How post-race inspection will work for Miami

When the three NASCAR national series descend on Homestead-Miami Speedway for Ford Championship weekend, post-race inspection will work a little differently than every other week of the season with championships on the line in Miami.

All three series — the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, the NASCAR Xfinity Series and the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series — will have initial inspection, pre-qualifying inspection and pre-race inspection in a manner that they have all year.

The difference: Following each championship race, a post-race inspection process will unfold that will run two to two-and-a-half-hours. Those inspections will be exactly what is done during teardown at the NASCAR Research & Development Center in Concord, North Carolina, a couple days after the weekend’s races.

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“There will be no post-race inspection here in the R&D Center (following Miami),” Elton Sawyer, NASCAR’s Vice President of Officiating and Technical Inspection, told NASCAR.com. “Our goal is to make sure that when the checkered flag falls on the champion on all three nights, that our fans will not be in a situation where they have to worry about any type of complication. We want to make sure that everyone is in compliance with our rulebook and that we can celebrate with our champions.

“The team that wins the championship — we’ll do a thorough inspection on that vehicle. Engine comes out. Engine is taken apart to make sure everything is in compliance. And then we will make sure we do the same thing if we need to on the second-place runner in the championship.”

Some additional tidbits from Sawyer on the inspection process at Miami:

• Championship 4 vehicles did not come into the R&D Center for a pre-Miami look. In past years, this was done to check the body location on the chassis. However, the Optical Scanning Station (OSS) provides officials with that information each week, Sawyer said.

MORE: Learn about the OSS process

• NASCAR has meetings scheduled with the Championship 4 teams in all three national series this weekend to go over ground rules and weekend processes. “It’s more just to make sure we are all on the same page,” Sawyer said. “We want to make sure it is a great event and the champion is decided on the race track and not through some type of infraction on pit road or a post-race penalty.”

• Just like at Phoenix, spoilers will come off the Cup cars on Friday for officials to inspect prior to cars hitting the track. Teams will bolt them back on following inspection. This is done “to ensure that all the competitors feel confident that they are on a level playing field,” Sawyer said.

NASCAR officials put that procedure in place last week following an L1-level penalty to the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing team for using a spoiler not exactly as supplied from the manufacturer, and not altered. 

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