Should NASCAR Penalize Edwards for having a fender too low?

[RocklandRVers]

I know the rules are the rules, but come on now. NASCAR is going to possibly strip points from the first guy to possibly win both the Busch and Nextel cups in the same season on what seems to me a very minor technicality: a low fender?

As Edwards said in commenting on the inspection that found his right rear was low: in order to get an advantage you want the opposite: to have the rear high. He also pointed out Biffle (and maybe a few others) gave him a couple of "love taps" after the race to say congrats.

So if they found, as is reported, that there was no intentional tampering with the car to give it an advantage and the car passed pre-race inspection, how the heck can you get penalized for something totally beyond your control and particularly if it actually hurt your performance?

Lets let the guys race and the one who finishes first be the winner.

[Fundytrail]

I personally do not want to see Carl penalized. :(

But NASCAR needs to be consistent with their rulings as well as reasonable.
:roll:

[Bignascarfan]

The rules should be different for the short tracks than they are for the Big ones. You need your tail up on the short tracks and low on the long ones.
If the fender is off in a direction that is going to hurt you in the race, then it shouldn't be a penalty.

[JimmieJohnson]

I heard somewhere that having the back lower helps the car roll thru the corner or something like that countering the loss of rear down force. No that I think 1/2 an inch is a lot of advantage.

[Fundytrail]

The No. 99 car's right rear quarterpanel was too low and the left front was high, which runs counter to the ideal aerodynamics. But when NASCAR can't determine whether high or low is good. They just know that when they measured it after the race, it was outside of the tolerance. On Tuesday morning's NASCAR Performance conference call, No. 48 crew chief Chad Knaus felt like the No. 99 needed to be penalized, but Knaus is racing them for the championship so you would expect that would be his feeling.

I can see both sides. NASCAR gave the team a chance to make it right while No. 99 crew chief Bob Osborne could have said it didn't give his team an advantage. In the end, NASCAR stayed consistent. If they hadn't, the whole media center would have said, "A ha! See you are treating the Chase guys differently."

Larry McReynolds

[JimmieJohnson]

Ya its just unfortunate for Carl. At least he got his win. I bet Matt Kenseth would trade outcomes. He led the most laps and basically was penalized by his own misfortunes.

Of course if the penalty had happened on his win at Bristol, no one would have cared knowing Carl was locked into the chase.