Mike Edwards was late to his Friday evening press conference at the NHRA Carolinas Nationals in Concord, N.C. The Coweta, Ok.-based driver was one of five drivers selected by the sanctioning body for a tech inspection after second round qualifying.

Edwards was not upset that he was flagged for a tear down. He was upset that he was not allowed to be in attendance nor was another member of his team.

The NHRA selected five teams for the tear down and according to Edwards, those five were himself, Ron Krisher, Jeg Coughlin Jr., Allen Johnson and Rickie Jones.

“They made everybody leave their cars and everybody had to leave,” Edwards explained. “I wasn’t very hip on that. I don't like leaving my personal property, not at least without some member there. If they want to take me apart, I'll take any anything apart on my car they want me to. I want somebody from my team there with it. I don't like the way they did, but I went along with it. That's not right. That's my personal property. Mike Edwards was late to his Friday evening press conference at the NHRA Carolinas Nationals in Concord, N.C. The Coweta, Ok.-based driver was one of five drivers selected by the sanctioning body for a tech inspection after second round qualifying.

Edwards was not upset that he was flagged for a tear down. He was upset that he was not allowed to be in attendance nor was another member of his team.

The NHRA selected five teams for the tear down and according to Edwards, those five were himself, Ron Krisher, Jeg Coughlin Jr., Allen Johnson and Rickie Jones.

“They made everybody leave their cars and everybody had to leave,” Edwards explained. “I wasn’t very hip on that. I don't like leaving my personal property, not at least without some member there. If they want to take me apart, I'll take any anything apart on my car they want me to. I want somebody from my team there with it. I don't like the way they did, but I went along with it. That's not right. That's my personal property.

“If they want to come over to my pit area, and take me apart, I don't care what I have to take apart. I'll do anything they want me to do as long as I am with my property. I don't know what they did. They made everybody leave. It was down there about 45 minutes to an hour.”

The NHRA’s media relations department confirmed that in addition to the five Pro Stockers inspected on Friday, five Pro Stock Motorcycles were likewise subjected to tear down. The balance of the Countdown teams in those divisions will be checked before the weekend is complete.

The NHRA stated the teams were asked to leave the inspection area in an effort to curb team interference and said this was a common procedure for this type of a inspection.

If it’s standard inspection procedure, that’s news to Edwards.

Asked if he could remember a time when his entire team had to leave the inspection area, Edwards said, “No, since I've been racing, that I actually couldn't have a member, or me, or somebody with my team with my car.”

Edwards believes the balance of the tear downs will come tomorrow.

“I assume there'll be the other five cars in the Countdown,” Edwards said. “I would sure hope so. I don't know what went on. Nobody knows what when on. I guess you just have to trust them. It's not so much the trust; it's the fact we work so hard on these cars and it's our stuff. Anytime you're not there to protect it from whatever, I don't think it's right.”

And tomorrow before he runs, it’s a sure bet, Edwards and his team will do their own inspection.

“We'll start from one end to the other because we don't know what happened,” Edwards confirmed. “We'll be out here late tonight looking at everything. The other thing, we had some issues on the run and wanted to get back. We had some issues with our engine and we wanted to see what was going on. You just don't know and when you’re backed up another hour, you just worry about the thing. We'll look it all over and much as we can and hopefully every thing's alright.”

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