NASCAR confiscates Truex's car
by Jorge Andres Mondaca, FOXSports.com
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Thursday afternoon NASCAR officials confiscated the primary No. 1 Chevrolet from Dale Earnhardt Inc. after the car failed opening day inspection despite multiple attempts. The roof did not fit the inspection templates.
"The car fit our templates when they left the shop, then it got down here and apparently the greenhouse was too narrow for NASCAR's liking." explained John Story, DEI's Vice President of Motorsports Operations. "We worked on it as much as we could, but the more you work on it ... well, basically we weren't able to get it fixed."
Not surprisingly, Truex was not so diplomatic.
"Somebody made a big mistake," Truex said. "Shouldn't happen in this level of auto racing, but people make mistakes. We'll go on."
So far, DEI has no plans to bring down another backup car. Should the No. 1 team need a backup, they will likely have to rely on one of their three teammates.
Truex sat out the first practice session of the weekend while his team swapped engines on his backup car. The engine was a spare as the team was not allowed to take anything out of the impounded machine.
Rain in the area forced the cancellation of the second practice of the weekend.
Per standard operating procedure, NASCAR will look at the car early next week at their Research and Development Center in Concord, N.C., and announce any further penalties shortly after that.
Any point hit could be detrimental to Truex's title chances. Currently he is 71 points behind 12th place Kevin Harvick with nine races remaining before the Chase for the Sprint Cup begins.
Since the introduction of the Car of Tomorrow, there have been two instances where teams were caught for infractions during opening day inspection. The first came at Infineon Raceway last season when Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson's machines were impounded for altered front fenders, resulting in 100 point penalties, $100,000 fines and the suspension of their respective crew chiefs for six weeks. The second instance happened this season during the Daytona 500 when Robby Gordon was found to have an illegal nose cover. Although Gordon received similar penalties to Gordon and Johnson, the points total and suspension were rescinded but the fine was increased by $50,000.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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