NASCAR: 3 Joe Gibbs Racing drivers hit with penalties
By Asher Fair
Three of the four Joe Gibbs Racing drivers are slated to drop to the rear of the field at Bristol Motor Speedway for the final race of the round of 16 of the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs.
Two pre-race inspection failures for three of the four Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas ahead of tonight’s Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race, the third and final race of the round of 16 of the four-round, 10-race 2020 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, have resulted in penalties.
The #19 Toyota of Martin Truex Jr. was the only one of the team’s four cars that made it through, as the #11 Toyota of Denny Hamlin, the #18 Toyota of Kyle Busch and the #20 Toyota of Erik Jones all failed twice. Hamlin, Busch and Jones are all slated to drop to the rear of the field on the pace laps.
Fortunately for the team, this does not do all that much to the their playoff chances heading into this 500-lap race around the four-turn, 0.533-mile (0.858-kilometer) high-banked oval in Bristol, Tennessee.
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Hamlin is already locked into the round of 12 on points, and Jones failed to qualify for the playoffs to begin with. Busch, however, is still fighting for a spot in the round of 12. He enters this race 18 points above the cut line.
Hamlin was slated to have started in seventh place with Busch in ninth and Jones in 20th. All three drivers are slated to keep their official starting positions despite the fact that they are slated to take the green flag behind the rest of the pack. None of them were docked any points for these issues.
Truex is still set to start in third place. He is 38 points above the round of 12 cut line.
Three other drivers, Richard Petty Motorsports’ Bubba Wallace, Go Fas Racing’s Corey LaJoie and Premium Motorsports’ J.J. Yeley, are also set to drop to the rear of the field on the pace laps. The #43 Chevrolet of Wallace and the #32 Ford of LaJoie had unapproved adjustments made to them and Yeley was not initially slated to drive the #15 Chevrolet when the starting lineup was set.
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Tune in to NBC Sports Network at 7:30 p.m. ET this evening for the live broadcast of the 2020 Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race from Bristol Motor Speedway.