Tech talk: News and notes from around the garage

It will be Elliott’s first attempt in the Sprint Cup Series, one of five scheduled for the 19-year-old this season. Elliott will also be entered in Sprint Cup races at Richmond (April 25), Charlotte (May 24), Indianapolis (July 26) and Darlington (Sept. 6).

The No. 25 Chevrolet will carry sponsorship from NAPA and will be led by crew chief Kenny Francis.

Elliott is slated to replace Gordon in the team’s No. 24 Chevrolet beginning in 2016. It will be the first time an organization has fielded five Sprint Cup teams in one race since 2009 provided Elliott qualifies for the 43-car field.

HMS fielded a fifth team on a part-time basis that season for driver Brad Keselowski — his final start with HMS came at Charlotte Motor Speedway in October.

Roush Fenway Racing was allowed to field five full-time teams through the end of ’09 due to sponsorship agreements that were in place when the cap was announced three years earlier.

MORE INSPECTION TIME ADDED

• NASCAR will continue to incorporate additional time into the pre-qualifying inspection process as the Sprint Cup Series returns from a three-week West Coast swing and heads to Martinsville.

Schedule adjustments at Las Vegas, Phoenix and Auto Club Speedway resulted in an additional 15 minutes of off-track time at each venue to allow teams to prepare and present their cars for pre-qualifying inspection and for officials to complete the inspection process.

The move came in the wake of inspection delays at the season’s second event, the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Thirteen cars were unable to complete the pre-qualifying inspection process in time to post an official first-round qualifying lap at Atlanta.

Friday’s schedule at Martinsville indicates changes from ’14 that will provide an additional 10 minutes of time between the end of opening practice and the start of qualifying. Compared to last year’s Martinsville spring race schedule, opening practice is now five minutes shorter (12-1:25 p.m. ET) and qualifying will being later (4:45 p.m. instead of 4:40 p.m.).

In addition, in a NASCAR bulletin distributed to teams, the first round of Sprint Cup Series qualifying will now be 20 minutes at short tracks and intermediate tracks. This takes affect at Martinsville this weekend.

NO PRACTICE PENALTIES

• No teams required more than three attempts to pass pre-qualifying inspection at Auto Club Speedway, meaning none will be docked 15 minutes at the beginning of practice Friday at Martinsville.

NASCAR notified teams earlier this year that any vehicle that fails qualifying inspection more than twice will be subject to a 15-minute practice penalty that will be applied during the opening practice of the next scheduled event.

TIRES IMPOUNDED

• NASCAR impounded the tires from four teams following Sunday’s Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway. Tires from the teams of Kevin Harvick and teammate Kurt Busch (Stewart-Haas Racing), as well as teammates Ryan Newman and Paul Menard (Richard Childress Racing) went back to the NASCAR R&D Center for evaluation.

Harvick and Busch finished second and third, respectively, while Menard finished fourth and Newman fifth.

It marked the second time this season that NASCAR had impounded tires following a Sprint Cup Series event. The sanctioning body took tires from the teams of race winner Harvick and eighth-place finisher Joey Logano after this month’s Phoenix race.

No issues with the Phoenix tires were found, according to NASCAR officials.

Sunday’s race was the first for teams with the new left-side tire code at Auto Club. There was no change in the right-side tires.

• According to Goodyear, Sprint Cup and Camping World Truck Series teams will run the same Goodyear tire codes this weekend at Martinsville used when the two series visited the half-mile track last October.

This particular tire is not used for any other events by the two series.

PIT ROAD PENALTIES

• Officials in NASCAR’s Pit Road Officiating (PRO) trailer called 12 of the 22 penalties issued during Sunday’s Auto Club 400, the second fewest through this year’s first five races.

Six of the 12 were for tire violations — failure to control an outside tire.

Only Phoenix saw fewer total violations (19) and those made by officials in the PRO trailer (nine).

There have been 158 penalties thus far this season, including 60 that were called by the PRO group. Officials in the tower continue to call infractions for speeding when entering/exiting pit road, pitting before pit road is open and various safety-related violations.

Officials in the PRO trailer use video to respond to potential infractions such as too many crewmen in contact with the pit service area, crewmen over the wall too soon and pit box tire violations.

PENALTIES FOR FONTANA INFRACTIONS

• On Wednesday, NASCAR issued penalities for infractions during race weekend at Auto Club Speedway. Click here for penalties on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series No. 33 team, and click here for penalties on the NASCAR XFINITY Series No. 8 team.

POST-RACE INSPECTIONS

• Because of the schedule that saw teams competing at Las Vegas, Phoenix and Auto Club Speedway in consecutive weeks, final post-race inspection for entries from both Phoenix and Auto Club will be conducted Wednesday at the NASCAR R&D Center in Concord, North Carolina.

Both Stewart-Haas Racing entries of driver Kevin Harvick, which finished first and second at Phoenix and Auto Club, respectively, were sent back to the R&D Center as well as the cars of Auto Club winner Brad Keselowski (Team Penske) and Phoenix runner-up Jamie McMurray (Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates).

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