NASCAR ties practice penalty to failed inspections

Officials distributed a memo to teams today informing them of the move, which will be in effect starting with this weekend’s Campingworld.com 500 at Phoenix International Raceway (3:30 p.m. ET, Sunday, FOX).

Should a team require more than two trips through inspection, the 15-minute penalty would come during the next scheduled practice. It would not be imposed as part of a qualifying session.

The pre-qualifying inspection process has been a source of concern this year as teams adapted to the 2015 rules package.

Last month at Atlanta Motor Speedway, officials delayed the scheduled start time of qualifying on Friday because of a backlog of cars that had failed to make it through the inspection process.

Even with the additional 15 minutes, 13 teams were unable to make it through inspection in time to make a qualifying run at AMS, including former series champions Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth and Tony Stewart.

Schedule changes were also made for last week’s race at Las Vegas, Phoenix and next week’s race at Auto Club Speedway. Friday’s opening practice for Sprint Cup teams, originally scheduled to last 1 hr., 25 minutes, was shortened by 10 minutes while qualifying now takes place five minutes later than previously scheduled.

Teams have 50 minutes to present their cars for pre-qualifying inspection following the conclusion of practice.

For those that have no issues, timing hasn’t been a problem. It becomes more of an issue when multiple cars fail a particular station and have to make additional trips through before being cleared.

All teams cleared inspection in time to make at least one qualifying attempt last week at Las Vegas.

At Atlanta, Sprint Cup Series Director Richard Buck said “at least 20” teams required several trips through the laser inspection platform, creating the backlog.

That figure, he said, was roughly double the number seen on a typical weekend, and there were teams that required three passes through before being cleared.

The laser inspection station platform takes precise measurements of several key points underneath each car such as camber, wheelbase and rear axle positioning. Measurements are precise, and within 1/1,000th of an inch in most cases. It has been in use since the start of the 2013 season.

If a team’s car does not pass on an attempt, the team must wait until all cars have made at least one pass through the station before they may go through again.

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