FanHouse Penalty

Carl Edwards won at Dover a few weeks ago with a car that ran a little too low.

NASCAR found it in post-race inspection and penalized the driver of the No. 99 Roush-Fenway Ford Fusion the standard 25 driver points for the infraction, though he was allowed to keep the win.

Edwards and his team owner Jack Roush thought that the penalty was not only injust -- stock cars need more rear downforce on tracks like Dover, not less -- and also felt that it was overly harsh.

Last week, they appealed the decision, claiming the penalty was too severe for a Chase driver because of different points standings and the ten races available in the Chase.

The National Stock Car Racing Commission didn't agree and voted today to not overturn or modify the Roush appeal. As a result, Edwards will still sit in sixth place in the Chase standings, 205 points behind leader Jeff Gordon.

Later in the day, be sure to look for some unpleasantries bubbling from the Roush camp over this.

You've gotta believe that Jack Roush is t-i-c-k-e-d.

Rules are rules, though, I 'spose.

UPDATE:
Greg Biffle may get by unscathed after all. According to ESPN, sources from NASCAR said late today it is unlikely that the AmeriQuest Ford Fusion will face a penalty for being too low at Bristol. Officials are, however, still continuing to find out why the car was "low".

Biffle appeared on Monday night's edition of Inside Nextel Cup and told the expert panel that his team has checked the NASCAR rulebook and found no violation of a car being too low at Bristol. According to Biffle, the rule only relates to Daytona and Talladega. The panel agreed, saying the car needs to be high at Bristol, and that there is only a maximum height requirement.

Why would NASCAR be confiscating a car then if its not against the rules? This is really kind of a slanted move by the Daytona bunch because if Biffle did nothing wrong, then he shouldn't even face the scrutiny of "being too low". Maybe NASCAR couldn't come up with a better reason to just flat out take a car for more research.

NASCAR claims this year that rules violations and penalties are going to be consistent. Yeah, about as consistent as the release date for Guns n' Roses' Chinese Democracy.

Original Post 4:09 PM EST:
NASCAR on FOX analyst Larry McReynolds said today that race fans shouldn't expect to hear about Greg Biffle's penalty for his car being too low until sometime next week.

about not being able to catch Jimmie Johnson today.

And he said so on national TV!

Didn't anybody tell him you can't do that?

The FCC is coming for Fox. They'll be slapped with a fine for allowing one of the seven dirty words to make it to air.

Fox will pass the fine on to NASCAR and NASCAR will slap their own fine on Montoya.

There will be shouts of horror, discussion of time delays and The Parents Television Council will have a letter out to their members before I'm done posting this because millions of children have been scarred for life.

But all I want to know is if NASCAR is going to dock points from JPM like they did from Dale Earnhardt Jr. when he said the 'S' word after winning in 'Dega in 2004.

If he is shown favoritism there will be outrage! At least from me!

What does the media do for stories after a boring race with a boring winner? They create a controversy where there is none. Duh!

This week, the controversy is over loose tires on pit road, specifically those belonging to UAW-Daimler Chrysler 400 winner Jimmie Johnson. He had two stray tires on Sunday, but only received a pass-through penalty for the first one. Had a penalty been assessed for the second one, most likely he would not have gone on to win the race.

Johnson didn't receive a second penalty was because a NASCAR official stopped the tire before it rolled onto pit road.

Was NASCAR showing favortism to the #48 team? I don't think so ... this is fairly standard procedure, at least according to Denny Hamlin's front tire changer, Dennis Terry, who brings up another question: Should NASCAR officials make a conscious effort to help out the pit crews? Or should they just call it like they see it and let each crew live with their mistakes as is the case with most sports?

I think they should be hands off and just call it like they see it--for the most part. In this case, I believe the official acted appropriately because more than being a matter of "assisting" the pit crew, it was a matter of safety for other drivers on pit road.

What say you?