Hendrick Motorsports is still the 800-horsepower gorilla in the NASCAR garage area. However they’ve slipped in recent weeks, and the rest of the field is starting to catch up.
Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t be a big deal that one team has been shut out of victory lane for five consecutive races. That’s a relatively short stretch in a 36-race season.
But the first half of the 2007 Nextel Cup season has been anything but normal for Hendrick Motorsports, as drivers Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch and Casey Mears combined to win a stunning 10 of the first 14 races.
Gordon still leads the points standings by 303 points going into the off weekend, but Johnson slipped three spots to seventh after his hard crash at Chicagoland Speedway on Sunday - the latest in a series of speed bumps for Hendrick that might indicate that the rest of the pack is catching up.
Gordon said Tony Stewart’s win for Joe Gibbs Racing on Sunday is a reminder that despite Hendrick’s early dominance, the season is anything but over.
“You know that some team is going to step it up, and by getting them a win, that’s just going to give them some momentum,” Gordon said. “Right now, we’re leading the points, but we’ve got to be better for sure.”
Gordon was frustrated by his ninth-place finish on Sunday, as he and the No. 24 team couldn’t quite get his car to handle properly - a byproduct, perhaps, of the recent NASCAR suspension handed down to Gordon’s crew chief, Steve Letarte.
Gordon and Johnson both will be without their crew chiefs for three more races because their cars failed a NASCAR technical inspection at Infineon Raceway last month.
This is nothing new for Johnson’s No. 48 team, which has shown in the past that they can rally without having crew chief Chad Knaus at the track. But this is fairly new territory for Gordon’s No. 24 team.
Gordon said he was “frustrated” after the Chicago race, which he won last year.
“We just really struggled on getting the balance on the car and getting the grip that we needed and we were pretty much a ninth or 10th-place car,” Gordon said.
More at Fox Sports/AP
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Damn. Whether they haven’t won in a while or not.
10 out of 14 races is unbelievably impressive.
My hat’s off to them. Whether you guys think
they “cheat” or not.
Go Junior! 8
THAT IS IMPRESSIVE. LOVE EM OR HATE HIM JEFF MIGHT BE ON HIS WAY TO A 5TH CHAMPIONSHIP. ONCE THE CHASE STARTS HE WILL HAVE A CUSION WITH 40 BONUS PTS WITH HIS TEAMATE( HE MIGHT EVEN WIN A FEW MORE)
Wow your doing good if people are worried since you havent won in 5 weeks
the year isn’t over yet, people!!!
haha, exactly. “they haven’t won in a month! what’s wrong!?” it’s impressive and i hope 24 wins the championship again.
hah even if you hate gordon or hendrick that is funyn fo rpeople think your goin down hill because you havent won in the past races. I kinda think it shows the ignorance though of the writer here to see soem of the hendrick cars wrecking while leading the race or running top 5 from a resulst of a blown tire or soemthign liek that. Yeah, the only thing bring the rest of the field back is lady luck, not performance lol.
jeff is still nailing those top 5, top 10 finishes so hes like the only hendrick driver thats doing good right now. wow hes only hasnt finished in the top 10 in like 2 times maybe 3. i agree theirs more racin left
They still look strong to me, they cant win them all but they have sure had a shot too.