Edwards' penalty leaves Roush with familiar feeling

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- In 1990, there was the 46-point penalty for an unapproved carburetor spacer in a championship race that Mark Martin would ultimately lose by 26 points. In 2002, there was the 25-point penalty for a left-front spring that put Martin further behind eventual champion Tony Stewart. Now, veteran NASCAR team owner Jack Roush is facing another crucial penalty in the midst of a title hunt.

And he's not happy about it.

Roush Fenway Racing driver Carl Edwards was assessed a 25-point penalty this week because the left rear of his No. 99 Ford was discovered to be too low in inspection following his victory last Sunday at Dover, Del. The penalty moved Edwards from third to sixth in the Chase for the Nextel Cup, placing him 28 points behind series leader Jeff Gordon entering Sunday's race at Kansas Speedway, the third of 10 playoff events.

For Roush, it's an all-too-familiar scenario. The car owner has won two titles in NASCAR's premier division, with Matt Kenseth in 2003 and Kurt Busch in 2004. But he also believes strongly that penalties have cost him even more. Now he faces the possibility of a situation similar to that of 1990, where Martin lost the championship to the late Dale Earnhardt by fewer points than were taken away from by the sanctioning body.

"If [Edwards] loses it by a number less than 25 points, it will be another bitter pill," Roush said Friday in one of his five team haulers parked inside the 1.5-mile Kansas track. "NASCAR, through their punitive actions that have been arguably ill-advised, has affected a number of outcomes in championships for my teams in the last 20 years. It would be one more. Every time they do that ... it takes the edge off the excitement that I have in going to the racetrack and being a part of the show."

Roush Fenway is appealing the penalty, which went into effect as soon as it was issued Tuesday. The appeal will be heard by the National Stock Car Commission, which will pull three of its roughly 30 panel members to review Roush's argument on a date that has not yet been set. The appeal must be received at NASCAR's offices in Daytona Beach., Fla., no later than 10 days after it is issued, and is heard seven to 10 days after that.

The board can uphold the penalty, or increase or decrease the severity of it. But Roush doesn't hold out much hope. He's been through this before.

"It's a perfunctory matter," he said. "I won't be there, and I don't except relief. I've never gotten relief before. I had an indication that they were going to look at it very seriously, and they were going to take points beforehand. I'm sure the people they're going to have on their board will be somewhat influenced by that through the affiliation with NASCAR. This is not a court of your peers. This is NASCAR's hand-picked group that winds up standing behind NASCAR by and large on the actions they've already taken. It's a perfunctory formality."

Is Roush being unfairly singled out? The car owner points to the fact that there was no penalty assessed to Tony Stewart for bumping Paul Menard last weekend on the racetrack and on pit road, a scenario much more perilous than failing inspection. He points to the fact that the car of series point leader Jeff Gordon was found to be too low prior to the Daytona 500, and no point penalty was issued. He points to inspection after the Chase opener at New Hampshire, where Stewart's car was found to be outside the allowable half-inch tolerance, but given a pass because officials deemed race damage as the cause.

And he questions the logic of penalizing a car for a rear end being too low at a mile track, where crew chiefs usually want the rear as high as possible to increase downforce on the nose.

"There was one car in particular that was low after a qualifying race at Daytona in the rear, one of the only places that that would help you, and they didn't receive any points," Edwards said. "So it's kind of interesting. I don't really understand it. Everyone in NASCAR has told me that they agree that we did not have an advantage and that there was no intention to make the car low, so it's just a little bit hard to understand why there was a points penalty."

But NASCAR points out that two other cars -- those of Johnny Sauter and Kyle Busch -- were penalized the same amount as Edwards for being too low following the spring race at New Hampshire. They point out that Stewart's car was allowed to pass because it didn't fit the template after the most recent race at Loudon, while Edwards' car did fit at Dover. They point out that Roush Fenway driver Greg Biffle passed inspection at Dover, while Edwards failed. (Continued)