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Crew chief after Xfinity incident: ‘I cannot apologize enough. There’s no excuse for it.’

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DOVER, Del. - Crew chief John Monsam could not do enough after tungsten fell off his car and struck Carl Long’s car causing Long to wreck Friday at Dover International Speedway - the second time in the last month weight has fallen off an Xfinity car.

The weight fell off Peyton Sellers’ car Friday morning during Xfinity practice. Long’s car ran over it, destroying the radiator. Water gushed on to Long’s front tires and he had no control, sliding up into the Turn 4 wall. After hitting, the throttle hung until he hit the inside wall.

Long was uninjured and working with his crew to prepare his backup car.

“I cannot apologize enough,’’ Monsam said after delivering four shocks to Long and his crew as they took parts from the primary car to put on the backup car. “An error on our part. There’s no excuse for it. All we can be right now is very grateful that Carl did not get hurt. Mistakes happen. Nobody’s perfect. I think it’s just a coincidence that it happened a couple of weeks ago to someone else. All I can say is I will take every step to make sure we’re right with Carl and it will never happen again.’’

Long was appreciative of Monsam’s apology and help, but the incident put him behind.

“It just killed us,’’ Long said. “It’s the best race car that I’ve got. First time I got a chance to race in a long time. This wasn’t a start and park.’'

Long said he had no time to react on what he was planning to make his final lap in practice.

“I saw the dust as we entered the corner,’' he said. “I saw a black speck but it was down on the ground.’’

Earlier this month, tungsten fell off the car of Ross Chastain’s car and struck Jamie Dick’s car and hit Dick in the helmet. Dick was uninjured.

NASCAR fined Chastain’s crew chief, Gary Cogswell $15,000 and placed him on probation through Dec. 31 for the P3 penalty.

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