Image details: Coke Zero 400 Qualifying served by picapp.com
Ever since we learned that Hendrick Motorsports scheduled a press conference this weekend at Daytona, most people believed that they would announce Mark Martin as the driver for their no. 5 car next season, and they were right. What was unclear, however, was whether it would be on a full-time basis, or if Mark would engage in another driver / mentor program to bring the young Brad Keselowski up through the ranks of the Sprint Cup Series … it turns out it may have been both.
With Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. …read more

By now, most of you are probably familiar with the many rumors surrounding the status of Casey Mears and the no. 5 team over at Hendrick Motorsports for 2009. Several sources are indicating that Rick Hendrick may have notified Casey last week that his tenure with HMS was coming to an end at the conclusion of this season, and already, the rumor mill has been lit up once again with all sorts of speculations.
The most intriguing, and for once, make-sense of these rumors comes from Lee Spencer over at Fox Sports, where she throws out the notion that Hendrick may …read more

Image details: LifeLock 400 served by picapp.com
It took 15 races with Hendrick Motorsports, and 76 races since Richmond in 2006, but Dale Earnhardt Jr. has finally once again reached Victory Lane – silencing his critics and giving Junior Nation something to cheer about. Earnhardt led five times on the day, last taking the lead from Jamie McMurray on lap 195. With the majority of the field making green flag stops for fuel in the last 20 laps of the race, Earnhardt fans watched nervously as the no. 88 team decided to stretch their fuel. Originally guesstimating themselves to be 2 …read more

When I think of Fontana, CA, it doesn’t necessarily strike me as a track absolutely dominated by Hendrick Motorsports. Do they own the best track record there over the last few years? Of course they do. But, just about everytime the series visits here, you can also count on the fact that the Hendrick drivers are going to be challenged by Jack Roush’s boys.
Last year was a prime example – In the Spring race, Matt Kenseth brought home the checkers for Roush with HMS’s Jeff Gordon & Jimmie Johnson finishing right behind him. In the Fall competition, it was Hendrick …read more

The buzz in the garage area and in the media prior to Saturday’s Nationwide Series race at Daytona was all about – you guessed it – Dale Earnhardt Jr. The crew for Junior’s no. 5 Chevy tinkered with the deck lift after the initial round of inspections and were soon caught, causing him to start the race from the back of the field. Junior did manage to climb his way up through the 43-car field to finish the race in third place, but the team wasn’t left with as much of a sense of accomplishment when NASCAR issued their penalties …read more

At this point, I’m not really sure what can be said about Rick Hendrick and Hendrick Motorsports that hasn’t already been stated a million times by now. It’s safe to say that Rick hasn’t built race teams or simply just an organization, he’s crafted and molded together a dynasty in oh, roughly twenty years time. To put it mildly, they’re NASCAR’s version of the New York Yankees … and, like I said – that’s putting it mildly.
In addition to the countless records that HMS has to their credit, they’ve also won 7 Sprint Cup Championships (4 with Gordon, 2 with …read more

The 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup season officially got underway with the drop of the green flag Saturday night for the Budweiser Shootout at Daytona International Speedway. Finally, after months of talking about whether or not Dale Earnhardt Jr would find success driving for Hendrick Motorsports. All the debate about if the Toyotas would be able to compete with the competition after adding Joe Gibbs Racing to the mix. And, all the doubts about the Car of Tomorrow being able to handle the monster speedway that is Daytona. Many question marks still linger, no doubt about it, but Saturday night’s Shootout …read more

Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson have been docked 100 points each, and their crew chiefs suspended for six races, as a result of technical violations discovered during inspections before last weekend’s race at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma. As you might expect, the drivers (both with Hendrick Motorsports) and NASCAR have slightly different views of the situation.
Quoth Nextel Cup Director John Darby:
Now if this penalty won’t stop it, we have no problems ramping up…. We can keep going, and we will until we get the results we’re looking for.
And, in the other corner, team owner Rick Hendrick had this to say:
We …read more

Next year at this time, I wonder how Dale Jr. will be doing with his new team. He’s going to have his own personal expectations driving him, but you can bet that Rick Hendrick will be applying his own type of pressure, just to keep Dale Jr. focused.
Can Dale Jr. win in short order next year, or will he struggle with the new team? You can bet that this off-season will be plenty busy for Dale Jr. and his new team. They’re going to have work at not only building new cars, but doing some off-season testing as well. Dale …read more

With the entire racing world consumed with the Hendricks-Dale Jr. saga, I have to wonder, what would Dale Sr. think about all of this? Yes, it’s a hypotheical question, but it’s still worth thinking about. Obviously, if Dale Sr. was still alive, Dale Jr. would still be at DEI…or would he?
That’s a tough question to answer because Dale Sr. would probably be retired from driving by now, and he would have had a more hands-on approch with DEI, ensuring that his cars would have the greatest resources available.
On the other hand, Dale Jr. is not the same kid he was …read more