NASCAR has overturned the disqualification of Ryan Blaney and his car, the sanctioning body announced Monday evening. The move increases Blaney’s chances of reaching next month’s championship race.
“After further review of the inspection process during this weekend’s events at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, NASCAR has revoked Disqualification Penalty No. 12,” the sanctioning body said in a statement.
“On Monday morning, during the race weekend debriefing, NASCAR discovered an issue with the damper template used for inspection.
“NASCAR then conducted a detailed investigation and reinstated the No. 12’s stage and race results from Sunday.
“NASCAR has taken internal steps to address this issue going forward.”
Team Penske issued a statement Monday night: “We are pleased with NASCAR’s decision to lift the post-race disqualification for the No. 12 car following Sunday’s race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.” NASCAR has been throughout the process demonstrated a tremendous level of integrity leading to this conclusion. We are proud of the No. 12 team’s effort and results in the 2023 season. We look forward to continuing our pursuit of the NASCAR Cup Series championship.”
Blaney is credited with his original sixth place and 39 points, including eight stage points. Blaney is now 18 points from the cutline. He moves up to seventh place in the playoff standings. Blaney was 56 points from the cutline and in a must-win situation.
Blaney is ahead of Chris Buescher in the playoff standings. Buescher is 23 points from the cutline.
Cup Series general manager Brad Moran said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Monday that the left front shock absorber on Blaney’s car was found to be too short, leading to the disqualification.
“I guess 12 hours later or a little longer we got some information,” Moran said on Sirius. “We brought back all the shocks. We returned the damper template and all the tools. We started going through all of our weekend reports and doing our due diligence to make sure nothing was missed.
“Unfortunately something came up for me. One thing led to another and when we did our due diligence and dug into all the details, we discovered that at some point throughout the weekend the damper plate was inconsistent, which was obviously our fault.”
Moran also told Sirius, “We’ll determine what we need to do.” Teams are strengthening during the playoffs. We have to do the same.”
Moran said NASCAR disassembled the shock absorber to ensure there were no problems with the unit.
Moran said on Sirius that NASCAR will implement new procedures to ensure this incident does not happen again.