UPDATE:
Justin Haley and the No. 51 Rick Ware Racing team were allowed to take a lap in NASCAR Cup Series qualifying, as NASCAR didn’t want the team to have an advantage of fresher tires at the start of Sunday’s race.
Haley will drop to the rear before Sunday’s Ally 400 and will have to complete a pass-thru penalty after taking the green flag.
ORIGINAL STORY:
Justin Haley and the No. 51 Rick Ware Racing team have been very impressive as of late, but if they want to snag another solid finish in Sunday’s Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway, they’ll have to do some battling back from pre-race adversity.
Haley’s car passed pre-race inspection on Saturday afternoon prior to the start of NASCAR Cup Series practice, but NASCAR determined that the team made an unapproved adjustment to the No. 51 Ford Mustang Dark Horse.
As a result of the unapproved adjustment, Haley will not be permitted to take a qualifying run on Saturday, which means he will start from the rear of the field in the Ally 400, and he will have the final pit stall available. Additionally, NASCAR ejected the No. 51 team’s car chief JR Norris for the remainder of the weekend.
And to add further penalty, Haley will have to perform a drive through penalty after taking the green flag in Sunday’s Ally 400.
Haley, 25, has already scored the first two non-superspeedway top-10 finishes for the Rick Ware Racing NASCAR Cup Series program this year with a pair of ninth-place finishes at Darlington Raceway and World Wide Technology Raceway.
Over the last six NASCAR Cup Series races, Haley and the No. 51 team have recorded three top-15 finishes, and in the closing laps of last week’s race at New Hampshire, it looked like Haley was going to snag a top-five to top-10 finish.
However, damage on a late-race crash involving Michael McDowell and Ryan Blaney hampered his car, and relegated him to a 29th-place finish.
