NASCAR officials confiscated the No. 1 Chevrolet fielded by Dale Earnhardt Inc. and driven by Martin Truex Jr. when the Sprint Cup Series entry failed to pass inspection Thursday.
Kenny Bruce / SceneDaily.com
NASCAR officials confiscated the No. 1 Chevrolet fielded by Dale Earnhardt Inc. and driven by Martin Truex Jr. when the Sprint Cup Series entry failed to pass inspection Thursday.
“It has something to do with the roofline, the width of the car,” John Story, vice president of motorsports for DEI, said Thursday at Daytona International Speedway.
“Certainly it was nothing intentional. It fit our templates at the shop; it just didn’t fit NASCAR’s templates here, apparently.”
Story said the car was newly built for Daytona and thus had not been through a prior inspection at the track.
“No, it’s brand new,” he said. “The templates the teams have in the shop and the templates that are here [at the track], they have a slight, slight difference.”
As a result, the team pulled its backup car out and was preparing it for inspection prior to the start of the day’s first Cup practice session, which was scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. EDT. Story said Truex likely would not take part in the practice session.
“The backup car has been run before, so there won’t be any issues with it,” he said. “But we won’t run the first practice session because they’re changing the engine in the backup car. It’s not the one we’re happiest with, so we’ll forgo the first practice.
