Up to Speed: Rules, Not Racing, Dominate ROVAL Playoff Weekend

For a few hours after last weekend’s race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL, everyone was talking about Tyler Reddick’s heroic drive. An accident during stage two left Reddick’s No. 45 car with a broken toe link, which threatened to knock him out of the playoffs. Even after his crew repaired the damage, Reddick remained buried in the field and appeared unable to make up the necessary points to avoid elimination.

As a last-ditch effort, crew chief Billy Scott called Reddick to pit road with 28 laps to go, hoping a set of fresh tires would give Reddick an advantage over the competition. The strategy paid off, and Reddick did his part to drive his way through the field. By the time the checkered flag flew, Reddick had climbed to 11th place, allowing him to make up enough ground on Joey Logano to take the last transfer spot to the Round of 8 by four points.

But in the end, none of that mattered. The real final twist came during post-race inspection when Alex Bowman’s car was found to be too light. Bowman had mostly stayed out of the playoff drama during Sunday’s race, but subsequent disqualification knocked him out of championship contention and put Logano back into the playoffs. Despite some strong runs through the first half of the playoffs, Bowman’s woes in the Round of 12 came back to haunt him again.

It seems that the NASCAR world is in for another week where discussions about officiating will dominate the conversation, which is too bad. The sanctioning body deservingly took some heat from fans over its inconsistent enforcement of the Damaged Vehicle Policy in the past two weeks.

Now, the national series races at the ROVAL have brought a double dose of controversy. In the NASCAR Xfinity Series race, NASCAR threw a caution for Leland Honeyman’s wrecked car when leader Parker Kligerman was inches away from taking the white flag. The timing of the caution was unfortunate, especially because the TV broadcast spotted Honeyman’s disabled car long before race control triggered the caution. Instead of talking about Sam Mayer taking the lead on the overtime restart and securing a victory to keep his title hopes alive, fans were wondering why the caution came so late.

After the NASCAR Cup Series race on Sunday (Oct. 13), NASCAR has a similar problem. Instead of talking about Reddick’s comeback, Kyle Larson’s dominant win or who has the advantage in the Round of 8, all the conversation will be about how Bowman’s championship hopes were ended by something over which the driver had no control. Yes, NASCAR has a right to enforce its rules, and in this case, it applied the rule consistently (unlike the DVP in the past few weeks). But it is still disappointing that the Round of 8 drivers were not determined by what happened on the racetrack.

The obvious question is whether or not Hendrick Motorsports and the No. 48 team were trying to deliberately slip an underweight car past NASCAR’s inspectors. While it is certainly possible, the risk seems too great for the reward. Bowman and his team went to the ROVAL fifth in points, 26 above the cut line. There was no need for any sort of desperation move to get Bowman to the next round. All the No. 48 team needed was a solid day with no mistakes, something that had a great chance of happening. In addition to his steady postseason performance, Bowman had never finished outside the top 10 in five previous starts at the ROVAL. Why would Hendrick risk incurring NASCAR’s wrath when the No. 48 team was already close to the goal?

Speculation about Hendrick’s next move ended on Monday evening. The team announced that it would not appeal the penalty, accepting responsibility for pushing the weight of the car too close to the minimum.  To not even attempt an appeal is a surprising decision, especially considering an incident that occurred early in the race. While navigating the frontstretch chicane, Bowman hit the curbs and launched into the air, landing on four wheels but bouncing off the outside wall in the process. One video of the incident, captured by Michael McDowell’s onboard camera, shows a piece of debris flying off Bowman’s car as it lands on the track.

Even so, the video from McDowell’s car is not a smoking gun. Hendrick would’ve had to prove that the weight lost from the incident was what caused the No. 48 to fail the post-race weight check. NASCAR could have also argued that the incident is irrelevant and that the car being underweight, no matter the reason, warrants a penalty. The uncertainty of where the No. 48 car’s weight was lost, combined with the post-race failure, were probably the factors that most influenced the team’s decision not to appeal.

Bowman’s disqualification recalls a similar controversy during the 2010 Chase involving Clint Bowyer and Richard Childress Racing. That year, Bowyer won the first race of the Chase at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, but ran out of fuel on the cool-down lap and had to get pushed by a wrecker to victory lane. Bowyer’s car passed post-race inspection, but NASCAR took the car back to its research and development center. Days later, the sanctioning body hit Bowyer and Childress with a 150-point penalty for unapproved modifications to the rear bodywork of Bowyer’s car. The penalty effectively took Bowyer out of title contention after one race.

Bowyer and Childress quickly appealed the penalty, arguing that the punishment was too severe for the crime, which they described as the car being too far out of alignment by sixty-thousandths of an inch. Bowyer made an infamous comment about how that was less than the thickness of a quarter, and how such a small measurement should not have warranted a 150-point deduction. Childress also claimed that the misalignment could have been caused by the wrecker pushing Bowyer’s car. However, the team was never able to prove that theory, and although some suspensions of Bowyer’s crew members were reduced on appeal, the points penalty stuck.

Now, 14 years later, another penalty has made a huge impact on the playoffs, which is too bad. Hendrick and the No. 48 team bear the responsibility for the post-race inspection issues, but whatever the actual reason behind them, it is a shame to see a driver’s title hopes end this way. Likewise, it is going to be incredibly awkward if Logano, who was seemingly eliminated, goes on to win the championship. It is a real shame that this whole situation has overshadowed Reddick’s drive through the field, one of those “Game 7 moments” that NASCAR so desperately craves. Too bad that moment meant nothing after all.

Bryan Gable

Bryan began writing for Frontstretch in 2016. He has penned Up to Speed for the past eight years. A lifelong student of auto racing, Bryan is a published author and automotive historian. He is a native of Columbus, Ohio and currently resides in Southern Kentucky.