Hendrick drivers keep the good times rolling

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By MIKE MULHERN
Winston-Salem Journal
Monday, May 07, 2007

So, how to judge NASCAR's car of tomorrow after its first four runs on the Nextel Cup tour?

Well, first, it's certainly not opening up the sport for the smaller, newer teams.

And second, Chevy teams clearly have an edge, particularly car owner Rick Hendrick, who has won all four, with Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Kyle Busch.

The Hendrick teams are dominating car-of-tomorrow races, and they're also dominating everywhere else. Hendrick has now been to Victory Lane seven times in the season's first 10 races.

"Our team is in full stride," Chad Knaus, Johnson's winning crew chief, said here Sunday after his own team's fourth win of the year, in the Crown Royal 400.

"But this is a very circular sport. You get your time at the top, but then you'll fall to some degree. So you have to be careful when you do get your time at the top that you don't get too full of yourself, so when it comes your turn to fall that it doesn't tear you apart ... I'm not saying we're prepared for failure, but we know it's right there, and we know the day is coming when we'll be running back 10th."

Nevertheless, Hendrick Motorsports this spring has become dominant, with Hendrick's three best driver all but head-and-shoulders above the rest of the competition. And in this sport, it is very difficult, once a team falls behind, to catch back up.

If the Hendrick guys continue like this, many rivals better start looking ahead to next season.

Ford's lone winner so far, Matt Kenseth, was never a factor here but managed to finish 10th. However, he was not happy afterward: "We've got 20th-place cars, and we're just getting good pit stops and calling the race good and not getting in accidents and finishing 10th with them.

"We've got a long ways to go with these cars. We just can't keep up."

Dodge teammates Kurt Busch and Ryan Newman were two surprises, though.

The kicker, perhaps: Five of the year's final 10 races, in the championship chase, will be car-of-tomorrow races.

"I'm excited we've got five car-of-tomorrow races in the 10-race chase. But who knows how the technology will change between now and then?" Johnson said.

"But we've been putting on good races, and we've been racing hard for these victories _ even among our own teams. It's not like Formula One, where you've got 'team orders.' This sport is cyclical, so enjoy it while you've got it. But we know somebody is going to figure something else out ...''

Something could change even this next weekend at Darlington, typically a wild-card race, now a car-of-tomorrow race, too.

"The level of competition is very, very close," Knaus insisted. "And Darlington will throw a lot of new things at all of us _ we've got a new tire for that track, and of course a new car we've never run there."

The key point in Sunday's race, Knaus said, came at the 280-lap mark, because that was the fuel-window opening for teams to be able to finish the race without another stop for gas.

"I was real nervous," Knaus said of that strategic point. "Once we got past that window, everyone running from first to 15th was committed, and nobody up front would pit again and risk losing that track position."

Gordon, who led the most laps, 114 of the 400, but faded to fourth at the finish said: "A top-five, that's a huge improvement from what we've had the last four races here. This has been one of our worst tracks.

"We had it one time, and I thought we're looking good. But something happened there at the end, and we just didn't have it. I was trying hard to get that one-two-three Hendrick finish but just couldn't pull it off."

Gordon called Hendrick's four-for-four run with the new car of tomorrow "pretty incredible.

"I was a little surprised today, because I didn't think we had the best cars, when I saw Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin up there.

"And I was really surprised Jimmie was able to get back by Kyle at the end. We've been on some good rolls over the years. It's been a long time, and as competitive as the series is, it does surprise me when anybody gets on this type of a roll. But when things are going your way and you're putting quality race cars out there, it's possible, and we're proving that right now."

Particularly with the car of tomorrow. "A lot of people thought I was complaining about it because I wasn't going to run good in it, and that wasn't the case at all, it was quite the opposite," Gordon said. "We were running really strong with it right from the beginning. But my concerns are the 11/2-mile tracks.

"And you're never going to sell me on the way it looks. The aerodynamic philosophy and package is not bad. But the high roll-center this car has, I'm not crazy about.

"And the way it looks, I'm not crazy about. That might seem silly, but you want to look cool. There's got to be a way to get the same aerodynamics characteristics and still have it look sleek."

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)