Small Teams Failing Inspection: Justice or Tragedy?

Parker Kligerman had finally done it.

He won a race in a car sponsored by Scott Borchetta’s Big Machine Spiked Coolers. It was a feel-good story. A triumph by a lovable underdog whose team had just one full-time employee.

But it didn’t last.

After looking at the situation, a strong case can be made that this was nothing short of tragic.

After a few close calls in two years running full-time in the Xfinity Series, Kligerman wheeled the No. 75 Henderson Motorsports Chevrolet into victory lane. The win came in the Craftsman Truck Series, but it was still a huge win at Daytona International Speedway.

The No. 75 truck failed post-race inspection due to the rear heights of the truck being too low. The win was disqualified, and as a result, Corey Heim became the winner. Kligerman and the Henderson Motorsports team appealed the ruling and ultimately lost. The win was erased.

Poof: Like it never happened.

Were Kligerman and the little team that could just too aggressive with their setup and got caught red-handed? Did they get what they deserved? Was justice served?

That all depends on who you ask. Kligerman and his buddy Landon Cassill discussed the ordeal on The Money Lap podcast, and after listening to their side of the story, you can’t help but think the answer to all three questions above was a resounding “no.”

The events that unfolded, leading to the failed inspection, seem to be a result of mistakes made by part-time team members and unclear procedures, not a cheated-up race vehicle.

“The truck was legal when it raced, yes, it absolutely was.” Kligerman said.

If that’s true, then it’s hard to say the win should’ve been disqualified. Winners should not be disqualified because of a technicality in the inspection process that has nothing to do with how the car or truck performs on track.

It’s kind of like making an honest mistake on a self-prepared tax return, that actually caused you to pay no less in taxes and still get thrown in prison for 20 years. Is that justice or tragedy?

What Kligerman revealed on The Money Lap was beyond eye-opening. With risk of oversimplifying the issue, the team basically staged the truck incorrectly for inspection, without the driver or crew chief present, and were then unable to correct their error.

They had lifted up the front end of the truck, which caused the rear end to be too low. Once the height sticks were put in place, the truck could not be touched, per a bulletin that was given to teams outlining inspection procedure at the beginning of the 2023 season. The damage was done. The part-time crew members present during inspection were not well-versed in this procedure. Henderson’s team had never finished in the top five since the bulletin went out, so this was their first time going through it.

There were a multitude of factors that blended together to create a perfect cocktail of disaster for Kligerman and Henderson Motorsports. Kligerman said if they would’ve staged and measured the truck again it would’ve passed, but the existing procedure did not allow that, so the truck failed and the appeal was denied.

There are few stories in motorsports that resonate with fans more than a small part-time team playing David against the Goliaths of the sport. The eventual declared winner, Corey Heim, driving for Toyota’s factory-backed TRICON Garage, certainly represents a Goliath when compared to Kligerman and Henderson.

We got a rare example of David beating Goliath, but it was thrown in the trash because of a misunderstanding of the inspection procedure. Not because the truck was illegal while on track. That doesn’t sit well with me or with many fans worldwide.

This isn’t the first time a tiny team failed inspection because of technicality or misunderstanding.

Small teams bring in crew members on a part-time basis, and sometimes their inexperience, or perhaps incompetence, leads to mistakes that can result in a failed inspection. An example of this was David Starr and MBM Motorsports getting disqualified after qualifying at Daytona to open up the 2024 Xfinity season.

MBM team owner Carl Long explained the car would’ve been able to make the show on speed without violating any rules, but there was a miscommunication between the team and the track bar was adjusted much more than desired, going beyond limits and resulting in a disqualification that nullified their lap, going from making the show on speed to going home as a DNQ. The financial setback led to a dramatically scaled-back schedule for the team.

Long has become a poster-child for this, having been given one of the most infamous penalties in NASCAR history in 2009. His Cup Series team was found to have been using an engine in the All-Star Open that was 358.17 inches in size, 0.17 inches above the limit. The punishment included a $200,000 fine that Long was unable to pay, rendering him blacklisted from the Cup garage for eight years until a settlement was reached. That engine was supplied by a third party and had been refurbished several times over. His appeal was that the engine was not oversized intentionally and presented zero advantage.

In the eyes of NASCAR and the appeals board, it didn’t matter for Long, just like it didn’t matter for Kligerman.

The rule of law is a tricky paradigm where common sense can yield to a requirement for consistency and fairness. If NASCAR made exceptions to its own rules and procedures for small teams, could other teams skirt the rules intentionally and claim NASCAR needs to give them the same leeway? Perhaps. But one would think a certain level of common sense could be applied when a tiny team pulls off a monumental achievement and trips over their own feet in an inspection, so long as the violation clearly did not offer any advantage on track.

In the corporate world, there is a saying: “Don’t tell me about the problems unless you can also recommend a solution.”

So, what is the solution here? I don’t pretend to have a fail-safe, but I do think the people tasked with making such critical calls should be able to apply some common sense.

“I thought the hardest part of winning a race was winning the race,” Kligerman said. “This is the first time where the hardest part of winning a race for me was trying to re-win the race.”

That just feels more like tragedy than justice.