Martin Truex Jr. wins Chase-opening race at Chicago, car fails post-race inspection

Martin Truex Jr. is advancing to the next round of the Chase, though he’s advancing with the help of an illegal car.

Truex’s car failed post-race inspection after he took the checkered flag in Sunday’s Chase-opening Sprint Cup Series race at Chicago. NASCAR announced earlier in the week that it would take the win away from cars that had serious post-race laser inspection failures, but said Sunday that the failure by Truex’s team wasn’t severe enough to endanger his win.

The win is important because it means Truex is guaranteed to be in the second round of the Chase’s four-round elimination format. A race win in one of the Chase’s first three three-race rounds gives a driver an automatic spot in the following round.

#NASCAR confirms NO encumbered finish with 78 and 48 failing Laser Inspection Station twice. @NASCARonNBC

— Dustin Long (@dustinlong) September 18, 2016

Any penalties would be announced Tuesday or Wednesday. Jimmie Johnson’s car also failed post-race inspection. He finished 12th after a late-race pit road speeding penalty. But since both finishes aren’t “encumbered,” Truex will get to keep his spot in the next round of the Chase.

And while we understand NASCAR not wanting to issue a heavy penalty for what it deems to be a slight infraction, there’s no small penalty it can give Truex unless it gets creative. A points penalty does absolutely nothing to Truex’s chances of advancement to the next round. NASCAR could take away 2,000 points; but as long as Truex kept the win he would be in the second round of the Chase.

It’s a similar dilemma to what the sanctioning body faced in the races leading up to the 10-race playoff. Multiple teams failed post-race laser inspections, but many of those teams that did were already locked into the Chase because of wins earlier in the season.

The only driver who suffered the true wrath of a laser inspection penalty was Ryan Newman, who was forced to attempt to make up a 22-point gap in the final race before the Chase to make the playoffs thanks to a 15-point penalty.

He failed to make the Chase.

If NASCAR wants to give Truex a penalty that will have some teeth but doesn’t affect his chances of advancing to the second round it should suspend crew chief Cole Pearn for a race or two in that round. Or it could force Truex and team to start the second round 10 or 15 points behind everyone else.

If it really wanted to show it was serious, NASCAR could levy both a future suspension and a points penalty. But if applies either one of those penalties immediately and lets Truex keep the win to advance to the Chase, it might as well have not penalized him at all.

Sunday at Chicago, Truex left pit road first during the final caution flag. He restarted fourth, the first driver with fresh tires, and ran away from Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano and others over the race’s final two laps.

“Darlington all over again,” Truex said. He won the Southern 500 two weeks ago as he got off pit road ahead of Kevin Harvick, who had been the race’s dominant car.

Truex entered pit road in second behind Chase Elliott, the rookie who had led much of the second half of that race until the caution came out. But while Truex had a clear shot towards the front on the high side of turns 1 and 2, Elliott got bottled down on the inside of the track. He finished third while Logano was second and Blaney was fourth.

Truex had a tire problem in the early stages of the race but since the flat tire happened so early he was able to race his way back to the front.

“There was a long way to go at that point,” Truex said. “On one hand it was the bad luck’s going to bite us again and on the other we’ve got a lot of time to make it up. We’re lucky it happened early and we were able to have an awesome race car all day.”

Sunday’s race was also the second race in the last three Chase races (dating back to 2015) that was significantly altered by a caution occurring during green flag pit stops.

As cars were making their first pit stops of the day, a tire escaped from a team’s pit and rolled across pit road. The tire came to a stop in the infield and NASCAR elected to throw an immediate caution as many drivers hadn’t yet hit pit road.

The caution shuffled up the running order as some cars that had elected to come to pit road early were trapped a lap down. And that group included Harvick, who had flown through the field after starting last because of unapproved pre-race adjustments.

Harvick pitted at the same time as Jimmie Johnson, who was able to stay on the lead lap because he beat the leader of the race to the start/finish line. Harvick did not. Barely.

This is how close it was for 4 car exiting pit road. 48 beats leader to s/f but 4 did not pic.twitter.com/lUI51PdIzX

— Steve O'Donnell (@odsteve) September 18, 2016

Harvick then spent the rest of the race frantically trying to make his lap up. But thanks to the lack of caution flags (5) and the timing of them, he was unable to do so.

At Phoenix in 2015, Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the race by pitting early. His pit stall was located near turn 4 in that race and he was on pit road while a crash happened on track. Junior’s pit position meant he cycled to the lead of the race and held on for the win as rain arrived.

Here’s how the Chase standings look after Chicago. The 16 Chase drivers all started at the front of the field for Sunday’s race because qualifying was rained out.

 

1. Martin Truex Jr. (Win)
2. Brad Keselowski (5th), 2,049 points
3. Kyle Busch (8th), 2,046
4. Denny Hamlin (6th) 2,045
5. Joey Logano (2nd) 2,043
6. Chase Elliott (3rd) 2,039
7. Matt Kenseth (9th) 2,038
8. Jimmie Johnson (12th) 2,037
9. Carl Edwards (15th) 2,032
10. Kurt Busch (13th) 2,031
11. Jamie McMurray (11th) 2,030
12. Tony Stewart (16th) 2,028
13. Austin Dillon (14th) 2,027
14. Kevin Harvick (20th) 2,027
15. Kyle Larson (18th) 2,026
16. Chris Buescher (28th) 2,016