Stat Sheet: The Unprecedented Nature of Alex Bowman’s DQ

Alex Bowman climbed from his car following Sunday’s (Oct. 12) NASCAR Cup Series race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL thinking that he was through to the next round of the playoffs, only to have the rug pulled out from under him with a shocking disqualification after his No. 48 Chevrolet failed to meet minimum weight requirements.

His 18th-place finish was wiped off the board, and so were his title hopes. The points penalty from the DQ sunk him below the cut line, and Joey Logano was the lucky driver who took his place.

And after Monday’s (Oct. 14) news that Hendrick Motorsports would not appeal Bowman’s disqualification, the Round of 8 is set.

In the six seasons since NASCAR began disqualifying teams for failing post-race inspection, Bowman’s DQ marked the first time in all three series that a driver who was clear to the next round of the playoffs was eliminated on the spot.

Since 2019, there have been five disqualifications of championship-eligible drivers in the playoffs. Bowman’s DQ marked the first of a playoff Cup driver since Erik Jones at Richmond Raceway in 2019, and it also marked the second playoff driver DQ in as many weeks after Sam Mayer was disqualified from last weekend’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Talladega Superspeedway.

The other two DQs were Michael Annett in the 2020 Xfinity race at Talladega and Zane Smith in the 2023 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Year	Series	Track	Driver	Round	Playoff Fate
2019	Cup	Richmond II	Erik Jones	R16 (Race 2)	Eliminated
2020	Xfinity	Talladega II	Michael Annett	R12 (Race 2)	Eliminated
2023	Trucks	Homestead	Zane Smith	R8 (Race 3)	Eliminated
2024	Xfinity	Talladega II	Sam Mayer	R12 (Race 2)	Advanced
2024	Cup	Charlotte (Road)	Alex Bowman	R12 (Race 3)	Eliminated

Of the five drivers who were handed a DQ in the middle of a playoff run, Mayer was the only one to advance to the next round thanks to a walk-off win in Saturday’s (Oct. 12) Xfinity race at the ROVAL (albeit under controversial circumstances).

The difference between Bowman’s DQ and the DQs for Jones, Annett and Mayer is that their DQs happened in the middle race of a playoff round. Those three still had a chance (even if it was a slim one) to advance to the next round, and one of them successfully did.

The DQs for Bowman and Smith were in the final race of a playoff round, meaning that the DQ decided their playoff destinies for them.

Ultimately, Smith’s Homestead DQ had zero impact on his championship hopes. Even if his original second-place finish had stood, he still would’ve been eliminated from the playoffs.

That wasn’t the case for Bowman. He was in until the DQ knocked him out. And unlike the three drivers who suffered a DQ in the middle of the round, he had no opportunity to climb out of the penalty.

This is a first in NASCAR’s playoff elimination format, and the only thing remotely comparable to Bowman’s DQ is Martin Truex Jr.’s ejection from the 2013 Cup playoffs after the post-Spingate penalties handed out to Michael Waltrip Racing. That was when MWR drivers Clint Bowyer and Brian Vickers — in NASCAR’s judgment — manipulated the finish of the regular season finale at Richmond Raceway to help Truex advance.

Ryan Newman was the lucky beneficiary then, and Logano is the lucky beneficiary now. For good measure, let’s also add Jeff Gordon to this list.

Well, there’s a first for everything. The first NASCAR win stripped under the new rules was Ross Chastain‘s Truck win at Iowa Speedway in 2019, and the first Cup win stripped was Denny Hamlin‘s victory at Pocono Raceway in 2022. Now, we have the first playoff advancement stripped under the new DQ system.

While sifting through NASCAR results of the past six seasons to write this article, I also made a list of every DQ under the new rules.

There have been 33 total DQs since 2019: 10 in Cup, 14 in Xfinity and nine in Trucks.

Cup DQs

Xfinity DQs

Truck DQs

With a total of 540 races in NASCAR’s top three series run as of Oct. 14, 2024, there has been an average of one DQ for every 16-ish races.

There are other ways to break these tables down.

A total of five drivers have been DQ’d multiple times: Hamlin, Kyle Busch, AJ Allmendinger, Chastain and Smith.

Chastain’s and Smith’s DQs came in Truck races, while both of Allmendinger’s were in Xfinity — just a few weeks apart from each other in 2019, no less.

Busch and Hamlin have one Cup and one Xfinity DQ each. Chastain, Busch and Hamlin have had wins stripped from DQs, while Hamlin has the unfortunate distinction of being the only driver to be stripped of a win more than once.

Driver	Cup DQs	Xfinity DQs	Truck DQs	Total DQs
Denny Hamlin	1*	1*		2
Kyle Busch	1	1*		2
AJ Allmendinger		2		2
Ross Chastain			2*	2
Zane Smith			2	2

As for the original finishing position of disqualified drivers, the common finish is second, with 10 runner-up finishes wiped off the board since 2019. Four wins have been stripped, while a total of 22 top-five finishes have been stripped in the last six seasons.

Eight DQs came from drivers that finished between 11th and 20th, while the remaining three DQs initially finished outside the top 20.

Finish	Cup DQs	Xfinity DQs	Truck DQs	Total DQs
1	1	2	1	4
2	4	3	3	10
3-5	2	4	2	8
6-10				0
11-20	3	3	2	8
21+		2	1	3

This makes sense, considering that in the regular season, the winning and second-place cars are inspected post-race, as well as a third random car at NASCAR’s choosing. This is beefed up come playoff time, when every playoff-eligible driver goes through the same rigorous inspecting process.

As for the most common violations, the most frequent DQs had to do with height, with a car either being too high or too low in a particular area. A whopping 11 DQs in Xfinity have been height related, although there have been no DQs of this manner in Cup.

Loose lug nut violations are the second-most frequent DQ, and are the only violations to have occurred in all three series. Bowman’s DQ marked the third weight violation in Cup and overall, and all of those DQs have occurred in the Next Gen era.

Windshield fasteners is the remaining violation to have occurred more than twice, and all three violations have occurred in the last calendar year.

Violation	Cup DQs	Xfinity DQs	Truck DQs	Total DQs
Height		11	3	14
Lug Nut	1	2	2	5
Weight	3			3
Windshield Fasteners	1		2	3
Rear Alignment	2			2
Front Fascia	2			2
Track Bar Mounting Assembly	1			1
Engine		1		1
Tires			1	1
Throttle-Body			1	1

That makes 33 DQs in just under six seasons, and that number will only continue to grow as time goes on. Bowman’s DQ this week was the first to directly eliminate a driver from the playoffs, but it almost certainly won’t be the last.