A friend went to a NASCAR race in NH. He was shocked at the different standards for different drivers. The "template check" thing was what got him - apparently they have a template (centerline of the car, body profile) they slap on the car. If your car fails you either hammer it out or change whatever piece. He said for the big names the template barely touched the car before they gave the okay and waved the car on (or whatever they do). For smaller names (we from CT had a driver there and he was considered small fry for a while, although he ended up the Busch Car series champ at some point) they'd put the template down and get out feeler gauges. After the team hammered the whatever (usually the trunk), they'd check again with feeler gauges. Took forever.

So... I have a feeling there are a lot of tests no one ever heard about.