No. 78 part confiscated in pre-qualifying inspection at Talladega – Nascar

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TALLADEGA, Ala. — Martin Truex Jr. will start on the pole in Sunday’s Hellmann’s 500 (2 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway.

It was clear sailing around the 2.66-mile track for the driver of the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota on Saturday.

Meanwhile, dark clouds had gathered elsewhere.

NASCAR officials confiscated the left-front jack bolt from the team during pre-qualifying inspection, and will take the piece back to the sanctioning body’s Research and Development Center in Concord, North Carolina.

“They had a jack bolt that we didn’t feel like met specifications that we have in the rule book,” Scott Miller, Senior Vice President of Competition for NASCAR, said. “Not a real competitive advantage. We will take it back … analyze everything and decide what we are going to do.

“It’s no different than … cars that fail the templates and have to go back through. It’s our job to officiate the sport and this part and the rest of today’s activities are no different than what we do every weekend.”

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Crew chief Cole Pearn said the bolt was the wrong size, not hollow as was initially reported.

“It was a mistake,” he said. “We fixed it; we found another one and moved on. Stuff like that happens all the time. We’re not perfect. I know people like to think that we’re brilliant geniuses that have malicious plans to cheat the system somehow, but sometimes we’re just stupid and make mistakes.

“That’s really just what happened and hopefully it doesn’t turn into anything more than that.”

Miller said such a violation could result in a points penalty, impacting the team’s Chase status, but that it wasn’t always the case.

“I would say it would be unlikely but it has to go through our process,” he said. “We don’t typically do that on a weekend. Because this is the playoffs everybody has a heightened sense of everything but this is no different than things we have done all year and we will treat this one just like we do all year long.”

Both Pearn and NASCAR said that the issue was only with one bolt.

“All other three corners were fine,” Pearn said. “We’re at Talladega; maybe if you’re at Martinsville, and you have all four hollowed out …”

Truex edged fellow Chase driver Brad Keselowski (Team Penske No. 2 Ford) for the top spot. Matt Kenseth (Joe Gibbs Racing), Chase Elliott (Hendrick Motorsports) and Greg Biffle (Roush Fenway Racing) completed the top five as the lineup for the 40-car field was set.

“All the crazy talk going on today is nonsense,” Truex said. “I think people speculate on things and don’t really know what they are.

“The jack bolt issues is really not a big issue. It’s not hollow like what was reported. (NASCAR) didn’t take both, they just took the left front so it’s not a big issue.”

The 78 team did lose its pit stall selection for a fourth warning related to inspections.