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CUP: Hendrick’s Focus Turns To Earnhardt
Written by: Tom Jensen   
11/24/2009
Charlotte, NC
 
Team owner Rick Hendrick (Left) says he is focusing on making the NASCAR Sprint Cup team supporting Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Right) stronger. (Photo: LAT Photographic) ยป More Photos

With his record-tying ninth NASCAR Sprint Cup car owner championship now secured, Hendrick Motorsports team owner Rick Hendrick said his immediate task is getting the No. 88 Chevrolet of Dale Earnhardt Jr. running competitively again.

As a team, Hendrick Motorsports establish myriad records in 2009, becoming the first organization to sweep the top three positions in driver points, setting a mark with 12 championship in NASCAR’s top three divisions and tying Petty Enterprises for most Cup titles.

But while Hendrick drivers Jimmie Johnson, Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon combined for 13 victories, 46 top-five and 70 top-10 finishes while capturing the top three points positions, Earnhardt finished 25th in points with just two top-five and five top-10 finishes.

“I think my priority right now is the 88 team,” Hendrick said during a NASCAR teleconference on Tuesday. “We're working on them to try to make that team stronger. The goal going into next year now will be win races and get all four teams in the Chase.”

In late May, Hendrick replaced Earnhardt’s crew chief Tony Eury Jr. with Lance McGrew, and has hinted that other personnel moves may be in the offing to shore up the team for 2010.

As for Earnhardt’s struggles during an otherwise excellent season, Hendrick said it’s something all drivers contend with occasionally in their careers.

“Well, you know, you see this happen. I've seen it happen with Jeff Gordon and Jimmie had a slump back around last year about the time we were in Vegas,” said Hendrick. “You just go through these. We know we can make the team better, and it's frustrating, and it's, you know, the driver begins to think that no matter what he does, that something's going to happen, because we just had – we've had failures. We've had wrecks. We've
just had a – if it could happen, it happened to that team.”

Still, that doesn’t make it any easier to tolerate when it happens.

“It's been really frustrating because about the start of the chase, the team was running better,” Hendrick acknowledged. “It was probably the best car in Loudon (N.H.), and it got swept up in a wreck. And we've had all the motors and all the transmissions and gears done in the same place. We had transmission failure, and we had a motor failure. The other guys didn't experience that in the Chase. So when he's running good, something happened. And we just got to be better all the way around.”

In October at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, Earnhardt admitted he was deeply distressed over how things had gone this season and lost a good deal of his self-confidence.

“I think when we do that, when Dale sees that we've stepped up in a lot of areas, it will give him the confidence he needs,” Hendrick said. “So we're all over it, and we've been all over it. But it's really one of my focuses here. My priority – my primary focus here starting this week, starting Monday, really.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of ?Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED,? and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to




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