Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr stand high at Phoenix – NASCAR news
Hendrick opponents Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. were dreaming high after an unsatisfactory performance at the Daytona and qualifying efforts for the Phoenix race.
Later when the chequered flag was dropped on Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix, all four Hendrick Motorsports drivers and two from Stewart-Haas Racing were standing within the top-13 places. Stewart-Haas Racing has technical partnership with Hendrick
Motorsports. This sort of finishing at PIR was much relaxing as the Hendrick Motorsports has been a big shark for the past five years.
“As a group we came here and started [Sunday] with our tail between our legs and it's nice to finish up the day with one in Victory Lane and one in third,” five-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson said after his third-place finish. “[It was] a good
day for HMS.”
It did not seem obvious that Hendrick Motorsports would have this kind of finish after the qualifying session on Saturday. Ryan Newman of Stewart-Haas Racing was standing 14th qualified, the highest out of six cars powered by the Hendrick
Engines.
Newman’s teammate and owner of Stewart-Haas Racing, Tony Stewart was standing at 18th place following him. All the four in-house drivers of Hendrick Motorsports were falling at 20th or even down, but it took little time for
the drivers to make their owner proud again.
“I don't know about them but I was sure down after I got off the plane [Saturday] afternoon,” owner Rick Hendrick said. “I talked to them and they said, 'We are pretty good, we are good in race trim, the car feels good. We just didn't have the speed
and I think we'll be OK [Sunday].' You never know.”
The end at Phoenix was even better, when Jeff Gordon cut short his 66 winless race string, with a time 1.137 seconds ahead of Kyle Busch leaving him a sour runner-up. Johnson was third, Newman fifth, Stewart seventh, Dale Earnhardt Jr. at 10th and
Mark Martin 13th.
Earnhardt thinks that Vegas is pretty decent run for him. Though he does not enjoy running there, but still thinks to get in and hopefully have another good run to gain more confidence as a team.
Mark Martin finished in 10th at Daytona500 making it the best finish out of six cars powered by Hendrick engines.
Crew Chief of the winning team, Alan Gustafson termed it an effort of learning those new tricks and merging them into as winning game-strategy.
Tags: