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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) -Martin Truex Jr., vying to get into NASCAR's Chase for the championship, started the weekend with a significant setback.
Truex's Chevrolet failed inspection before practice Thursday, prompting NASCAR officials to impound the car and sending Truex's crew scrambling to get the backup ready.
"Somebody made a big mistake," said Truex, who drives the No. 1 for Dale Earnhardt Inc. "Shouldn't happen in this level of auto racing, but people make mistakes. We'll go on."
Truex's car failed to fit NASCAR's roof template, and NASCAR decided to take a closer look at it. Officials planned to send the car to the sanctioning body's research and development center in Concord, N.C., and check out the roof design.
"I guess NASCAR wasn't happy with the way it fit," said Truex, who finished fourth at New Hampshire Motor Speedway last week. "It's their ballgame, so it's their call."
Truex enters Saturday's Sprint Cup race in 14th place in the points standings, 71 shy of being in position to be guaranteed a place in the Chase.
Now, though, he could be in jeopardy of falling way behind.
When NASCAR introduced its Car of Tomorrow last season, it warned teams that it would have a zero-tolerance policy for altering car bodies.
Since then, NASCAR has slapped several teams with 100-plus-point penalties for illegal body modifications. NASCAR probably won't announce penalties against Truex - if there are any - until next week.
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STEWART'S DEFENSE: Tony Stewart sharply defended crew chief Greg Zipadelli's decision to pit late in last weekend's race at New Hampshire, saying "it's easy to be an armchair quarterback."
Stewart dominated the race but wound up 13th when officials stopped it 17 laps early because of rain. Zipadelli called for the late pit stop - most of the leaders followed suit - and Stewart found himself in the middle of the pack when the rain started a few minutes later. Many of Stewart's fans were critical this week of Zipadelli's call.
"You see all of this criticism from people and it's people who can't even control their own lives and they want to sit here and tell us how to run race teams on the weekend," Stewart said. "I find that highly amusing that people think that they've got a better solution all the time than what we do. It's easy after it's all over to say, 'Well you should've done this. What was he thinking?'
