NASCAR admits officiating mistake after Xfinity Series race

In a rare overturn of a previously announced penalty, NASCAR officials on Sunday morning at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway said due to an error on its part, a penalty announced following Saturday’s Xfinity race on Hemric’s No. 21 Chevrolet would be overturned.

On Saturday, NASCAR announced that the right-rear toe on the No. 21 failed mechanical measurements during post-race inspection and Hemric and his team were facing an L1 penalty. Their eligibility for the $100,000 dash bonus in next weekend’s race was stripped and driver Brandon Jones was added to the bonus program.

“We have a post-race tolerance and NASCAR uses mechanical measurements for the past four years in Xfinity Series,” said Xfinity Series managing director Wayne Auton. “We inspected seven cars post race and the 21 car was out of tolerance on one side. We reviewed and the measurements and it was out of tolerance.”

While the measurement was out of tolerance, Auton explained that in the Xfinity Series, both sides of the car have to exceed the allowed tolerances for the penalty to apply.

“There is a chart in the rulebook and one side was out of tolerance and the other side was not,” Auton said. “We called all parties involved and made them aware of our decision. We usually wait until Tuesday but we made sure we got this out in front of everyone today and everyone aware there is no penalty on the 21 car.

"We went back and looked at it (Saturday night) and we're man enough to say we looked at it wrong. We went back and looked over everything and told the teams and sponsors. We made a mistake last night and we are going to get it corrected here today.”

The four drivers now eligible to compete for the Dash4Cash $100,000 bonus Friday at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway will be Hemric, Justin Allgaier, Elliott Sadler and Spencer Gallagher.