Inspection Please!

The Miller Lite Dodge must pass NASCAR inspection several times each race weekend, primarily on Fridays and Sundays. The inspection sites are run by the same NASCAR officials each race weekend and believe me, they know these guys well! That also means they know their jobs extremely well. As many of you know, the NASCAR garages are “open”, meaning teams work on their cars in full view of each other, and the inspections sites are no different. Anyone can watch the cars move through inspection making cheating or giving advantages to a team nearly impossible. The teams push their cars through inspection whenever they are ready, there is no set time or order. Interestingly, I learned this past weekend at Sonoma that if you are “late” and need to get ahead in line, your car chief or crew chief runs up and asks permission from the other teams to cut in – the officials do not get involved in making sure the teams are on time.

Friday Inspection
Inspection starts on Friday morning before the cars hit the track for practice. During this first inspection, each car gets an official NASCAR seal on the fuel cell and the rear wing. This seal indicates these two parts of the car have been approved and the seal serves a second function of eliminating any chance of the teams altering them in anyway which could gain them an advantage. Also on Friday morning, the transmission, carburetor, radiator are cleared and the gear ratio set by NASCAR is confirmed. The final step in getting the Miller Lite Dodge ready for practice is clearing the body template. NASCAR lowers a full body template from the top of the inspection tent over each car. If it passes, the car gets that familiar round orange sticker on the windshield to indicate it is track worthy.

Saturday Confiscation
Saturday just before the garage closes Luke Cunningham, the Miller Lite Dodge Shock Specialist must take the rear shocks to the NASCAR shock inspection site where NASCAR holds them until Sunday morning. At the inspection site, Luke must empty the shocks in front of the inspectors and then fill them back up to the desired psi within the NASCAR specifications for each race. NASCAR confiscates the rear shocks so the teams cannot tamper with them in any way.


Sunday Inspection
There are four main inspection sites the teams must pass through each race day. The entire Miller Lite mechanical crew is present including the Crew Chief, Pat Tryson, as they push the No. 2 car through these four sites. Bill, the interior mechanic is usually pulling a large toolbox just in case adjustments need to be made.

The first station is the Shock Installation Station where officials give the rear shocks back to Luke and usually he has “Stretch” (one of the general mechanics) re-install them on the Miller Lite Dodge. This is my favorite inspection site because I have befriended the officials that work here and they always give me some good inside scoop!

The team then pushes the car to the second inspection station which is the Template Line. Here a swarm of officials descend on the No. 2 car and use templates to measure nearly every body part including the angles on the quarter panels, front and rear windows, the nose and rear end, the bumpers and the chassis at the “A”, “B” and “C” posts. These are points along the top of the roof near the front window, just behind the driver and near the rear window.

At this inspection site, NASCAR also measures the tire to the ground where they are looking for 1” of “droop” or travel between the tire and the wheel well. Finally, they check the splitter making sure it is adjusted so it is level with the car using the nose grid.

The third inspection site is Height Sticks and Scales. NASCAR only allows four crew members at a time inside this inspection area and they are watched closely as they push the Miller Lite Dodge onto the scales to make sure they do not cheat in anyway by affecting the weight of the car. NASCAR measures the entire weight of the car as well as the right side weight. NASCAR dictates the weight of the right side of the car based on the weight of the driver.


The officials also measure the height of the car and it has to be within the minimum and maximum heights required by NASCAR. Finally, Mule, the Miller Lite Dodge Tire Specialist observes as they check the tire pressure. NASCAR dictates they must start at the “recommended tire pressure” for each race.

The final inspection site measures the wheel base of the car to measure how offset the chassis and suspension are. This is the station where several teams have failed in the past because their cars were too “yawed out” to fit on the template. They also measure the length of the cars here.

Once the Miller Lite Dodge has cleared all of the inspection sites the crew pushes the No. 2 car out onto pit road to their spot on the starting grid. The crew covers the car and an official stands and watches over all the cars until the start of the race. About an hour before the start of the race, one of the mechanics to start up the generator to heat the oil up. When Kurt arrives at the No. 2 car after driver introductions, the crew tightens the lug nuts one more time and Mule checks the air pressures again to make sure they are what Pat Tryson called for.

At this point, the Miller Lite Dodge is handed off to Kurt to work his magic out on the track. I hope you enjoyed this trip through the NASCAR inspection stations, now it is up to you to figure out where the grey areas are!