Well, for eight teams the road to a victory in Saturday night’s Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway just got a hell of a lot more difficult.
The cars of Erik Jones (qualified second), Chase Elliott (qualified seventh), Daniel Suarez (qualified ninth), Jimmie Johnson (qualified 10th), Aric Almirola (qualified 15th), Denny Hamlin (qualified 18th), Matt Tifft (qualified 20th) and Joey Gase (qualified 36th) all failed post-qualifying inspection on Saturday after the field of cars were impounded following Friday’s qualifying session.
This means that these eight drivers will forfeit their starting positions and start at the rear of the 37-car field.
For Elliott, Hamlin and Tifft they also failed on the second pass-through tech inspection so their car chiefs have been ejected for the race. However, all three passed inspection on their third pass through the inspection bay, which means they will not start the race off with a pass through penalty like Kevin Harvick had to last week in Bristol.
