A defiant Hendrick hammers back on NASCAR
The cars had fenders that NASCAR ruled were outside the parameters for a car of tomorrow. Hendrick officials said the fenders met the edges of the template and exposed a gray area in the rules.
"I don't necessarily say they bent the rules," Hendrick said. "They thought they were working inside an area they thought they could.
"The fenders on the car sit there in front of God and everybody. If you're going to try to do something to gain an advantage, you wouldn't roll it through inspection [openly]."
Because the templates are so precise, Hendrick indicated that the teams will have cars that are slightly off.
"What's gray?" Hendrick said. "When they send out a bulletin and say, 'You mess with this part and you're going to get a stiff deal.' And then you look at the area of the body that is handmade, I don't know.
"We're just going to have to go back and make sure that we know what the tolerances are and we stay there."
Hendrick seemed a little aggravated that NASCAR didn't just allow the teams to fix the problem and practice.
"We hate it happened, and I would like to think that when you come in you have something that needs corrected and the guys could say, 'We don't like the looks of this fix it' rather than go through all of this," Hendrick said. "But they're the boss and we live by their rules." More at Scenedaily