Dino Vournas / AP

Jeff Gordon, the four-time series champion, and Jimmie Johnson, the defending Nextel Cup champion, were each docked 100 points because their cars failed initial inspections last week in California.

Doug Duchardt, vice president of development for the Hendrick team, said Friday the decision was based on understanding better and accepting what NASCAR is trying to accomplish with its Car of Tomorrow and just trying to get the penalties behind them.

“We went through this and some of the things became more clear to us, as far as what NASCAR’s tolerance on their data was, and it wasn’t as clear to us before last Friday as it is now,” Duchardt said. “The second thing is that ... we just felt like rather than prolong it, prolong the discussion around this, we’d just put it behind us, focus on moving forward and get the suspension over with as soon as we could so we could focus on the Chase.”

Sunday’s Lenox Industrial Tools 300 is the beginning of what NASCAR calls the “Race to the Chase,” the last 10 regular-season races before the start of the 12-driver, 10-race Chase.

Hendrick cars have won 10 of 16 races this season, including five of seven COT races. Both Gordon and Johnson have won four races in 2007.

Heading into the weekend, Johnson appears a solid bet to make the Chase for the fourth straight year, despite the penalty. He is still 257 points ahead of 12th-place Dale Earnhardt Jr.

But the loss of 100 points still isn’t a comfortable situation.

“We have had great race cars on the No. 48 team, but we have had some crazy things happening to us the last four or five weeks and, with the loss of the 100 points, we are in a little more vulnerable situation than No. 24,” Johnson said.

“So momentum is certainly on our minds. Top 10s, top fives (are) on our minds ... and establishing momentum with this new situation, and then be ready for Chad to come back to get that momentum to run for the championship again.”