NASCAR warnings from Texas issued

NASCAR issued written warnings to five teams from last weekend's Sprint Cup inspections at Texas. Dale Earnhardt Jr. lost his pit stall selection for Sunday's AAA Texas 500 because of the warning for failing the laser inspection twice in prequalifying inspection. Since NASCAR revamped its warning system in August, a fourth cumulative warning results in loss of pit selection. Earnhardt's cumulative warnings total has been reset to zero after the penalty.

The teams of Jeb Burton (failing prerace laser inspection twice), Joey Gase (failing prequalifying laser inspection three times), Michael McDowell (failing prequalifying laser inspection twice) and Ryan Preece (failing prequalifying laser inspection four times) also received warnings. The teams of Gase and Preece will be held out of practice for 15 minutes at Phoenix. There were no problems discovered with the cars taken to the R&D Center after Sunday's race (race winner Jimmie Johnson, runner-up Brad Keselowski, Austin Dillon). NBC Sports