NASCAR announce result of appeal against dramatic disqualification

NASCAR have announced the verdict of an appeal panel, which met to discuss Jesse Love's Xfinity Series disqualification at Rockingham last weekend.

Love and Richard Childress Racing appealed the disqualification, which snatched a race win from them hours after the race, but were ultimately unsuccessful as the decision was upheld.

The Xfinity Series race win has now officially been credited to Sammy Smith, who finished second on the track behind Love only to be promoted when the #2 car failed a post-race inspection.

Xfinity Series director Eric Peterson explained the DQ on the night, saying: “So, that’s truck trailing arms, spacers, and pinion angle shims, says the area of that rule. 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.”

RCR disappointed by appeal outcome

The team's appeal was heard on Wednesday morning, with the ruling coming out later in the day ahead of this weekend's race at Talladega.

The National Motorsports Appeal panel is a non-affiliated group of volunteers, with Wednesday's three-member panel comprised of Langley Speedway track owner Bill Mullis, former Speed Channel president Hunter Nickell and long-time track operator Steve York.

They announced: “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.”

Richard Childress Racing reacted to the decision on social media, posting a short statement which read: "RCR is disappointed in NASCAR’s decision today to uphold the disqualification of the No. 2 team. We will focus our efforts on moving forward and being competitive at Talladega this weekend."

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