It was a rough Friday evening for Kurt Busch and the No. 45 23XI Racing team as they will start this weekend’s Wise Power 400 at Auto Club Speedway with a severe disadvantage.
The No. 45 car failed pre-race inspection three times. The car finally passed inspection on it’s fourth time in the inspection bay.
Due to failing pre-race tech three times, Busch will not be allowed to compete in qualifying on Saturday, which means he’ll start at the rear of the field on Sunday. Busch will also serve a pass through penalty after the race goes green.
Additionally, Busch’s team will be one crew member short as car chief David Bryant has been ejected for the weekend.
Busch, 43, has one win in 27-career starts at Auto Club Speedway. His average finish at the track is 12.2 and he has scored three third-place finishes at the 2-mile track in his last seven starts.
While Busch’s car was the only one to fail inspection three times, several other cars failed twice, which will also bring penalties to those teams as well.
Kevin Harvick’s No. 4 car, Brad Keselowski’s No. 6 car, Ryan Blaney’s No. 12 car, Joey Logano’s No. 22 car, Bubba Wallace’s No. 23 car, Alex Bowman’s No. 48 car and BJ McLeod’s No. 78 car all failed inspection twice on Friday evening.
As a result, all seven teams will have a crew member ejected and they will all lose their pit stall selection for the weekend.
The crew members who have been ejected for this weekend’s race at Auto Club Speedway are:
Nick Case (car chief, 6), Tyler Graf (car chief, 78), Raymond Fox (car chief, 12), Jerry Kelly (car chief, 22), Robert Smtih (car chief, 4), Etienne Cliche (23, engineer), David Bryant (car chief, 45)
