Allmendinger, No. 16 Team Issued Additional Penalties at Nashville

A week after AJ Allmendinger clawed to within 13 points of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff cutline with a solid fourth-place finish in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the driver and his No. 16 Kaulig Racing team will be behind the eight ball to start Sunday's Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway.

Allmendinger, who qualified 17th in Saturday's qualifying session, will have to drop to the rear of the field prior to the start of Sunday's Cracker Barrel 400, and the driver will have to perform a stop-and-go penalty on pit road after taking the green flag in the race.

The No. 16 Kaulig Racing team also lost their pit selection for this weekend's race.

These penalties were dished out as a result of unapproved adjustments made to Allmendinger's car following pre-race inspection at Nashville Superspeedway on Saturday afternoon.

Allmendinger's car passed pre-race inspection on the first attempt through the inspection bay, but as the No. 16 team rolled their Chevrolet onto pit road prior to the start of NASCAR Cup Series practice, NASCAR Cup Series officials noticed an unapproved adjustment had been made to the splitter on the car.

As a result, the officials forced the No. 16 team to go back to the NASCAR Cup Series garage, and the No. 16 Chevrolet was sent back through the USS (underbody scanning station). This confirmed the suspicions of the officials on pit road that the team had made unapproved adjustments to their race car.

The team had to make repairs to their car to undo the unapproved adjustments, at which point they were officially eligible to take to the track for NASCAR Cup Series practice and qualifying. NASCAR held the No. 16 team out of the opening 10 minutes of Saturday's 25-minute practice session.

NASCAR ejetced car chief Jaron Antley for the remainder of the race weekend prior to practice, and NASCAR states that they also confiscated Antley's hard card.

Allmendinger will likely need an early-race caution to keep himself from going a lap down in the opening laps at the 1.33-mile concrete speedway.

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