Gordon, Johnson fail initial qual inspection at Sonoma (cont'd)

"We felt we understood what the process was as far inspecting these cars, and what was OK and what was not OK," said Hendrick vice president Doug Duchardt. "Obviously, it would be irresponsible of us to take excessive risk and put ourselves in this position. We felt like we could work in between those templates. That was our understanding. Obviously, we didn't understand that correctly, and we found out the hard way."

NASCAR has taken a hard stance on COT infractions, as evidenced by the $100,000 fine and 100-point deduction levied against Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s team for modifying the vehicle's rear wing brackets prior to the event at Darlington. Tony Eury Jr., Earnhardt's crew chief, was also suspended six weeks for that violation. Steve Letarte and Chad Knaus, respective crew chiefs of the Nos. 24 and 48 cars, are likely to face a similar penalty next week.

"The thing you have to realize is, as a competitor, if you're wining races, the guys you're beating, they're working doubly as hard to try to catch you and to try to beat you," said Knaus, who served a four-week penalty for violations found on the No. 48 car prior to last year's Daytona 500. "So if you don't continually try to evolve your racecar or your setups or your driving style, you're not going to stay on top of the curve."

Hendrick has been on top of the curve all season, winning 10 of 15 points events and five of six COT races contested thus far. After each of those COT victories, Duchardt said, the winning Hendrick car was brought to NASCAR's research and development facility for examination.

"Our cars have probably been scrutinized more than any other cars in the garage area," he said. But inside the Nextel Cup garage area, the sentiment was that the penalty handed down to Earnhardt's team should have served as a sufficient warning.

"If NASCAR's intentions are to create an equal playing field for everybody with the COT and you step out of line like this, you need to get your hands smacked, I guess," Kurt Busch said. "DEI did it with their rear spoiler, and now you've got two Hendrick cars that are out of code. They really want this to be a controlled environment with the COT."

Added Kyle Petty: "You have a rule book, and we have rules. NASCAR has been adamant about the COT. For 24 months, they've been adamant about the COT: 'Don't mess with us on this.' I think we've already seen it when a mistake was made by the 8 car. We saw how drastic they approached a mistake, so anytime you get into something they deem intentional, it's going to be big."

NASCAR brought teams to its research and development center over the winter to walk them through the COT inspection process, and has allowed them little room for error since the season began. One goal of the vehicle is to narrow tolerances and eliminate the "gray areas" crewmen have historically tweaked on the old car.

"For the Car of Tomorrow, we think everything is certified," Poston said. "That's why we brought the teams into the R&D center earlier this year to go through this very specific process with them, to let them know that we're going to keep the Car of Tomorrow vehicles, the new vehicles, in check. Today when you look at the current cars, the spoiler cars, clearly these are twisted cars. They've been able to run wild with the gray areas. We're going to shut that down, and we're going to keep this car in check so it's better for everybody."

The looming point penalties aren't likely to have much of an impact on Gordon or Johnson, both safely inside the top 12 and in strong position to qualify for NASCAR's championship chase. But teams ranking first and third in the Nextel Cup standings now face several weeks with their crew chiefs watching on television, and team engineers on top of the pit box.

"NASCAR made a judgment. We understand it," Duchardt said. "I'd just feel badly if that tarnished the 10 wins and the success we've had this year. I really feel our organization as a whole has been clicking. We want to try to continue this momentum."