optical scanning station – JeffGluck.com

March 16, 2018

Widespread inspection failures not NASCAR’s fault

If you’re mad at NASCAR officials for 13 cars failing to make a lap in qualifying Friday at Auto Club Speedway, you’re angry at the wrong people.

Getting upset is understandable; everyone wants to see all cars on the track. But blame the race teams, not those trying to keep them within the rules.

NASCAR has vastly improved its technology this year with the new Optical Scanning Station, an inspection system which drivers and crew chiefs alike agree has been much more consistent and reliable than anything NASCAR had in the past.

If a team fails inspection now, there’s little mystery why it happened: Because that team was trying to push the limits as much as possible and went over the line.

NASCAR gives three hours for teams to get through pre-qualifying inspection. Three hours! But when only 12 of the 37 cars pass on the first try, which was the case on Friday, not everyone is going to have time to make it through three times.

All the teams who didn’t get to make a lap? They all had enough time to make at least two passes through inspection. And they failed.

How is that NASCAR’s fault? The answer: It’s not.

Most of the teams now have Optical Scanning Stations in their race shops! They know exactly what can pass and what doesn’t.

NASCAR senior vice president of competition Scott Miller said teams were failing the body scan for a variety of reasons on Friday, but he saw many not passing because of the rear window area.

Hmm. Have you heard anything about that area recently? Ah, right.

Look, Auto Club Speedway is the most aero-dependent track NASCAR has visited so far. So it’s no wonder teams are trying to squeeze all they can out of the rules.

Miller said the number of cars that passed on the first inspection attempt last week was in the mid-20s and had been climbing higher in the last couple races. Clearly, the teams know how to pass the body scan if when they want to.

But they showed up at Fontana trying to get some more speed, and it made a mockery out of qualifying.

“(It) absolutely, 100 percent frustrates me,” Miller said. “We’re in the business of putting on a show for everybody who watches our sport and this is not a great story. So it’s frustrating for me that we can’t seem to get over this hump.”

March 9, 2018

Kevin Harvick reacts to NASCAR penalty

Here are some highlights from Kevin Harvick’s media availability on Friday morning at Phoenix, where he addressed the penalty issued to his team this week.

— On his previous success at Phoenix:

“Nobody wants to talk about that. Let’s just go to the first question. They all have the stats.”

— On whether NASCAR issued a penalty in response to social media posts:

“The car passed all the Optical Scanning Station inspections and everything after the race. The car was built to tolerance. The scary part for me is the fact that (NASCAR) went far enough to find something on the car at the NASCAR R&D Center. They could find something wrong with every car if they took it apart for a whole day at the R&D Center.

“The (incorrect) side skirt material is on us. That rule was put into place Feb. 18 and it should have been aluminum, but ours was steel. That is really kind of the meat of what gave them the ability to actually get the fine to where it was meaningful enough to appease everyone on social media.”

— On social media posts leading to NASCAR’s additional scrutiny:

“If you look at Atlanta, the car was there the week before. Same team, same window bracing, same roof, same side skirts, same everything. It was in the R&D Center the week before (for inspection). It has been there 49 times in three years. Technicalities.”

— On photos of other cars (some from races last year) with similarly dented roofs:

“If we want to officiate it with fan pictures, if you want to officiate it with pictures during the race and call people to pit road and do those types of things — from a NASCAR standpoint. I am fine with that. As long as it is consistent. As you can see from a lot of the pictures roaming around on the internet this week, it is not consistent.”

“You could have called the window attached to the brace penalty on 20 cars last week, easy.”

— On why seven playoff points were taken away if the penalty wasn’t big enough to suspend crew chief Rodney Childers:

“That is the other confusing part about the penalty. If it is such a big deal, why is my crew chief still here? I don’t understand that.”

— On the penalty detracting from the conversation about racing:

“As a sport, you don’t want to be talking about penalties. We are right back to where we were with the LIS machine and all the conversations we had about that. The conversations that went away (because of the new Optical Scanning Station) are now right back into play. We have an encumbered win.”

— On how to stop social media from influencing penalties:

“Keep your executives off of it during the race.”

— On the impact of the penalty:

“It just motivates us. I can’t wait to win another race and jump up and down in victory lane on the back of my car.”

Column: Why nothing feels good about Kevin Harvick’s penalty

February 23, 2018

On first day where it really mattered, NASCAR’s new inspection system delivered

Martin Truex Jr. stands with members of the 78 team after the team failed to make it through inspection Friday at Atlanta Motor Speedway. (Photo: Jeff Gluck)

The new Optical Scanning Station inspection system was a mystery heading into the first real qualifying day of 2018.

Would a bunch of teams fail at in the first downforce race of the season at Atlanta Motor Speedway, as they did under the old system? Or would everyone sail through now that it is tougher to push the rules? Perhaps it would be somewhere in between.

“We were supposed to have limited the inspection process by a lot. It’s supposed to be what, 90 seconds?” Chase Elliott said. “If everybody gets through in 90 seconds, we shouldn’t have any issues, right?”

For the most part, that was the case. More than half the field (20 of 36 cars) breezed through on the first attempt, and only three cars had to make more than two attempts.

But while Jimmie Johnson and Harrison Rhodes made it through on their third tries, defending Cup champion Martin Truex Jr. did not. As a result, he will start 35th and spend the weekend without car chief Blake Harris, who was ejected.

Crew chief Cole Pearn was visibly angry after the car failed for a third time, which followed what Truex said was an extra focus on getting through inspection.

“We stopped practice early just to try to get a jump start and have good plan going into this system today, just to see what happens,” Truex said before inspection began. “We’re trying to get ahead of the curve. It has potential to be very difficult.”

As it turned out, it was for his team. There were problems on one attempt with the body and problems with the rear-wheel alignment on another attempt.

Furniture Row Racing president Joe Garone said the team was frustrated and the mood was “volatile” after the third failed attempt.

“You’re trying to figure out what you actually did, especially when you feel like maybe the equipment itself is off a little bit,” Garone said. “But it’s also on our side as well. … It does change every time you go through.”

NASCAR disputed the suggestion its new equipment was inconsistent. In fact, NASCAR senior vice president of competition Scott Miller said most of the comments he got from teams on Friday were the opposite.

“Of course they’re going to say that,” Miller said of Furniture Row. “… All I can say is we feel like we did our job.

“Everybody else made it out there no problem at all, with time to spare. I don’t know what else to say about that.”

Miller said the tolerances used in inspection Friday will be the same all season long. The new system measures thousands of data points and provides a heat map of the car — it shows green if the car is legal, for example — and Miller said “there’s no real way to fake your way through there.”

The tighter limits could have made for far more headaches. Instead, the day was mostly smooth with the exception of the 78 team not getting through.

“I certainly would have guessed there would have been a lot more (than Truex), that they wouldn’t have been the only ones,” Kyle Busch said.