Aero, Motor, Hendrick, and is this over?

spindoc said:
I think it is safe to say that Hendrick has a definite advantage over the rest of the field because they have the monetary resources to pay for the best engineers, crew chiefs, and equipment. Don't forget that their partnership with HAAS Automation goes much further than providing rolling chassis and engines for Stewart-Haas Racing. Gene HAAS has been making CNC tools and dies for Hendrick for a long time, and they know how to build tolerances into bodies and engine parts that are well above the Nascar inspection process.
It's an engineering game that keeps Hendrick ahead of the competition, and it also benefits Stewart-Haas as a racing organization. Hendrick also demands very high standards from his employees, treats them very well if they perform, and knows how to build teams that have the coherency of an oxygen atom. I suspect that he also has a degree of control over the standards at Stewart-Haas which translates into and 8 car team on any given weekend. Hendrick is the closest thing to the Keikhaefer monopoly that the sport has seen since the 1960's.
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This. Well said.
 
Nascar is no longer letting other teams be present when they do engine teardowns. they take the engines back to their shop instead of doing it at the track. I think that has made a difference.
 
good stuff from all posts.
hms ain't just a little better in motor hp....they are far superior wound out down straights. tha longer = more advantage.
harvick had chassis set up figured early ...now jj / chad do. now add all hms teams.

hms ...or chevy .... has figured out intake / exhaust / ecu mapping combo... that's way ahead of ford / toyo.
note.. menard speed last weeks too.

betcha r&d center is lookin into it. hope so. ain't a fair field now .
not ta mention .... long straight chase tracks .
 
the way it looks to me kevin harvick has been the fastest car most weeks, not like years past, coming on at the end, fast from the start. johnson's car don't come through traffic as fast as harvicks does. jimmie has always been the fastest car to me, but not so far this year. so you know he not sending better motors to other teams and they supposedly share info. can it not be the driver just get more out of a car, or does it have to be they have some figured out, that others don't quite have yet.
 
pudge said:
the way it looks to me kevin harvick has been the fastest car most weeks, not like years past, coming on at the end, fast from the start. johnson's car don't come through traffic as fast as harvicks does. jimmie has always been the fastest car to me, but not so far this year. so you know he not sending better motors to other teams and they supposedly share info. can it not be the driver just get more out of a car, or does it have to be they have some figured out, that others don't quite have yet.
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pudge .....how bout this logic ? 2 diff drivers.
harvick wants a title ......wants ta lead every lap ta prove he's best w/ new team now.
jj.....knows last lap is only one that counts....toward #7.
 
jimmie I do think is the best at adapting to a car. I have heard him say many times that they put a team mates setup in the car and when they do they always outrun the teammate they got the setup from. look at elliott sadler and brian vickers they could not win in gibbs cars when kyle busch was literally kicking the crap out of everyone in the same equipment. what if jimmie is just that good?? a great driver adjusts his driving style to what the car is giving him. The other thing is alot of times a fast car will not be the most comfortable to drive. I also think jimmie is very good at passing guys on tracks where passing is difficult. I suppose you just call that a really good driver. look at all the tracks that are single groove new asphalt, tuff to pass on, jimmie seems to excel on these tracks. I think he actually has a tuffer time when the tracks are multigroove. It would be interesting to look back at his stats and see and compare easy to pass on tracks vs difficult and his win tally. off the top of my head

richmond, not that great
michigan, used to be multigroove before repave, not that great
vegas more recently multigroove, he did better as single groove.
california same way
martinsville his best track, king of single groove
dover, his other best track mostly single groove
indy, another tuff to pass on track, 4 brickyard wins tied for most
new hamshire he does have 3 wins there and thats a single groove race track.

so yeah for the most part I would say JJ excels when the track is tuff to pass on and single groove.

on edit jimmie does have 3 atlanta wins however none since 07, atlanta is the most multigroove of the 1.5 mile tracks IMO. so I would say he has been just ok there.
 
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I can't speak for the Hendrick organization as a whole, but the 48 team in particular appears to be run with an insane amount of efficiency that it's almost scary. I listen to the scanner every race weekend, and it's almost like listening to a doctor perform surgery the way Jimmie, Chad, and the spotter communicate with each other throughout the race. Everything is methodical, every lap there is an intensity in Chad's voice, every stop that is an extremely precise, detailed explanation of what Jimmie is feeling inside the car. The team runs like a well-oiled machine on raceday. I listen to some other teams' scanners and it seriously sounds like some randoms dudes just got together and decided to run a NASCAR race that day (by comparison). Now obviously I realize that they too know what they're doing, but it doesn't seem like many teams are up there in terms of the "professionalism" that the 48 team brings to the track every week, if you catch my drift.

Best teams + best engines + best drivers = success. Simple sauce.
 
hidesert cowboy said:
jimmie I do think is the best at adapting to a car. I have heard him say many times that they put a team mates setup in the car and when they do they always outrun the teammate they got the setup from. look at elliott sadler and brian vickers they could not win in gibbs cars when kyle busch was literally kicking the crap out of everyone in the same equipment. what if jimmie is just that good?? a great driver adjusts his driving style to what the car is giving him. The other thing is alot of times a fast car will not be the most comfortable to drive. I also think jimmie is very good at passing guys on tracks where passing is difficult. I suppose you just call that a really good driver. look at all the tracks that are single groove new asphalt, tuff to pass on, jimmie seems to excel on these tracks. I think he actually has a tuffer time when the tracks are multigroove. It would be interesting to look back at his stats and see and compare easy to pass on tracks vs difficult and his win tally. off the top of my head

richmond, not that great
michigan, used to be multigroove before repave, not that great
vegas more recently multigroove, he did better as single groove.
california same way
martinsville his best track, king of single groove
dover, his other best track mostly single groove
indy, another tuff to pass on track, 4 brickyard wins tied for most
new hamshire he does have 3 wins there and thats a single groove race track.

so yeah for the most part I would say JJ excels when the track is tuff to pass on and single groove.

on edit jimmie does have 3 atlanta wins however none since 07, atlanta is the most multigroove of the 1.5 mile tracks IMO. so I would say he has been just ok there.
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hi desert.....all ya gotta do is go back ....look at in car vids 1st few races....jj fights wheel back-n-forth.
then last few races ....he hardly moves wheel.
chad finally got chassis set-up right.
hp ain't no good w/o good chassis set up.

on flip side....good set up / lower hp can run up front against that = penske
 
DSquad48 said:
I can't speak for the Hendrick organization as a whole, but the 48 team in particular appears to be run with an insane amount of efficiency that it's almost scary. I listen to the scanner every race weekend, and it's almost like listening to a doctor perform surgery the way Jimmie, Chad, and the spotter communicate with each other throughout the race. Everything is methodical, every lap there is an intensity in Chad's voice, every stop that is an extremely precise, detailed explanation of what Jimmie is feeling inside the car. The team runs like a well-oiled machine on raceday. I listen to some other teams' scanners and it seriously sounds like some randoms dudes just got together and decided to run a NASCAR race that day (by comparison). Now obviously I realize that they too know what they're doing, but it doesn't seem like many teams are up there in terms of the "professionalism" that the 48 team brings to the track every week, if you catch my drift.

Best teams + best engines + best drivers = success. Simple sauce.
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no doubt .....no 6 titles otherwise.
jj just don't need added advantage on top of that !
 
lets see how hms motors pull down sonoma straights .....vs ford /toyo.....kyle b / ambrose / etc may need deep brakin / drivin skills ta be competitive. ??
 
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hawg dawg said:
pudge .....how bout this logic ? 2 diff drivers.
harvick wants a title ......wants ta lead every lap ta prove he's best w/ new team now.
jj.....knows last lap is only one that counts....toward #7.
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yes, that's a possibility.
i wonder if Childress was holding him back. are HMS motors that much stronger compared to ECR motors.
 
pudge said:
yes, that's a possibility.
i wonder if Childress was holding him back. are HMS motors that much stronger compared to ECR motors.
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Yep. RCR has been second-rate for years. Harvick's massive improvement in qualifying and laps led show a pretty big gap in equipment.

Same deal with Kenseth having his best season ever with JGR last year. Even though they've regressed a bit this year he's still outperforming his former Roush teammates by a good margin.
 
FLRacingFan said:
Yep. RCR has been second-rate for years. Harvick's massive improvement in qualifying and laps led show a pretty big gap in equipment.
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why would another team get motors from ECR . is it the affiliation of shared info. or expense. because resources, horsepower, HMS has the advantage. i guess i'm really thinking of 78 car.
 
FLRacingFan said:
Yep. RCR has been second-rate for years. Harvick's massive improvement in qualifying and laps led show a pretty big gap in equipment.

Same deal with Kenseth having his best season ever with JGR last year. Even though they've regressed a bit this year he's still outperforming his former Roush teammates by a good margin.
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After Menard won the Nationwide race (lol I know, Menard won haha), he mentioned somewhat cryptically that ECR had given him a special piece under the hood. So perhaps ECR engines are making some gains.

However your point remains very true, they are second rate and Harvick is all the proof you need. He's got 9 career poles, with 3 coming in the first 4 months with Hendrick power. It was about 3-4 years ago when the ECR plate motors were considered top notch. With Mcmurray, Harvick, Bowyer, Burton always at the front but that was about it, and they have since been surpassed at almost every type of track.
 
pudge said:
why would another team get motors from ECR . is it the affiliation of shared info. or expense. because resources, horsepower, HMS has the advantage. i guess i'm really thinking of 78 car.
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I would have to think the data sharing helps the smaller organizations a good amount (especially since they're usually single-car operations) and despite being second-tier, it's still an upgrade in equipment for teams like JTG-Daugherty who were running Triad junk before allying with RCR.

HScott Motorsports and CGR both run Hendrick engines but as far as I know the data sharing only extends to SHR.
 
pudge said:
why would another team get motors from ECR . is it the affiliation of shared info. or expense. because resources, horsepower, HMS has the advantage. i guess i'm really thinking of 78 car.
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Cost. It is very expensive to lease HMS engines. I don't have exact numbers but I'm of the understanding that RCR leases at a lesser price and that can be a huge deal for a team with much less available cash to spend. It's about value, if you're a 25-30th place car, is the extra money worth it and will it get you any further? That's a question that can be very difficult to answer for some owners.
 
I wonder what the cost of a hendricks lease is compared to your own engine program. I read somewhere engines can be 100k I dont imagine the lease teams pay 100k per race for HMS powerplants
 
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