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Ryan Blaney can breathe a sigh of relief.
The NASCAR star nearly saw his playoff run hit a massive snag after he was disqualified from Sunday’s race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway due to a post-race penalty.
But the series has since done a 180, announcing that it overturned the penalty on Monday and leaving Blaney right in the thick of the playoff race.
Cup Series Managing Director Brad Moran on #NASCAR’s decision to rescind Ryan @Blaney’s DQ from yesterday ⬇️
“We realized that the dampener plate at some point was not consistent throughout the entire weekend, which is obviously on us. We had to make it right.” pic.twitter.com/e2i0Bg9fj4
— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) October 16, 2023
“After further review of the inspection process throughout this weekend’s events at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, NASCAR has rescinded the No. 12 disqualification penalty.
“Monday morning during its race weekend debrief, NASCAR discovered an issue with the damper template used for inspection,” NASCAR said in a statement. “NASCAR then conducted a detailed investigation, and has restored the No. 12’s stage and race finishing positions from Sunday.
“NASCAR has taken internal steps to remedy this issue moving forward.”
But how exactly does that happen?
Thankfully, former driver Kenny Wallace stepped in to explain.
Wallace suggests in his video that the measure device used by NASCAR was not properly reset in between measurement.
The penalty overturn is a massive development as the NASCAR season winds down. Blaney is currently one of eight drivers remaining in the semifinal round of the playoffs.
He’s not 17 points below the cut line to advance to the championship race at Phoenix with two races remaining in the round. Had the penalty remained, Blaney would have been 56 points below the cut line and very likely in a must-win scenario in the coming weeks at Homestead and Martinsville.
But fans still weren’t particularly happy with how everything went down.
“So, if @NASCAR doesn’t say anything yesterday, checks their template, diagnoses the 12’s shock this morning, nobody ever knows this. The hasty decision to DQ Blaney has created a issues for wagering sites. Just be sure of a decision like this next time, there’s a lot on the line,” one fan tweeted.
“I don’t trust the inspection process one bit at this point,” said another.
NASCAR now moves to Homestead with a large black cloud hanging over its inspection process.