RELATED: NASCAR official release
NASCAR issued P2-level penalties to Furniture Row Racing‘s No. 78 Chevrolet team for infractions found during last weekend’s Sprint Cup Series race at Dover International Speedway.
NASCAR officials confirmed the punishment Wednesday, saying that first-year crew chief Cole Pearn has been placed on probation until the end of the year. The P2 penalty was decided after a further review of the violation this week at the NASCAR Research & Development Center in Concord, North Carolina.
The No. 78 entry for Martin Truex Jr. was removed from the starting grid shortly before the green flag fell on Sunday’s AAA 400. NASCAR officials discovered issues with a flared wheel opening in pre-race ceremonies, and the team was required to fix the infraction in the Sprint Cup garage.
“I didn’t even see it, actually,” Truex said of the last-minute repairs. “I was at driver intros and Marty Snider from NBC was like, ‘Hey, your car’s not out here.’ I looked at (Ryan) Newman, he’s like, ‘Yeah, I just walked by it coming out here.’ Then I saw on TV that it was back in the garage. I was like, ‘Well, that’s not good.’ It actually wasn’t as bad as you’d think. I felt really good about the race car we had going into the race. I obviously felt really good about Dover; I always do. Something about that track just gives me a lot of confidence, and they’re like, ‘We’ve got to go to the rear.’ I’m like, ‘No worries, we’ll be fine.’
“If anything it made me more focused. I was kind of mad about it for a minute, and then I was like, you know what you’ve got to do, just go do it, and we did it, so it was good.”
Truex was forced to start at the rear of the 43-car field, rallying to finish 11th and secure his spot in the Contender Round, the next three-race series in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs.