Kurt Busch not permitted to qualify after multiple inspection failures

Kurt Busch will start last in Sunday’s Cup race at Auto Club Speedway because his car failed inspection three times Friday night and will not be allowed to take part in qualifying Saturday.

Busch also must perform a pass-though penalty after the start of Sunday’s Cup race, loses pit stall selection for this event and had car chief David Bryan ejected.

Busch’s car was the only vehicle to fail inspection three times. Six cars failed inspection twice. Each of those teams had a crew member ejected and lost its pit stall selection for Sunday’s race.

Failing twice were the cars of Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski, Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, Bubba Wallace and BJ McLeod.

The crew member ejected for each team: Car chief Nick Case (Keselowski’s No. 6 car), car chief Tyler Graf (McLeod’s No. 78 car), car chief Raymond Fox (Blaney’s No. 12 car), car chief Jerry Kelly (Logano’s No. 22 car), car chief Robert Smith (Harvick’s No. 4 car) and engineer Etienne Cliche (Wallace’s No. 23 car)

Both of 23XI Racing’s cars failed at least twice with Wallace and Busch. Two of Team Penske’s cars failed twice with Logano and Blaney. 

Cup practice is scheduled for 2 p.m. ET Saturday, followed by qualifying at 2:35 p.m. ET at Auto Club Speedway.

Only the 36 chartered cars are entered for the event. All are guaranteed to start the race.