CONCORD, N.C. — NASCAR levied a stiff penalty on the Roush Fenway Racing Spint Cup point-leading No. 99 team and driver Carl Edwards for a unattached oil reservoir cover discovered during post-race inspection after Edwards won Sunday's UAW-Dodge 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

With the penalty, Edwards fell from first to seventh in the championship standings. Kyle Busch assumed the point lead.

The penalties were for the following:

The No. 99 car driven by Carl Edwards was found to be in violation of Sections 12-4-A (actions detrimental to stock car racing); 12-4-Q (car, car parts, components and/or equipment used do not conform to NASCAR rules); and 20-2.1J (any device or duct work that permits air to pass from one area of the interior of the car to another, or to the outside of the car, will not be permitted. This includes, but is not limited to, the inside of the car to the trunk area, or the floors, firewalls, crush panels and wheel wells passing air into or out of the car) of the 2008 NASCAR rule book. The violations were found during post-race inspection at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on March 2.

As a result, Edwards and car owner Jack Roush have been penalized 100 championship driver and 100 championship owner points, respectively. In the event the No. 99 team qualifies for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, the team will not receive the 10 bonus points for the UAW-Dodge 400 victory used for determining the Chase seeding order. Crew chief Bob Osborne has been fined $100,000, suspended from the next six NASCAR Sprint Cup Series events, suspended from NASCAR until April 30 and placed on probation until Dec. 31.

NASCAR's penalties were in line with those issued to several NASCAR Nationwide Series teams tagged with similar violations at Daytona. None of those teams, however, won the race for which the violations were discovered.

Roush Fenway will be afforded the chance to appeal the penalties to the National Stock Car Commission, but has not decided as of yet whether to do so. Roush Fenway released the following statement:

“The bolt holding the lid in place failed in its purpose as a result of vibration harmonics generated by the car and the race track during the race. The bolt was secure enough to survive  225 miles of practice, perhaps up to 399 of 400 miles of the race and the scrutiny of numerous inspections.  It’s a tough business for any race team to have to pledge $100,000, 100 points and a six race crew chief suspension as an indemnity payment to NASCAR against a promise forced from us by NASCAR that no bolt will ever fail its purpose under race conditions.  We are
currently evaluating whether or not the circumstances justify submitting to the unpleasantness of the appeal process, but from a competitive
standpoint, we believe it is in our best interest to have Bob Osborne begin serving the penalty now.  Chris Andrews, our chief engineer, will
be at the track on Friday and Saturday to lead the No. 99 team and general manager Robbie Reiser will join Chris on the pit box Sunday
during the race.  We are confident that we have the depth of talent in our organization and the strength in Carl Edwards and the No. 99 team
to overcome this penalty, should that end up being the final outcome of this unhappy episode.”