NO FINE ZONE Kyle Petty will not face any sanctions from NASCAR for uttering the "f-word" on television last week during the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway. Petty, who was serving as an in-car commentator for TNT Sports as well as driver last week, uttered the expletive during the opening laps of the race when a crash occurred right in front of him. Inexplicably, TNT aired the comment not live, but on replay, after coming back from commercial.

There may be an "f" in "fine", but there's no "fine" in "f" for Kyle Petty... (LAT photo) MORE NASCAR PHOTOS

NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said Friday that due to a number of mitigating factors, NASCAR won't fine Petty points and/or money as the sanctioning body did to Dale Earnhardt, Jr. in 2004 after he uttered an obscenity in victory lane. Poston said the mitigating factors included that Petty wasn't aware he was on TV at the time, that the clip wasn't live but shown and replay, and the fact that the FCC recently loosened its own regulations regarding on-air obscenities.

DEEP BENCH With at least eight Nextel Cup crew chiefs suspended for rules violations of one sort or another so far this season, depth of talent is becoming an ever larger priority than ever before for teams in NASCAR's top division. "Obviously, they're taking all this a lot more seriously than they ever have before," 2003 series champion Matt Kenseth said Friday morning of NASCAR's crackdown policies this season. "They're policing things tighter and it's different than what it's ever been, so I think like any other sport, you want to build your team with as much depth as you can and the best quality people that you can, and it all starts with leadership. If the crew chief and team managers and those people have done their jobs, just taking one person out at the race track shouldn't make a big difference. They're still at the shop and preparing everything and getting everything ready and doing all that."

"A crew chief is an integral part of the race team. They're an important part of the race team. They're a leader on the weekend. But we talk about a lot in this sport (is that) it takes a team to win a race," said Hendrick Motorsports Vice President of Development Doug Duchardt. " … It is just like any professional team that if you have a quarterback that is injured people step up and I think that you mentally get ready for that and it drives you to want to succeed and show people that we can still do it."

Hendrick Motorsports, of course, will be without two of its four crew chiefs, Steve Letarte and Chad Knaus, for the next six races after illegal aerodynamic modifications were discovered on the cars of Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson last week at Infineon Raceway.

ZERO TOLERANCE At New Hampshire International Speedway, NASCAR tightened the template tolerances during inspection, as it told the teams that it would weeks ago. During the prior seven Car of Tomorrow races, NASCAR gave the teams a little bit of leeway in making sure their respective car bodies fit the new skeletal-like templates used for COT measurement. But starting with this weekend's race, No. 8 of 16 for the COT, there is a zero-tolerance policy for how the cars fit the templates. NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said pre-qualifying inspection on Friday was especially clean and incident-free.

Post-inspection practice did not go as well, as Brian Vickers was sent packing after the left-front of his Team Red Bull Toyota was 3/8th-inch too low, Poston said. His qualifying time was disallowed and so Vickers went home.