5 Wins In 8 Races Puts Hendrick On Top Of NASCAR
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- As his NASCAR operation grew to four competitive cars, Rick Hendrick continuously preached his one-team philosophy -- with mixed results.
His message sometimes was lost among egos, jealousy and an unwillingness to share. But the car owner remained convinced that Hendrick Motorsports would reap unlimited benefits if everyone subscribed to his plan.
After 23 years, he finally has everyone on board and HMS has been rewarded with the hottest start in its history.
Hendrick cars have won five of the first eight races this year, including all three events that used the NASCAR-designed Car of Tomorrow. Jeff Gordon is leading the Nextel Cup standings, defending champion Jimmie Johnson is fourth and Kyle Busch is sixth.
"This year more than any other year, we've got folks that are working together better, willing to share information better and make sure the cars are good for their teammates," said general manager Marshall Carlson. "There has been this sense of unity that has been building for some time, but I think we are starting to see the fruits of it now.
"This start to this season has been something like you would dream about, and I don't think anyone could have expected it to be this strong."
Although Hendrick is routinely in the upper echelon of NASCAR, the organization has never been this dominant across the board. Only Casey Mears, in his first season with Hendrick, is struggling and the team has made getting Mears up to speed its top priority.
Currently 35th in the standings and the only Hendrick driver without a win this season, Mears is adapting to a new team, a crew chief he was paired with the week before the season began and also learning how to drive a Chevrolet after four years of driving a Dodge.
But the HMS resources already have kicked in, and it shouldn't take long to get Mears on track under the philosophy that Hendrick preaches in auto racing and auto sales.
"The only thing he ever asks of everyone is that we all work together," said Carlson. "There are two things that he always says in management meetings, in employee luncheons, in all forms of his businesses. He says, `You can't sink half a ship, all of us together are going to be stronger than one of us alone.'
"And he says, `No great organization will ever be brought down or torn down from the outside. Success starts and ends from the inside.' We've been very vigilant about getting all hands on deck with both of those ideas."
It wasn't until midway through last season that it fully caught on, and many credit Johnson for making it happen.
As he and crew chief Chad Knaus debriefed every Saturday at the race track, he couldn't understand why his teammates and their crew chiefs weren't sitting in. To Johnson, there was more to gain if all four drivers shared notes with all four crew chiefs.
It produces more data, more ideas and allows all four teams to lean on each other for help.
"Jimmie stepped up and said, `Listen, we need to change what we're doing, we need to get together, we need to talk,"' Hendrick remembered. "He thought it was that important. The crew chiefs had tried to do it, but getting everybody to commit to one time ... Hats off to Jimmie. He made the stand. He said, `I'm going to be there."'
The flipside of the sharing is that teammates are now using the ideas to beat each other.
When Johnson struggled at Dover two years ago, his team used notes from Kyle Busch's car to put together the race-winning setup. Same thing happened at Martinsville last month, when Knaus poached from Jeff Gordon crew chief Steve Letarte to adjust the car and beat Jeff Gordon for the victory.
Letarte said it's part of being teammates, and the plusses outweigh the minuses.
"A lot has been made of (Martinsville), but that's a 36-week occurrence at Hendrick Motorsports," Letarte said. "We always had parts of each other's cars and we always rely on each other's notes. You can't be a hypocrite about it because you got beat. None of us want to get beat, but getting beat by my teammate is the best thing that can happen."
HMS has thrived under the philosophy by delegating responsibility and keeping every door open for one another. Each team tests with specific assignments in an effort to gauge which setups work best, and the drivers do their part to help one another.
When Mears took two new cars to Kentucky, Jeff Gordon drove some laps to provide secondary feedback. Mears, meanwhile, got into Jeff Gordon's car to get a feel for it.
"The communication has never been this good before," said Alan Gustafson, Kyle Busch's crew chief. "The willingness to share has never been as good as it is now, and it's all the way down the line. There really is a sense of one team, and it's very hard to get to that point."
Making it work depends on the right people, Carlson said, and all four of the current crew chiefs grew up in the HMS organization. And only Mears has driven for another Cup owner, but his friendship with the late Ricky Hendrick has made him like a second son to Hendrick.
"Trust is probably the primary building block to teamwork," Carlson said. "That's kind of what gets it all started. We've got folks here who have grown up in this organization, so they believe in this."
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