tool name
closeHendrick's Cup dominance
faces an endurance test in 600
DAVID POOLE
The Charlotte Observer
Saturday, May. 26, 2007
CONCORD – Rick Hendrick’s math is hard to argue with.
“I think if you have two or three teams that are not working together, having four is not going to fix it,” Hendrick said after Jeff Gordon’s victory at Talladega earlier this season.
Whatever the formula, things have added up to success for Hendrick Motorsports and its four Nextel Cup teams this season.
Hendrick cars have won the past four Nextel Cup points races, the team’s second four-race streak of the season.
No team has won five straight races since Richard Petty won five in a row for his family’s team back in 1971.
While the talk of the sport going into Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway has been how Chevrolets have dominated, Ford driver Matt Kenseth thinks that’s just a bit off.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily a manufacturer thing as much as it is Hendrick Motorsports,” said Kenseth, who starts fifth Sunday and whose victory in the season’s second race at Las Vegas is the only race not won by a Chevrolet all year. “Those guys just have their stuff together.”
Hendrick’s team is 5-0 so far in car of tomorrow races, with Kyle Busch winning at Bristol, Jimmie Johnson winning at Martinsville and Richmond and Gordon winning at Phoenix and Darlington in the new car.
It also has won three of six races using the older cars, like the ones being used in Sunday’s endurance test at the 1.5-mile Charlotte track.
Add in the fact that Johnson swept the points races here in 2004 and 2005 and hasn’t finished worse than third at Charlotte in the past four seasons and the Hendrick armada once again would seem formidable Sunday.
“I don't know why it's worked or why it's been this way, but hopefully it'll continue and we'll have that same magic we typically have,” Johnson said.
But Sunday’s race will be a long one, and with tricky tires that have bedeviled teams even when the track was considerably cooler and not as slick as will be when things start in the late afternoon sun, a lot could happen.
For starters, there’s the fact that none of the Hendrick Chevrolets qualified particularly well. Casey Mears, the driver who has had the least success on the team this year, starts 16th but still is ahead of the three drivers who have won races.
Busch starts 17th, Johnson 21st and Gordon all the way back in 32nd.
Johnson could tie Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip for this track’s record with a sixth career victory Sunday, but five of 96 Charlotte race winners have started from outside the top 20.
Dominance, though, can be a fleeting thing. Kasey Kahne swept both races at Charlotte a year ago but Kahne, who starts 18th Sunday, has struggled all year in 2007.
“When you're doing well, the reality is that we all think we know why, but we don't 100 percent know why,” said Jeff Burton, Sunday's 25th-place starter whose win at Texas is the only victory by a non-Hendrick team since Kenseth’s win at California on Feb. 25. “It's the same thing when we're doing poorly.
“I can remember in 2001 ... we came over here 25th in points – running bad –and somehow, some way, we won this race. We went to Dover the next week and finished something like eight laps down, with no mechanical problems. ... I can assure you that nobody stays on top forever.”
There is certainly no shortage of candidates to end the Hendrick teams’ streak at four victories the way Burton did at Texas.
Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch, the Penske Racing teammates who’ll start on the front row Sunday, are both looking to give Dodge its first win of 2006 and give team owner Roger Penske his first victory here.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. starts fourth, and a victory by the No. 8 Chevrolet would unquestionably be a popular outcome. Denny Hamlin, who has finished second once and third four times this year, starts sixth. Mark Martin starts 11th while Hamlin’s teammate Tony Stewart starts 14th.
But Hamlin knows firsthand to that beat the Hendrick cars you have to finish the job. Hamlin dominated the last race at Darlington, leading 179 laps, only to finish second to Gordon who won despite having an engine that was badly overheating.
“You have to not make mistakes and that is what Hendrick has done,” Hamlin said. “That says a lot for their talent. Mistake-free races should equal a win.”
Just a little bit more of that simple racing math.