Edwards' No. 99 Ford fails Dover post-race inspection

DOVER, Del. -- Carl Edwards' race-winning No. 99 Ford failed post-race inspection following Sunday's Dodge Dealers 400 at Dover International Raceway, which could lead to penalties assessed against the Roush Fenway Racing operation later this week.

"The car was found to be too low in the right-rear," NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said (watch video). "The height exceeded NASCAR's tolerances.

"This is not considered a Car of Tomorrow-type penalty. There's no evidence of manipulation of the integrity of the structure of the car. It's a heights-inspection infraction."

Poston said the car will be taken to its North Carolina research and development center for further inspection, while NASCAR officials will debate what penalties will be assessed.

"We'll go back to Daytona," Poston said. "We always like to have the opportunity to have a couple days' separation. We'll discuss it there and announce it, probably in the middle of next week."

Edwards hopes some post-race bumping from teammate Greg Biffle is the cause for the infraction.

"The worse case would be 25 points, the right-rear being low -- any engineer or crew chief in the garage will tell you that's the last thing you want," Edwards said. "You want the right-rear to be high.

"The only thing I can think of is at the end of the race, Greg came up and gave me a couple of love taps to say 'good job, good race' and hopefully they find that that bent the tail of the car down a little bit. There are some braces bent under the decklid so hopefully that's what it is."

A similar infraction occurred at New Hampshire in July, when the cars of Johnny Sauter and Kyle Busch failed to meet minimum height requirements. NASCAR took away 25 points apiece and fined each crew chief $25,000.

If a similar penalty is assessed, Edwards would drop from third to sixth in the Nextel Cup standings.