Team Explains Reason Behind NASCAR Driver’s Disqualification from Truck Series Race

On Saturday afternoon, ThorSport Racing’s Johnny Sauter got into a spot of trouble. After the race concluded, Sauter’s Number 13 car failed post-race inspection, and was subsequently disqualified. Apparently, NASCAR deemed that Sauter’s truck committed “a race tire violation”, hence the decision.

In the wake of the decision, NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series managing director Brad Moran said, “The 13 truck had an issue with one of its tires and did not pass our at-track inspection and led to a violation … basically no treatment or no modifications of any kind. We had an issue with one of the tires which led to the DQ of the No. 13 truck.”

“There was no tip-off. We randomly chose one Ford, Chevrolet and Toyota. They were all very close to each other on pit road. It makes it easy to manage it and to have our officials get to all three sets fairly quickly, basically confiscate them and keep our eyes on them. It was not a tip-off, it was one set of tires from all three OEMs (original equipment manufacturers).”

How did the NASCAR driver get caught?

According to Moran, one of the tires on Sauter’s truck failed a “dunk tank test”. For the uninitiated, tires are submerged into a tank of water to check for any illegal tire modifications. Some of them include air bubbles from small intentional pin holes or illegal compounds placed upon the tire.

“Yeah, it was a typical dunk tank test, correct,” Moran continued. “They go into a dunk tank and we’re looking at certain things that could be letting air out in different ways. There are many different methods and ways and unfortunately we just had a tire that didn’t pass the test.”

He confirmed that the tainted tire came from a set used during Stage 2 of the event. Fortunately for the NASCAR driver, he will not get slapped with further penalties. In other words, Sauter and ThorSport Racing will not face heavy monetary fines, point reductions or personnel suspensions.

Admittedly, without the disqualification, ThorSport had a mixed day in the office. Sauter originally finished 17th out of 40 cars, while his teammate won the race. Sauter wasn’t alone, as the No. 18 of Christian Eckes got penalised from 3rd, and the No. 56 of finisher Timmy Hill faced the same fate after finishing 22nd. As it turned out, both cars had “one lug nut not safe and secure.”