When the green flag waves on Sunday for the start of the Quicken Loans 400 at Michigan International Speedway, Hendrick Motorsports will be seeking its fifth consecutive victory in NASCAR’s top level. Whether this attempt ends in success or failure will be a moot point, because the dominance demonstrated by the Hendrick cars in the last month shows everyone that they’re the team to beat.
After winning the Sprint Cup Series title last season with Jimmie Johnson and the No.48 team, almost everyone in the garage wondered how Hendrick Motorsports could top a run like that in 2014.
Well, it didn’t take them long to see how.
Dale Earnhardt, Jr. broke the ice by winning the season-opening Daytona 500 – NASCAR’s biggest and most prestigious race – in thrilling and dominating fashion, marking the second consecutive season in which a Hendrick Motorsports’ driver won “The Great American Race” (Johnson won in 2013). In addition to Earnhardt’s triumph, teammates Jeff Gordon and Johnson capped off the first race of the season with finishes of 4th and 5th, respectively.
With such a strong start to the year, many people in the NASCAR’s community began to wonder how many victories this powerhouse organization would pull in a 36-race season.
But after winning the opening race of the season in mid-February, Hendrick Motorsports went on an O-fer streak. From Earnhardt running out of gas on the last lap at Las Vegas, to Gordon being less than two laps from victory at Auto Club Speedway, to Johnson being passed late at Martinsville, the winless streak grew from just a few races to a near, three-month “slump” as some pundits claimed. As the streak reached almost three months, some members of the media began to question if something was wrong with Hendrick Motorsports.
Those questions were quickly washed aside on May 10 when Gordon won his 89th career race and first of the season at Kansas Speedway. Little did the media know that Gordon’s victory would open the flood gates at Hendrick Motorsports as Johnson went Charlotte Motor Speedway and won the Coca Cola 600 – NASCAR’s longest race – on Memorial Day Weekend. Johnson would top that performance by winning the following weekend at Dover International Speedway for the ninth time there.
Off the heels of three consecutive victories by two of his three teammates, Earnhardt won last weekend at Pocono Raceway after making a late pass on 2012 series champion, Brad Keselowski.
In results-based sport, where the finish is the easiest thing to over-hype, most people in the NASCAR community now claim that Hendrick Motorsports is hotter than a chicken wing at a 4th of July barbecue.
But when one analyzes every race of this season and looks at the additional statistics, it becomes very obvious that Hendrick Motorsports was never cold to begin with, but rather lady luck was not on their side.
There were nine races between Earnhardt’s victory at Daytona and Gordon’s win at Kansas. But in those nine events, Hendrick Motorsports had at least one driver in position to win in seven of the nine races. Let’s crunch the numbers even more: In those nine races, a Hendrick Motorsports driver finished 2nd six times and led the most laps three times.
The numbers don’t lie. Hendrick Motorsports is doing nothing different from the beginning of the season until now. The only difference is that misfortune has not intervened for the time being.
With that said, it’s highly unlikely this string of consecutive victories will last for the rest of the season, there are too many teams and factors that can dictate the outcome of races. But this surge of dominance could foreshadow another historic run where the Hendrick cars simply outrun the rest of the field, as the past has shown they are quite capable of doing.
In 2007, Hendrick Motorsports won an astonishing 18 of 36 races that season, including three separate stretches where they won four or more consecutive races. The most impressive winning streak came during the Chase when Gordon and Johnson combined to win six consecutive races in the ten-race playoffs. Johnson won 10 races, while Gordon got six victories as they ran away from the competition and settled the championship amongst themselves. Johnson edged Gordon for the title by 77 points in one of the most dominant seasons for an organization in NASCAR’s modern era (1975-present).
While winning 18 races would be a stretch this go-around, winning six consecutive races does remain a very likely scenario.
Take for instance this weekend’s race at Michigan:
The top three qualifiers at Michigan were all Hendrick-powered or affiliated racecars. Throughout the two practice sessions on Saturday, all four Hendrick racecars were in the top 10 in practice speeds. And the last two races on downforce tracks (Charlotte and Kansas) were won by Hendrick drivers.
The series next weekend will hit the first road course of the season at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif. While the series has not raced there since last June, Hendrick Motorsports does have a strong record at the track. Gordon is the all-time winningest driver on road courses with nine victories, including five at Sonoma. Johnson has one victory there in 2010. And the fourth driver of the stable, Kasey Kahne, won there in 2009.
While Hendrick Motorsports will deal some additional misfortune as the season lingers on, when the playoffs begin in September they will be ready.
And when the series heads to Homestead-Miami Speedway for the championship race in November, one thing is nearly certain – at least one Hendrick driver will be in the running.
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