Why did so many cars fail inspections at Pocono?

NASCAR didn’t like what it saw Saturday night at Pocono Raceway but will wait and see how teams react before it reacts with any new rules after nearly a third of its teams failed post-qualifying inspection.

A few weeks after just three cars failed post-qualifying tech at Chicagoland, 13 failed at Pocono as NASCAR continues to test a technical inspection format for select impound races, where all cars go through tech following qualifying instead of prior to it.

The process certainly has some benefits: Fans get to see all drivers perform, as none of them fail to get through tech prior to qualifying. It also allows NASCAR to keep the number of officials at the track the same, as it doesn’t need to have officials running the tech bays while a race is being run.

NASCAR senior vice president of competition Scott Miller said he felt the teams got more aggressive at Pocono considering there were few failures at Chicagoland. The next test of the system comes this weekend at Watkins Glen, though it’s a road course and a place where teams might be less inclined to push the limits as much in trying to maximize downforce.

Miller wasn’t ready Saturday to start increasing penalties for failing post-qualifying inspection. The current penalties are having the qualifying time disallowed (and therefore starting behind all cars that qualified and passed) for the first failure, having a car chief ejected for the second and losing 10 points for a third.

Four cars failed a second time Saturday, while Kevin Harvick and Kasey Kahne will be issued 10-point penalties for three failures.

“This is only the second time we’ve done this, and I don’t think the teams want to be sitting here in this situation either,” Miller said. “They tested the waters and it didn’t work out too good for them, so hopefully the next time we have one of these inspections, they’ll be able to get closer to right and we won’t have this.”

With its entire front row and five of the top-six cars ending up having their times thrown out, the failures received a great deal of attention at Pocono. Most were in the body-scan portion of the inspection, but some also were rear toe related.

And there was at least one simple mistake — Kyle Busch crew chief Adam Stevens said he didn’t read the rule book on the limit of number of fans he could have to cool tires and brakes and had one too many.

“Certainly, it looks bad,” Miller said. “None of us like that. We hate telling that story. But we have to make sure that the car that qualified on the pole is legal. And when it’s not, that’s what happens.

“We thought this was really great when we had three cars fail. … And now we don’t think it’s so great because we have this situation.”

In general, there are seven inspection “stations” for teams. A safety and engine check is done at the start of the weekend.

On a regular weekend, prior to qualifying, they go through chassis, hand-held template inspection, heights and weights, the optical scanning station (the body scan as well as toe/camber) and then removal of any struts that are used when going through the inspection process. After qualifying, the top cars do weights and measures. Then they do all the stations again on race morning. After the race, they do weights and measures as well as a body scan before being taken to the research and development center for more inspection of the chassis and an engine teardown.

On a restrictor-plate weekend, they do the thorough inspections before they practice and then before qualifying, with the cars impounded after qualifying so there is no need for another thorough inspection prerace. They go through similar postrace inspections with a more detailed engine teardown.

In the new process used at Chicagoland, Pocono and select other events this year, the typical pre-qualifying inspection is moved to post-qualifying and also serves as the prerace inspection.

Unlike prior to qualifying, where failing teams rush to get through again and pass in order to get on the track, teams are under no time crunch when failing post-qualifying.

So teams took plenty of time to try to get their cars right Saturday. Team Penske was making new panels and re-decaled portions of two cars, extending the post-qualifying inspection process to 4.5 hours from the typical 3 hours used in pre-qualifying.

The teams wanted to try this schedule because it allows the garage to open Saturday morning, have practice, get the cars set up for the race (because of the impound), qualify and then have one major inspection.

The tradeoff is that with the inspection coming after qualifying but before the race is that cars are inspected with the prerace requirements.

Postrace measurement tolerances allow for some wear-and-tear to be factored in, and it appeared teams at Pocono either misjudged how just a handful of laps at 210 mph-plus would impact the cars. There’s a question about whether the NASCAR prerace tolerances should be considered too tight considering the wear-and-tear on the cars.

Miller said there was no reason to open up the tolerances — that 27 of the 40 cars were able to pass tech with the tolerances as stated.

“This creates the opportunity for less major inspections, and they didn’t quite get it right today,” Miller said.

The cars that failed post-qualifying inspection didn’t seem to lose speed for the race. Harvick, who had won the pole before failing tech, had the fastest car Sunday. He delivered a firm “No” when asked whether he had any concerns that the speed of the car would be impacted by any changes his team had to make post-qualifying.

Busch also didn’t lack for speed as he won the race.

Stevens said the schedule is the right way to go considering the number of days crew members spend on the road.

“The more we do it, the better everybody will get at it,” Stevens said. “It’s a little surprising that we went from [three] to 13 failures, but that’s part of it. But I don’t think that’s a reason not to do it by any means.”

The one thing this schedule also does is it eliminates the possibility of a lightning delay canceling qualifying. When there is lightning in the area, NASCAR can’t require the crews to be outside the garages, meaning tech has to stop and then start again after a minimum 30-minute delay.

“Whatever is easier on the team guys,” Busch teammate Denny Hamlin said. “Sometimes these guys are so crunched on time from the end of practice where they have to get setups in the cars in 20 minutes to get in line for qualifying is a bit of a task.”