NASCAR vice president of competition defended Shepherd saying the veteran ‘met all of the requirements’ established by the sanctioning body. He qualified the situation by calling it ‘an accident, that could have happened to anybody’ and maintained that the #33 Chevy had no issue dropping ‘to the minimum speed’ required at Loudon, ‘so there wasn’t any issue with that.’
‘Morgan Shepherd has always been approved,’ Pemberton said. ‘He’s been approved for decades. Under our situation here, you take a physical at the beginning of the year, you pass your physical, you pass inspection with your car, you qualify for the race and you run the event. He met everything he needed to meet.’(Motorsport)(7-14-2014)
