No penalties: Ryan Newman's car clears NASCAR inspection

CHARLOTTE — Ryan Newman survived a treacherous race at Talladega Superspeedway. Now he's made it through NASCAR's technical inspection, too.

Newman's car was found to be too low in the rear on both sides after Sunday's race, which could have set up a points penalty that knocked him out of the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

But NASCAR ruled Tuesday the issue was caused by race damage, which meant there would be no penalties.

"I was worried, don't get me wrong, because you never know what could happen," Newman said Tuesday during a media day for the third round. "I was happy NASCAR took the time to take the car back to the Tech Center and analyze everything."

The Richard Childress Racing driver is now through to the "Eliminator Round," although it would have been quite a severe penalty to change that – he made it by 27 points. He believed the damage was caused by Matt Kenseth hitting him in the rear bumper on the final restart, but wasn't sure.

The damage was enough to wrinkle the quarterpanels, Newman said crew chief Luke Lambert told him.

"I didn't know if there was going to be a penalty and I didn't know what that penalty was going to be," Newman said. "I was confident it wasn't going to be more than 27 points, because that would be the biggest penalty for that type of (infraction) ever that I could imagine or have heard of. But in the end, you never know."

Joining Newman in the third round are seven other drivers: Team Penske's Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski, Joe Gibbs Racing's Kenseth and Denny Hamlin, Hendrick Motorsports' Jeff Gordon, Roush Fenway Racing's Carl Edwards and Stewart-Haas Racing's Kevin Harvick.

They will compete Sunday at Martinsville Speedway, then at Texas Motor Speedway and Phoenix International Raceway to decide which four drivers move on to the championship race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.​

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