Big teams dominate NASCAR

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So how did NASCAR's Big Four team owners fare down in Texas last weekend?They swept 12 of the top 14 spots at the Samsung 500 in Fort Worth, Jack Roush getting four, headlined by Samsung 500 winner Carl Edwards. Rick Hendrick got two, with Jimmie Johnson runner-up. Joe Gibbs had three, including third-place finisher Kyle Busch. And Richard Childress had three, including Sprint Cup tour leader Jeff Burton, sixth.That's one of this spring's big stories, the continuing domination of the top four multi-team owners, whose gap over the rest seems to be getting larger, despite the winged Car of Tomorrow's billing as a great equalizer. One of Sunday's big stories was the many complaints that drivers -- almost all but Edwards -- raised about the car.Tony Stewart, like Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon, suffered through a miserable Sunday afternoon. His car was typical: loose on entry, tight in the middle, loose coming off. But he wound up seventh.Despite a rugged afternoon at the wheel, all three Gibbs drivers pulled out top-10 finishes, not pretty, not fun, but successful. Busch ran third, and Denny Hamlin fifth. It's the first time since last September that all three Gibbs teams logged top-10 runs."The whole track had a lot less grip than Saturday," Greg Zipadelli, Stewart's crew chief, said. "So track position was important. We started 24th, and that just killed us. We were decent; we just could never get any better."Gordon had a shocking performance and finally just parked his car; it was so ill handling.Johnson said that the first four runs for this winged car on fast, intermediate-sized tracks has been quite an experiment for everyone. And only Carl Edwards seems to have things under control."This experiment has taught us some things," Johnson said. "One -- you're never going to change aero; there are going to be aero dependencies. The cars are more important now in setup than they were before ... on the big tracks."And if you can make the cars more efficient, so they don't punch as large a hole in the air, I think it's going to help the guys further back in traffic. We've always had an aero problem ... just at times nobody knew about it. Now we do, and it's a big tool we use. I don't know if we can correct some of it."This car is so much bigger. It is safer, and that's a great thing. But I'd love to see NASCAR talk to some team engineers, and get their guys together and think 'All right, what's a logical step, that's not going to cost millions and millions of dollars, to get some more front downforce in the cars so you don't get so tight in traffic."We have plenty of rear grip, but the cars really need some front downforce."On the plus side, Goodyear's tires weren't really a major issue, unlike at Hampton, Ga., a few weeks ago. Still, not everyone was satisfied.Some crew chiefs, like Kenny Francis, at Kasey Kahne's, complained about the hardness: "With these hard tires on a slick track like Texas, it really makes it tough on everyone. We're on a really hard tire here, and that makes all the adjustments super-sensitive."Kahne finished 25th, three laps down.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)