Richard Childress Racing has lost its appeal over the disqualification assessed to Jesse Love and the Xfinity Series No. 2 team on Saturday at Rockingam Speedway.
Love crossed the finish line first on Saturday but had the win stripped away in post-race technical inspection. The car was in violation of body skew rules as articulated that night by Xfinity Series director Eric Peterson.
“So, that’s truck trailing arms, spacers, and pinion angle shims, says the area of that rule,” Peterson said. “And the way that that rule reads is that all mating surfaces between the truck trailing arms and the U-bolt saddle must be in contact with each other at all times. And unfortunately, that was not the case when we did the teardown on the 2 car and they were disqualified.”
The Sporting News explained that the National Motorsports Appeal panel is a non-affiliated group of volunteers that hear such cases when they become necessary. This time, the group consisted of Langley Speedway track owner Bill Mullis, former Speed Channel president Hunter Nickell and longtime track operator Steve York.
This panel provided the following statement:
“The panel finds that it is more likely than not that there was a violation of 14.14.2 Rear Suspension, I-5.H. The panel was unable to determine whether the violation was intentional or unintentional. The panel finds that the mating surfaces between the truck trailing arm and the U-bolt saddle were not in contact with each other.”
Sammy Smith is now officially the winner of Saturday’s race.
