Five Nascar teams were penalized for the race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway after failing pre-qualifying inspection multiple times. Out of these five cars, two were Chevrolet Camaros, including the No. 9 of Chase Elliott and the No. 77 of Josh Bilicki.
Matt Barndt, car chief for Elliott’s No. 9 team, has been ejected as a result of the penalty while Bilicki’s No. 77 team lost engineer Nicholas Sowa. Both teams have lost pit selection for Sunday’s racing event. The sanctioning body did not disclose what infractions were responsible for the penalties.
The other three teams that were penalized all belonged to the Ford Racing camp, including Kevin Harvick, No. 4; Harrison Burton, No. 21; and Todd Gilliland, No. 38. Each also had a crew member ejected and have lost pit selection privileges.
Christopher Bell, driver of the No. 20 Toyota Camry or Joe Gibbs Racing, will start on the pole for Sunday’s Nascar event at Last Vegas Motor Speedway after posting a fastest lap of just over 29 seconds. Kyle Larson, winner of last week’s race at Auto Club Speedway and last year’s Las Vegas Cup Series race winner, will start beside Bell in second place.
Third place goes to Daytona 500 winner Austin Cindric in the No. 2 Ford, and the No. 14 Ford of Chase Briscoe will start beside him in fourth. Elliott qualified fifth, and will get to keep his starting position despite the penalties issued to his team.
At Fontana, Larson and his teammate Elliott suffered contact while going for the race lead, making for some frustrated comments inside the No. 9’s helmet. However, it seems those hard feelings were left in the conference room back at Hendrick Motorsports, according to Larson.
“It was a good meeting to have,” Larson said. “(Team owner) Rick (Hendrick) called a meeting with all four teams and… reiterated his expectations with us drivers. It’s good to get those reminders every now and then and continue to race good in the future with each other. I’ll catch up more with Chase here in a little bit, and we’ll be good.”
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Comments
This article leaves a lot to be desired. The headline grabbed my attention, but when I clicked to read the details, there are not any.
You couldn’t take the time to write the reasons why the vehicles failed the pre-qualifying inspections multiple times?
This is what I wanted to read. And without these details your entire article is summed up in the headline.
NASCAR does not post what the infraction were because they don’t want to give other teams ideas.
That’s another thing that’s wrong with NASCAR.
NASCAR did not disclose the reasons for inspection failure.
So two is the new several?
Several Camaros penalized – yet MORE Mustangs were penalized. Who on earth comes up with these ridiculous headlines?
Didn’t they use to tell… like the rear spoiler was off a certain degree or the front valance…etc.
Empty news or just a headline…ah headline.
they used to tell if the violation was found on the winning car but the pre race inspections stopped that.
Too many inspections. Lets go back to “race what you brung”
Run what you brung sounds good but it leads to safety infractions, greedy drivers and last but not least, “he who has the most gold wins the race.” There will always be issues with rules but what would life be like without them?
The racing has been superb so far with the new car. There have been a few bugs- like the car being unable to move with flat tires- but the overall appearance and performance of the Next-Gen cars has been a marked improvement over the previous car. ‘Can’t help but wonder what will happen if Chevy eventually kills the Camaro, though. Equinox SS?
Malibu? (if it’s still around) — not much difference to Toyota running a Camry in the series.
NASCAR is trying to level the playing field while slowing the cars for safety purposes . I’m sure that there are $$$ politics as well.