Teams that made it through qualifying inspection had a legitimate beef.

A loophole in NASCAR’s rules provided a tire advantage to cars that failed inspection and made no qualifying attempts. Those cars could start Sunday’s Auto Club 400 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race on fresh rubber, while those that made qualifying attempts are required to start the race on their qualifying tires.

How big of an advantage were new tires versus scuffs? Martin Truex Jr. summed it up after winning the pole on Friday afternoon.

“In my mind, if you’re not probably in the top-four, you’re better off being 25th (on sticker tires),” Truex said.

On Friday evening, NASCAR moved aggressively to eliminate the loophole and negate any advantage those who failed inspection might have. All teams whose cars passed inspection were given the right to buy an additional set of sticker tires to start the race, provided they turned in their scuffed qualifying tires and did not use them for Saturday’s practice.

As a consequence, those who passed inspection and qualified will be able to start the race on rubber equal to that on the cars that failed inspection.

Early Saturday morning, before the NASCAR Xfinity Series cars were set to qualify, NASCAR went a step further, announcing that cars that did not make a qualifying attempt before Saturday’s Roseanne 300 would have to serve a pass-through penalty after taking the green flag.

The specter of a penalty had the desired effect. All Xfinity Series cars passed inspection and made it to the grid in time for qualifying.