CUP: Hendrick Motorsports Learning

Sprint Cup

CUP: Hendrick Motorsports Learning

For Hendrick Motorsports, Phoenix International Raceway is place to learn, not panic...

Bob Pockrass | http://www.scenedaily.com | Posted February 27, 2011 Avondale, AZ

Jeff Gordon will make his Bristol Motor Speedway entrance to Tom Petty’s defiant “I Won’t Back Down.” (Photo: Getty Images)

Hendrick Motorsports has a plan for the first month of the season, and a few poor results in the Daytona 500 won’t derail the organization that has won five consecutive Cup championships from proceeding with its plan.

With each of its four drivers coming to Phoenix International Raceway starting with different setups, Hendrick drivers and teams likely will use the next few weeks trying to confirm the best ways to make the car handle in addition to trying to get back into the thick of the Cup standings.

Entering the Subway Fresh Fit 500 today, Mark Martin sits ninth in points while Dale Earnhardt Jr. is 22nd, Jimmie Johnson 25th and Jeff Gordon 26th.

“It wasn’t our highest moment [at Daytona]," said Gordon, who has won four titles but is looking for his first since 2001. “We certainly didn’t come out of there the way we had hoped. But when you look at that race, the majority of the teams didn’t come out of there the way they’d hoped between blown engines and wrecks. … [We’re] just focused the same way we always do.

“We go and put our best effort out and then when that race is over, regardless of whether we won or not, it’s time to start focusing on the next race and that’s where we’re at.”

The Hendrick Motorsports organization went through a huge transition in the offseason, with Gordon getting former Martin crew chief Alan Gustafson, Martin getting former Dale Earnhardt Jr. crew chief Lance McGrew and Earnhardt Jr. getting former Gordon crew chief Steve Letarte. While Johnson has his same crew chief and mechanics, he has a virtually all-new pit crew.

All four drivers crashed in the season-opening Daytona 500 and only Martin could salvage a decent finish. Less than a week later, trying to put that awful day behind them, none of them qualified well at Phoenix as Gordon will start 20th, Martin 23rd, Johnson 28th and Earnhardt Jr. 35th.

“We have a great, great plan,” Martin said. “We’re looking at all different areas with the four teams as far as what’s going to work the best, and we’re going to be sort of looking at different avenues for setup stuff through the first several races.

“Then eventually probably migrate toward all the pieces that seem to be working the best.”

To do that, the drivers must have faith and patience that part of this weekend was spent learning as much as performing.

“We haven’t really thought about points that much,” said five-time defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson. “We certainly didn’t finish [at Daytona] where we wanted to but there is so much racing left that we’re not concerned with that yet.

“We’re just more interested in what we worked on during the off-season and if it’s going to produce speed. All four teams are trying a few different things. We feel we can cover more territory that way. And then the fact that we have great drivers and crew chiefs, we can find our way back after a practice session and we’ll take what’s working from each car and apply it and hopefully get to the end result faster and have our cars as fast as possible.“

Dale Earnhardt Jr. qualified 35th for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix International Raceway. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Earnhardt Jr. said the goal isn’t to get one single uniform setup for all four cars. The biggest changes have come in parts and pieces underneath the car and how they will make the cars handle.

“I don’t think there will ever be a case where all four cars have the exact same thing unless it’s just completely and critically faster,” he said. “When we’re all sort of dancing around in the middle of the field [at PIR], we’re all going to be searching around on who can hit on something.”

What they hit on likely won’t be anything that they took from Daytona, a high-banked 2.5-mile oval compared to Phoenix’s 1-mile flat oval.

“Daytona, you kind of separate it into its own event,” Gordon said. “It’s such a big race and so much effort gets put into it. But at the same time, that’s not really where the championship is won.

“These types of race tracks are where you really see what kind of speed you have and what kind of team you are, and coming out of here is what we will definitely look at – not only for ourselves as a measuring tool but looking at the competition as to who we have to look at to be the competitors this year.”

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