Bowman Disqualified, Shaking Up Playoff Field – Motorsports Tribune

By David Morgan, Associate Editor

CONCORD, N.C. – Coming into Sunday’s Bank of America ROVAL 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the four drivers below the cut line in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs stood as Joey Logano, Daniel Suarez, Austin Cindric, and Chase Briscoe.

 Some were within striking distance in the points, while the others were in must-win territory, but when all was said and done, it appeared that those were the four that would be axed from title contention.

That is until post-race inspection took place and Alex Bowman’s No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet was found to be underweight, therefore resulting in a disqualification and erasing his 18th place result that was enough to get him into the next round of the Playoffs.

With Bowman’s disqualification, Joey Logano, who appeared to lose out on advancing when the checkered flag flew now moves into the top-eight in points and gets new life in his hunt for another Cup title.

“We normally run the top five and all the Playoff cars through our inspection station. That includes the OSS, which measures all the body and the mechanical measurements. We run it through the USS, which is all the underbody scanning as well as the weights,” NASCAR Cup Series Managing Director Brad Moran explained.

“We do full inspection on first and second with a cutoff race. We also do a full inspection of the last in for the transfer into the Round of 8. That would be owner and drivers. While we did that tonight, all top five were Playoff cars. As we’re running them through, unfortunately, the 48 had an issue. Did not meet minimum weight. So, we put the car to the side. We continue on.

“We let them have the opportunity to fuel the car as well as purge the water system and add water. So we give ’em every opportunity to make minimum weight. We run ’em back through. Unfortunately, they were light again. They are allowed a 0.5% weight break, which is for usage of fluids and so on. That’s about 17 pounds.

“We backed the car back off the scales, run it back on and then unfortunately it was the same weight. So, the car had a weight issue. All the other cars cleared inspection, 48 didn’t, and that ends up in a disqualification.”

With the high probability of an appeal coming, Moran was hesitant to give exact details on how far off the weights were off in Bowman’s car, but explained the No. 48 car would be headed to the NASCAR R&D Center until the…