Hendrick VP says other teams cheating

Hendrick Motorsports said Friday it will use penalties levied against Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson and their teams as a learning experience.

“As we went through this, some of the things became more clear to us as far as what NASCAR’s tolerance on their data was," said Doug Duchardt, the team’s vice president for development. “It wasn’t as clear to us before last Friday."

NASCAR issued six-race suspensions for crew chiefs Steve Latarte and Chad Knaus. Each team also got $100,000 fines and 100 point deductions for body modifications found during initial inspections at Infineon Raceway. I’m extremely disappointed in NASCAR and the decisions that they’ve made," Gordon said. “But I will say we’re crystal clear going forward."

Duchardt said Hendrick Motorsports did not know how closely NASCAR would be policing the car of tomorrow.

“When I read that there is an eighth-inch tolerance for the data that NASCAR gave us, that is an extremely difficult thing to manufacture," he said.

“… There are a bunch of cars that did not meet that eighth of an inch tolerance and they are here this weekend."

NASCAR vice president for competition Robin Pemberton said, “I am not even going to respond to that." Charlotte Observer