Three drivers were disqualified at Greenville-Pickens Speedway on Saturday night because their shocks did not rebound in 90 seconds when going through postrace technical inspection. At Hickory Motor Speedway, on the same night, RD Smith was disqualified for the same thing.
Smith took the lead from Austin McDaniel with a last lap, last turn bump-and-run and went on to win the race. After the race, however, Smith failed inspection because the shocks would not travel six inches within 90 seconds.
“The shocks wouldn’t rebound in time,” Smith told RACE22.com. “I don’t know exactly where it was, just that they didn’t come out in time. It was very cold and we’re used to setting them, they’re set to be kept in 100 degrees and it was 30 degrees so it was an oversight on our part.”
Hickory Motor Speedway track promoter Kevin Piercy confirmed that the shock rebound was the reason for the disqualification.
“There’s a gage that they put these things on and it would not come out in a certain amount of time. Anyway, I hate to do stuff like that but that’s my job.”
For Smith, it was a frustrating end to a frustrating race in which he had to overcome a lap 19 entanglement with Annabeth Barnes, who was also involved in an incident on lap 50 with Natalie Decker.
Smith’s disqualification allowed McDaniel to inherit the victory.
“It was a pretty wild race,” McDaniel said. “We had to start at the back of the pack, had some issues in tech after qualifying. We worked our way to the front, aced well with Josh Berry and Payton Ryan. They got into each other and got sent to the back. We were leading as we took the white flag and Smith got into us in three and four, shoved us up the track. He went on to win the race, we were second and he got disqualified for shocks.”
Smith joins Dalton Sargeant, Kenneth Headen and Trey Gibson on the list of NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Late Model Stock Car drivers to be disqualified on Saturday night. When asked if this was a new rule or something that was being enforced differently this year, Piercy said that the rule has been in the books for several years.
RACE22.com’s calls to NASCAR have not been returned.