Guest Column By Cathy Elliott

Anyone who still believes NASCAR has an off-season hasn’t been listening to the news.

Just three days after the organization won its fifth consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship with driver Jimmie Johnson, Hurricane Hendrick flattened the racing community.

Hendrick Motorsports announced that three of its four Cup Series superstars would be working with new crew chiefs next year. Jeff Gordon will work with Alan Gustafson and the former No. 5 team, while Mark Martin will move over to the former No. 88 team to work with Lance McGrew. There will be no change for Jimmie Johnson, who will remain with Chad Knaus.

And Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s new home will be in the former No. 24 shop, as he is paired up with Steve Letarte in 2011.

The crew members, explained team owner Rick Hendrick in a press conference on Nov. 24, aren’t going anywhere. “We’re not shifting teams and putting guys in different buildings. We’ve got guys that are working together; they are still working together. We’re just changing the drivers and the teams,” he said.

The immediate response was also the most predictable: it’s all about Junior, who finished 21st in this year driver standings and hasn’t won a race since June 2008.

Now, Mr. Hendrick won’t come right out and admit Earnhardt’s disappointing season facilitated the change. In fact, he flatly denied it, saying, “This was not a move we made because of Dale or his situation. All those factors weighed into it, but I looked at the personalities, and the strong traits of each team and each crew chief and each engineer and then looked at the drivers and looked at starting to do something to make a change to pair up people that I thought would be better together.”

Still, the obvious conclusion is that Junior is NASCAR’s most popular driver by a country mile, and the sport becomes the beneficiary of fans’ largesse when he is winning, or at least threatening to win. They watch more, they spend more, and they care more.

But I have this little nagging voice in my ear, the same one that obsessively counts carbs and offers the opinion that a functioning smoke alarm is a better investment than a 27th pair of black shoes.

The voice is annoying, but it’s usually right, and right now it’s suggesting to me that perhaps this goes a little deeper than what is glaring at us from the surface. All the smoke is billowing around Junior, but maybe the hottest fire burns somewhere else.

Because Jeff Gordon hasn’t been looking all that happy lately.

Back in 2001, when he won his fourth Cup Series title, Gordon was seemingly unstoppable. He was the wonder boy, the young phenom who claimed his 50th career victory in fewer races than any other driver in history. He won four championships in seven years. Hendrick Motorsports may not be the “house that Gordon built” in the strictest sense, but he surely spruced the place up.

Legend has it that when Gordon approached Mr. Hendrick about putting a largely unproven NASCAR Nationwide Series driver into a Cup car in 2002, the response was something to that effect that Rick was amenable if Jeff was willing to “put your money where your mouth is.”

Gordon did indeed prove willing, and the investment has surpassed everyone’s expectations. Gordon’s viewpoint may well have shifted somewhat, and who could blame him? The view from the top looking down is much more scenic than the perspective from the opposite direction. Remember that old saying about the lead dog? Jeff Gordon has been staring at Jimmie Johnson’s happy tail-wagging routine for five straight years. That cannot be easy. Or fun.

Gordon has raced well, unless you equate good racing with winning. The wins have been scarce. As with Earnhardt nation, it has been drought season in Gordon country, which hasn’t seen a win since April 2009. That’s a very long time for the biggest of dogs.

Gordon’s long-time sponsor DuPont has left the building as the main primary sponsor on the No. 24 car, and he has watched his protégé become, for all intents and purposes, his successor. Just to add insult to injury, when Johnson’s prospects for that fifth title seemed in jeopardy due to substandard pit stops, why, he and Knaus just reached over and took Gordon’s entire crew, turning the phrase “take one for team” into a double entendre.

So it comes as no real surprise at all that in this dance of the crew chiefs, Gordon got a stellar partner. Gustafson guided Martin to a second place overall finish in 2009, and could well be exactly the right choice to inject new life into the No. 24 team and their driver, a not-so-old dog still more than capable of few new tricks.

Rolling over and playing dead would not be one of those tricks, by the way.

Junior wants to succeed, and will do whatever is necessary to make it happen. But while the rest of the world is intently watching him work so hard, jumping through the many hoops of all those high hopes for his racing future, keep your eye on Jeff Gordon. He could well prove to be the guy that ultimately gets the job done.

The opinions expressed in this articles are solely those of the author and not this website.

SHOW #137 – We wrap up the 2010 NASCAR season with a discussion about Jimmie Johnson’s place in history, Carl Edwards surges, Hendrick Motorsports swaps, plus Brad Daugherty joins us. Hosted by Kerry Murphey and Paul Northrop

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CREDITS:
Hosts: Kerry Murphey & Paul Northrop
Production: Kerry Murphey
Music: Radium Sound
Voice Over: Thomas Moog

CONCORD, N.C. (Nov. 23, 2010) – Hendrick Motorsports has made personnel adjustments in preparation for the 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, with drivers Mark Martin, Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. being teamed with new crew chiefs.

[poll id=”73″]

Below are the driver-crew chief pairings for each Hendrick Motorsports car, effective immediately:

No. 5 Chevrolet
Driver: Mark Martin
Crew Chief: Lance McGrew

No. 24 Chevrolet
Driver: Jeff Gordon
Crew Chief: Alan Gustafson

No. 48 Chevrolet
Driver: Jimmie Johnson
Crew Chief: Chad Knaus

No. 88 Chevrolet
Driver: Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Crew Chief: Steve Letarte

The cars of Martin and four-time Sprint Cup champion Gordon will be fielded out of the same facility, now known as the 5/24 shop. Earnhardt Jr.’s Chevrolets will be prepared out of the renamed 48/88 shop alongside those of five-time and defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson.

“This will improve us as an organization, across the board,” said Rick Hendrick, owner of Hendrick Motorsports. “We had a championship season (in 2010), but we weren’t where we wanted and needed to be with all four teams. We’ve made the right adjustments, and I’m excited to go racing with this lineup.”

FYI WIRZ: NASCAR’s top five finishers talk before and after the race
By Dwight Drum
Photo credit: Dwight Drum @ Racetake.com

The top five drivers in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series this week—Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick, Aric Almirola and A.J. Allmendinger—ran to the front to finish the 1.5-mile oval with 18-20 variable degree banking at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Homestead, Florida.

The Ford 400, race 10 in the 10-race Chase to the Sprint Cup, is history and Jimmie Johnson became history when he snared an unprecedented fifth championship in a row.

The long NASCAR season went to the wire during the last 267 laps of the season, with Kevin Harvick in third place chasing Jimmie Johnson in second. Denny Hamlin watched his slim points lead evaporate and his hopes fade while securing a disappointing 14th spot at HMS.

For all NASCAR drivers, the slate is cleared and all look to the 2011 season with an equal points start. Perhaps only Edwards with his back-to-back wins and Johnson with his most recent championship carry a considerable edge into the next year.

Fans can take heart in the reality that favored drivers don’t always win, but winners always take the checkered flag. That’s why NASCAR runs every lap.

Driver’s thoughts before and after the big race follow.

Carl Edwards (No. 99 Ford)

Before:

“Ford Championship weekend has always been a huge weekend for me and Roush Fenway,” Edwards said. “We’ve got a ton of momentum right now. I feel like our 1.5-mile program is really strong, and our team is riding a huge wave from last weekend’s win in Phoenix. We’re just going to go for the win and hopefully finish top four in points. That would be huge.”

After:

“This is a great way to finish the season, Edwards said. “Congratulations to Jimmie Johnson—five championships in a row, that’s unreal. I think the way we’re going here? “It’s just these guys not giving up. We don’t give up. My guys are unreal and we just had an unbelievable run towards the end of this season.

“I can’t believe this. Two wins in a row is just really great. We are finishing the season like we need to. I am excited to go into next year and go into Daytona where hopefully we can be one of the people lining up to knock Jimmie off his throne. That would be nice.”

Jimmie Johnson (No. 48 Chevrolet)

Before:

“If you look at points accumulated over the course of the Chase, I think that will speak volumes as to what type of Chase took place,” Johnson said. “I know we’ve been competitive, but not as dominant as we wanted to all year long. We’ve got to go down there and race for it; there’s no doubt about it. I continue to hear that the No. 48 hasn’t had to race for it before and we’ve raced for it all Chase long.

“When you go back through the season, look at little things, we’ve left points on the table. That’s unlike us from years past. That’s the part we’re fighting right now.”

After:

I’m so proud to be in this position and so thankful to have my great race team and everybody at Hendrick Motorsports giving me great race cars,” Johnson said.

“I think this year we showed what this team is made. At times we didn’t have the most speed, but we proved it here at the end of the Chase and especially here today. I am just besides myself. Four was amazing. Now I have to figure out what the hell to say about winning five of these things because everybody is going to want to know what it means. I don’t know! It is pretty damn awesome I can tell you that.”

Kevin Harvick (No. 29 Chevrolet)

Before:

“We have nothing to lose and everything to gain,” Harvick said. “There’s really nothing else that matters at this point. Just throw it all out there, and if it gets rough, it gets rough. If it doesn’t, then we just go race and see where it all falls in the end. It’s still a no pressure, no lose situation for us, and I like it.

“We’ve had great results over the past several years there. It’s a race track that kind of fits my driving style.”

After:

“We put ourselves in position to run up front, and we ran up front and you know, in the end, we just got beat there on that last restart and they just out ran us. All in all, we went downswing and that’s all you can ask for. They did a great job.”

Aric Almirola (No. 9 Ford)

Before:

“The coolest thing for me is that it was nearly 44 years ago my grandparents gave up everything they had to have a better life in America,” Almirola said. “They landed in Miami on the Freedom Flights with my dad and uncle Robert and now she gets to witness a product of her sacrifice; ironically in Miami. I’m privileged to do something that I love for my job.”

After:

“It felt like we had a car capable of winning. All in all it was a great day and I am proud of all my guys on this team to step in and let me fill in on this team has been fun. I have learned a lot and it has been awesome.”

A.J Allmendinger (No. 43 Ford)

Before:

“We haven’t been the strongest on the mile-and-a-half race tracks as a race team on the 43 side of it Allmendinger said. “But we did the test there and it is a completely different mile-and-a-half, so for that reason I’m looking forward to it.”

After:

“That was pretty wild. We got it raceable and we got a little lucky with that yellow to get us track position and a top five.”

FYI WIRZ is the swift presentation of pertinent motorsports topics compiled, condensed and often written by Dwight Drum @ Racetake.com. Quotes provided by NASCAR and Sprint Cup team media.

Photo credit: Dwight Drum @ Racetake.com

The opinions expressed in this articles are solely those of the author and not this website.

Guest Column By Cathy Elliott

During a press conference in Miami held three days prior to the season-ending Ford 400, a comment made before any of the three remaining NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship contenders uttered a single word made me laugh out loud.

“The three drivers still in contention for this year’s series title are separated by just 46 points,” said Ramsey Poston, NASCAR’s managing director of corporate communications. “So close you could cover them with a blanket.”

Wow; flashback. When my brother and I were kids — and probably when you and your brother were kids, too — we would separate ourselves from the outside world by constructing forts made of blankets draped on chairs. Inside that enclave we, along with maybe a random cousin or two, were the only people that mattered. No one else existed.

Usually a tussle of some sort would ensue, and various arms and legs would poke out of the sides of the blanket as things progressed, but the majority of the action was contained inside that private little world. It was stuffy, but it was ours.

I kept waiting for Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson or Denny Hamlin to crack wise about not wanting to share blanket space with either, or both, of the other two, but it never happened. In some strange way, I think they all ‘got it.’

These three drivers are grown men, not imaginative children pretending to be Butch and Sundance. They still get to play their favorite game, but now they’re getting paid for it, and the stakes are high. Since February, they have been constructing their fort, doing whatever needed to be done in order to shore it up, to make those walls impossible for invaders to breach. The war has been long, and on Nov. 21 at Homestead-Miami Speedway it all came down to a single battle that only one could win.
Kevin Harvick would have made a great NASCAR champion.

At 34, Harvick is old enough to be seasoned but still young enough to be cool. It is hard to believe nearly a decade has passed since his abrupt entry into the Cup Series, facilitated by the untimely death of Dale Earnhardt Sr.. The ghost of the man many people consider the greatest NASCAR driver of all time is Harvick’s near-constant companion, drifting silently but never unnoticed at every media center press conference, in every photo op with team owner Richard Childress.

But having The Intimidator riding shotgun hasn’t intimidated Kevin Harvick. If anything, it has motivated him. “It all has worked backwards for me with coming in, with taking over Dale’s car. You started with the biggest press conference you’ll ever be a part of in your whole life. You start with the weight of the world on your shoulders,” he said. “As it’s gone through the years, it’s gotten easier. It’s almost like you’ve gotten prepared for these situations before you even got started.”

Harvick is a man of the people, someone you feel like you could sit down and have a beer with and actually relate to. (Apparently Budweiser agrees; they will sponsor Harvick’s Chevy beginning next season). He has worked hard and enjoyed great success — he has two NASCAR Camping World Series owner championships, two NASCAR Nationwide Series driver championships, and 14 Cup Series wins to his credit, including the 2007 Daytona 500.

A championship for Harvick would have also meant a championship for Richard Childress and a resulting spike in tissue sales, as there would not have been a dry eye in the house, or at the track. Plus, he started the race third in the driver standings, which made him the underdog. But he had no intention of rolling over and playing dead. “Yeah, you know, obviously you want to outrun the other team, and you want to do it as fair as you can. I think if it comes down to the end, I’ll sleep fine. I’ll do whatever I have to do,” he said.

We already know Jimmie Johnson will make a great NASCAR champion, because we’ve watched him have at it — the official NASCAR catchphrase of 2010 — over and over. And over. And over.

Handsome, articulate and congenial, Johnson is poster-boy championship material. If he wasn’t named “Least Likely to Go Out and Embarrass Us” in the Senior Superlative section of his high school yearbook, they missed the boat. Dig a little deeper, though, and you’ll find a touch of Archie Bunker lurking underneath all that urbanity. He’s comfortable in that chair, has no intention of moving, and will fight you if you try to budge him.
“We’ve done our job over the last four years. I guess I do understand if the shoe was on the other foot, and I was watching someone take the trophy away four times in a row, I’d get tired of it, too … I’m relishing the spotlight that we’ve been in, enjoying it,” Johnson said. ” … My deal, as you guys know, is I don’t tune into what’s going on, just choose to live in my little bubble, my little world, and do my thing.”

Sound familiar? Now, that’s a man who honed his skills with quality training time in the blanket fort. Losing Johnson as champion would have been like that day back in the 60s when you tuned in to “Bewitched” to find out that Darrin Stephens had been replaced with an eerily similar, yet completely different, Darrin, fooling no one. Something just didn’t look right.

But viewers got used to the change, and the show remained successful. Denny Hamlin, who might well have turned out to be the new Darrin Stephens, would have made a great, and interesting, NASCAR champion. He is the youngest of the three, and the least publicly polished. “I’m a Gillette Young Gun,” he reminded his two bearded fellow ‘finalists’ at the press conference, which happened to be held on his 30th birthday. “Don’t they kick you out when you’re 30?” Harvick fired back.

Hamlin is a bit on the unpredictable, even brash, side. He’s a scrapper, fighting his way back from knee surgery earlier this year to begin the Chase at the top of the leader board. As NASCAR’s champion, he could well have attracted younger fans to the sport, and the rest of us would keep watching just to see what he might do next.

Hamlin is emotional, and not afraid to show it. Early in the press conference, he admitted that “this has been one of the most awkward 30 minutes I’ve been through.” He pouts. He throws water bottles; he throws crew members under the bus.

He also wins races, eight of them this season alone. He has often been called ‘cocky,’ but restrained some of that confidence — and refrained from antagonizing Harvick and Johnson too much — in the press conference when he said, “I’m in a good situation because if I go out there and I do what we’ve done all year and perform really well, then it’s up to them to go out there and better us. We don’t have to beat one of these guys by a certain amount of positions, we just have to stay ahead and that’s it.

“That’s not going to be an easy feat. We know that. But we have the speed, I feel like, to do that.”
NASCAR history was made on Sunday, We crowned the first, and possibly the last, champion to win five consecutive series titles.

But in the end, it really didn’t matter which one. Harvick, Hamlin, Johnson and their fellow drivers have given us a season full of whisker-close finishes, flying cars, name-calling, finger-pointing of all varieties, Jeff Gordon in a boxing match, and the closest Chase ever. It has been so much fun to watch, and to take part in.
Regardless of who took home the title, we were the real winners.

The opinions expressed in this articles are solely those of the author and not this website.