By Caleb Whisler, Staff Writer
Before the green flag flew for the first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice session of the weekend at Dover, inspection issues plagued teams throughout the garage.
During the initial inspection period this weekend, NASCAR was showing special interest in the splitter area. In 2018, NASCAR mandated that teams across the garage area were to use a common splitter.
Instead of using the normal splitter template, officials were using a straight edge to measure the splitter.
Jamie McMurray believes that communication was a factor in many teams having to go through inspection multiple times on Friday morning.
“There seems to be.. communication is so big. I feel like if they would have shared with the teams exactly how they were going to inspect, there wouldn’t be any problems at all,” McMurray stated.
“Clearly, the Penske and Richard Childress Racing cars, it looked like they knew how they were going to inspect the cars because all of their cars rolled right here and no one else did. It’s a really easy fix.
Martin Truex Jr. had a varying opinion to McMurray. According to Truex, NASCAR picks something new to focus on or changes the way the rules are interpreted.
“Nobody was really prepared for that because it’s not how they’ve done it for the rest of the season leading up to here, so that’s just all it is – it’s a surprise. They change something and all – we’re supposed to be able to I guess know it’s coming, have ESP or something,” Truex stated.
Despite the issues in practice inspection, all teams were able to pass and complete a lap in the sole practice session of the day.