"They didn't even try" - Dale Earnhardt Jr. surprised with HMS' treatment of Alex Bowman penalty appeal after Roval DQ

Dale Earnhardt Jr. this week reacted to the big story coming out of Hendrick Motorsports camp after the playoff race at Roval. Following last Sunday's Cup race, after the post-race inspection, NASCAR deemed Alex Bowman's #48 Next Gen Camaro to be lighter than the regulations required and handed the team a DQ result.

Bowman's team, Hendrick Motorsports, had the option to appeal against this decision, or their driver would be out of the playoffs. However, in a decision that took many insiders by surprise, including Earnhardt, HMS did not appeal the DQ result, which meant that Bowman was out of the playoffs.

Speaking on his podcast "Dale Jr. Download," Dale Jr. expressed his surprise at this development. He said,

"Parts are falling off that car and so I mean parts fall off cars, they continue racing. So I'm thinking the same thing with Alex, if he lost the weight on the racetrack, it's, 'Damn, they're going to appeal the hell out of this. They're going to win. Alex will get back in.' No, we found out today they're not going to appeal. I was [surprised] too...I was not expecting that. Usually, with everything on the line, Alex's championship hopes, they rest on the idea that they can somehow appeal this and they didn't even try to appeal it."

Earnhardt further shared that he used his connections in the aftermath of HMS' announcement to hunt "for some information." He added,

"I was told there was no understanding as to how the car was light, what might've come off it, the team hours later they were dumbfounded or they were still unsure as to how this could happen. I'm going to assume there was nothing significant of weight that came off the car. The car was beyond the tolerance."

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Jeff Gordon opens up on NASCAR disqualifying Alex Bowman from Roval

After Alex Bowman was disqualified from the race at Roval, and his team decided not to appeal, resulting in his playoff exit, HMS' Jeff Gordon shared his thoughts on the subject.

Gordon said he was "pretty embarrassed" and "disappointed" with the situation. The vice chairman of HMS added that what looked like a "historical day" for his team all got "wiped away" because of NASCAR finding the #48 car illegal.

Gordon further opined that teams in NASCAR push hard to make the best out of the limits imposed on them. And in Bowman's case, his team just pushed a little too much.

"All the teams do this in order to stay as competitive as we can possibly be every single weekend. You’ve got to look at all those processes and procedures to see how close are we cutting it."

The 4x Cup champion added that going forward, the most important thing for them as an organization is to make sure that their cars move forward and meet the tolerances set by NASCAR.