who the winner was when they left the track.
But that’s an adage that had more weight in a world where the internet didn’t exist. As most of the first-world society is connected to the internet on a near constant basis, getting the word out about an inspection failure can now be done quickly and efficiently.
Qualifying not significantly changed for 2019
NASCAR is keeping the current group qualifying format in place at tracks outside of Daytona and Talladega. It’s an intriguing status quo given NASCAR’s rules changes at certain intermediate tracks in 2019. The sanctioning body’s decision to cut horsepower and add downforce at tracks over 1.3 miles in length was done with the goal of drivers using the draft to make passes on each other.
Drafting, as you likely know from Talladega and Daytona, makes cars go faster because of the way the air is disrupted. At tracks like Las Vegas, Texas, Kansas and others, teams will probably be trying to run in groups during qualifying to post fast laps.
That could be a recipe for disaster. It was at Daytona in 2015. Group qualifying was in place at Daytona for pole qualifying for the 2015 Daytona 500. A multi-car crash during that qualifying session took out drivers including Clint Bowyer, Reed Sorenson and Justin Allgaier. Bowyer unleashed an unforgettable rant after the crash.
“I wasn’t behind [Sorenson],” Bowyer said. “He come flying around, come up on the apron, jumps in front of me then runs over [Justin Allgaier] in line, stacks us all up and I run in to him. It’s idiotic to be out here doing this anyway. There’s no sense in being able to try to put on some cute show or whatever the hell this is.
“And then you’ve got a guy out there in desperation doing this crap like this. I mean, it’s just, there’s no reason to be out here. These guys have spent six months working on these cars, busting their ass on these cars to have some guy out of desperation do that crap.
“But it ain’t his fault. It’s not. It’s NASCAR’s fault for putting us out here in the middle of this crap for nothing. We used to come down here and worry about who’s going to sit on the front row and the pole for the biggest race of the year. Now all we do is come down here and worry about how a start and park like this out of desperation is going to knock us out of the Daytona 500.
“We’ve been in meetings for 45 minutes just trying to figure out what in the hell everybody’s is going to do just so we could make the race. It’s stupid. There’s no sense in doing this.”
It took less than two months after that Daytona crash and Bowyer’s on-point comments for NASCAR to make a change. The series announced on March 30, 2015, that it would get rid of group qualifying at Daytona and Talladega going forward and replace it with a modified single-car qualifying format that will still exist in 2019.
Will a similar change be made this season if a multi-car qualifying crash happens at a 1.5 or 2-mile track?
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
Follow @NickBromberg on Twitter
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