Waltrip's car, manifold confiscated at quals

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- What started as an agonizing inspection process for Michael Waltrip on Sunday at Daytona International Speedway turned dramatic following his Daytona 500 qualifying run, as NASCAR confiscated his car and a second intake manifold from it.

Also running afoul of NASCAR inspectors were Matt Kenseth and Kasey Kahne, whose qualifying speeds were disallowed due to infractions discovered in post-qualifying inspection.

Before qualifying began NASCAR vice president for competition Robin Pemberton said an inspector in NASCAR's engine checking area "caught a substance inside" Waltrip's No. 55 Toyota Camry's manifold in its initial pass through inspection.

Pemberton said, "We didn't know what it was," so that manifold was immediately seized and would be shipped to NASCAR's tech center in Concord, N.C., for analysis.

It was nearly 2:30 p.m. ET and a number of cars had already made their qualifying runs when Waltrip's car cleared engine inspection.

Apparently NASCAR wasn't done acting on what Waltrip and his employees called "oil" in the manifold. The No. 55 team replaced the manifold and Waltrip qualified before NASCAR seized the car.

"That car is impounded and we don't know how long we'll keep it," NASCAR vice president for corporate communications Jim Hunter said. "Our inspection team was not comfortable that that was oil."

Hunter said that Waltrip's 24th place qualifying speed was currently valid, and that the completion of NASCAR's analysis would determine whether or not the car could be used later this week.

The next on-track activity for Nextel Cup cars is Wednesday's two practices for Thursday's Gatorade Duel qualifying races.

Hunter said any penalties or sanctions for anyone related to the three infractions would be announced later in the coming week, including "monetary fines, points penalties or suspensions."

Late Sunday afternoon, however, Waltrip's organization was baffled.

"NASCAR won't give us a clear answer on what they're doing right now," said Michael Waltrip Racing vice president and director of competition Bobby Kennedy, who got the call informing him of the move right before the end of qualifying. "Basically when I went over [to the car after qualifying] they asked everybody to stand back.

"They can't see where the oil is coming from and they want to figure it out, so right now they've said they're going to take the car, they already have the manifold and they'll get back to us.

"They said they're going to hold the car until they figure it out. Right now they won't tell us anything [and] we kind of look stupid because we don't know what's going on."

Waltrip, who has two Daytona 500 victories on his resume, is attempting his first Speedweeks as the registered owner of his own Nextel Cup car, one of three in Daytona from MWR.

The events might put a crimp in his hopes of making his 21st start in the "Great American Race." Waltrip needs to finish either first or second among the cars in his Duel outside the top 35 in 2006 Nextel Cup owner points to make the 500.

If he fails to qualify it would break a streak of 20 consecutive Daytona 500s, which includes victories in 2001 and 2003.

Before Waltrip went out in his scheduled 44th position in the 61-car qualifying order, he explained what he knew at the time.

"When they felt down inside [the manifold] they felt some oil that wasn't supposed to be there," Waltrip said after his car cleared the engine inspection area. "They couldn't see why the oil was there, so they took the intake.

"Quite simply, there's oil in a couple places where it doesn't belong, there's something wrong and we don't know why.

"We haven't done anything wrong. I really don't understand what's going on, but before it's all over we'll figure it out."

Speaking confidentially, another noted Cup engine builder said it "wasn't possible" under normal operation for lubricating oil to leak into an engine's manifold.