Hendrick Motorsports officially announced on Monday afternoon that the organization will not appeal the disqualification of Alex Bowman and the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports following Sunday’s Bank of America ROVAL 400 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL, which eliminated the driver and team from the Playoff field.
Initially, Bowman and the No. 48 team finished the race in the 18th position, which allowed the driver and team to advance to the Round of 8 of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, initially by a margin of nine points.
However, the team’s Chevrolet Camaro weighed too light on the scales in post-race inspection, which led to the disqualification. The loss of points due to being credited with a last-place finish on Sunday eliminated Bowman from Playoff contention and elevated Joey Logano to inside of the cut line.
Hendrick Motorsports admitted that the team made an error in accounting for the buffer minimum weight requirement from pre-race to post-race.
Here is the official statement from Hendrick Motorsports on the decision to not appeal the disqualification:
“Hendrick Motorsports will not appeal the disqualification of the No. 48 car following Sunday’s race at the Charlotte ROVAL. NASCAR allows a clear margin to account for the difference in pre- and post-race weight. After a thorough review by our team and the sanctioning body, we simply did not give ourselves enough margin to meet the post-race requirement. Although unintentional, the infraction was avoidable. We are extremely disappointed to lose a Playoff spot under these circumstances and apologize to our fans and partners.”
To NASCAR’s credit, the sanctioning body worked with Hendrick Motorsports on Sunday evening in the NASCAR Cup Series garage and gave the team every opportunity to pass post-race inspection.
Bowman’s car, and the other 11 cars subjected to the elevated post-race inspection (the top-five finishers this week were all Playoff cars), underwent stops in the OSS (optical scanning station), the USS (underbody scanning station), and the weight scales.
After Bowman’s car failed on weights on the first attempt, NASCAR worked with the Hendrick Motorsports team on reasons that could have caused the car to be underweight.
The sanctioning body allowed the team to fill the gas tank, as well as flush the coolant system, where the team was allowed to top off the water in the car, as well as inflate their tires in an effort to see if that would allow the team to satisfy the post-race weight requirements. Unfortunately, the No. 48 Chevrolet was still too light, which resulted in the disqualification.
Following the decision to disqualify the No. 48 team, NASCAR Cup Series Director Brad Moran explained to the media that NASCAR allows for a 0.5% variance in the post-race weight of the cars, which equates to a 17 lbs buffer. Moran said Bowman’s No. 48 car was below the variance, but he would not indicate how far below the 17 lbs buffer the car weighed in. Moran said with potential appeals coming following the race, that the sanctioning body would withhold detailed information about the disqualification until the appeals process is completed.
