Hendrick Motorsports chose not to call Alex Bowman disqualification of Charlotte Road’s journeyThe admission that there did not seem to be such an attenuating circumstance as they could convince a hearing agent that this did not violate the intention of the rule.
HMS thought that on Sunday, he had his four cars to progress around 8 until Bowman’s car failed the weight requirements after the race. Instead of winning 29 points, the disqualified Bowman won a point for the event, putting it below the cutting series and Joey Logano in the playoffs.
All cars go through technology before running and must weigh 3,400 to 3,500 pounds depending on the driver’s weight (drivers are weighed periodically throughout the year). The first 5 cars, then in playoffs, cars in playoffs are weighed after the race. There is a tolerance of 0.5%, approximately 17 pounds, in the post-course inspection to allow any natural loss of weight of the competition because the parts and parts break and that the liquid levels can fluctuate.
“Hendrick Motorsports will not call on the disqualification of the car n ° 48 after the race on Sunday at the Charlotte Roval,” the team said in a statement. “Nascar allows a clear margin to take into account the difference in weight before and after the race.
“After an in -depth examination of our team and the sanction organization, we simply did not give ourselves enough margin to meet the requirements after the race. Although unintentional, the offense was avoidable. We are extremely disappointed to lose a place in the playoffs under these circumstances and to apologize to our fans and partners.”
Handrick did something rude or be a victim of circumstances can be debated. Sport has a story in ingenious ways to gain weight of the car (and maybe even put it back to the end of the race). Wherever there is tolerance, teams will potentially do things to get closer to the level of tolerance. On the stands road, drivers push their speed to tolerance to 5 MPH above the speed limit.
There are probably ways to delete the weight slyly or modify a piece between technology before running and the end of the race. The teams have put weight in a helmet bag. The teams have put different air in tires for technology to make the car heavier. This is part of the game. It’s not that no one is trying to make the car lighter after crossing technology, it’s just how far they want to go to the line where if something involuntary happens, they fail with weight requirement.
Nascar did not say how much the Bowman car was in technology, so there is no way to know definitively how close they were. But the team was authorized to complete the fuel and to serve and replace its water system. This did not help the car gain weight, and was probably the key to the decision not to appeal because it seemed NASCAR gave the Bowman team every opportunity to gain weight.
He is unfortunate for Bowman and hard to say how it helped him, if the weight of the car was worth the nine points he needed to go to the next round. But it is obvious that the people of Hendrick did not see a means where they could – forgive the pun – to switch the balance in their favor. So they paid the price.
Bob Pockrass covers Nascar for Fox Sports. He has spent decades to cover motorsport, including more than 30 Daytona 500, with stays in ESPN, Sporting News, Nascar Scene Magazine and Le (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow it on Twitter @bobpockrash.
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