hendrick 2019

It's definitely something wrong with HMS and not Jimmie. Kurt is only a few years younger but has been driving an additional year longer. He also just switched to Chevy. Dude has two top fives already while Jimmie has been a total non-factor.

Let's not overlook how Byron and Bowman have been non-factors too. You can't call Jimmie washed up without also calling those two busts.

Bowman and Byron busts already? Bowman has been the second best driver at HMS... He and Ives are weird though, they either start out fast and taper off. Or they get it together late stages of the races. Very odd, but they are consistently competitors in the top 10.
 
And you could be dead on correct. Kurt is having a jam up start. So maybe the problem is Hendrick overall? Who knows?
It's definitely a Hendrick problem and it's not their engines. Ganassi has top 5 speed in both cars. Hendrick struggles to run 15th and are racing around the JTG cars which are significantly less funded.
 
Jimmie technically started the year off with a win, but beyond his win in the Clash, he and Hendrick have been non-factors. I really believe it's more the Hendrick organization as a whole than it is Jimmie. Bowman and Byron, weird as it may be to say, are seemingly having some upticks in form, but the Hendrick cars just aren't at the sharp end of things yet.
 
Looking back at the history of the sport, there have been a bunch of top 3 teams come and go. RCR ain't what it used to be, Petty Enterprises, Roush and you could name them all the way back to Kiekhaefer in the fifties, Holman-Moody in the sixties. Great organizations decline. It happens. But I don't see that happening to Hendrick. I'm guessing Mr. Hendrick has plans in place to keep that outfit around for years to come. I believe they will overcome the current slump. When and how, who knows? I wouldn't count them out just yet.
 
Fun fact: Jimmie was running 6th in stage 1 Vegas. Chase was running 6th in stage 2 Vegas. Both ended up worse.
 
Fun fact: Jimmie was running 6th in stage 1 Vegas. Chase was running 6th in stage 2 Vegas. Both ended up worse.

Chase said after the race that was the car had been on that last run. Also, he possibly had a tire going down. Jimmie lost the handle completely as well.
 
Bowman and Byron busts already? Bowman has been the second best driver at HMS... He and Ives are weird though, they either start out fast and taper off. Or they get it together late stages of the races. Very odd, but they are consistently competitors in the top 10.
Bowman has been the 2nd best HMS driver in qualifying at all 3 races and has out qualified Chase at all 3 races. He just doesn't seem to have any luck on race day and his pit crew has lost him a lot of spots on race day. I have a pretty strong feeling that he will win 1 or more races this year.
 
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I wouldn't say it's time to panic. They're getting beat. I'm betting Hendrick and company are doing a lot of things. Panicking probably aint one of them.
 
Hendrick without a car finishing in the top 10 at Auto Club. Not a very pretty sight so far for season 2019


11th #9 Chase Elliott
15th #24 William Byron
17 th #48 Jimmie Johnson
21 st #88 Alex Bowman
 
I think its time for HMS and RCR to merge engine programs. HMS had an advantage for a long time because the engines were so damn powerful. The tapered spacers have taken away that advantage. Not to mention HMS talent has been poached quite a bit in many areas. Chevrolet needs to start working together more IMHO. Now it looks like Ganassi has their bodies to a decent level and so does RCR. HMS seems like they just do not have the same amount of power they used to have. Also, it seems like their bodies are not up to snuff.

Take notes from Toyota and Ford. Try working together to get themselves up front.
 
Auto Club was a handling track I thought. The Hendrick's started the race in pretty good shape position wise, 2 in the top ten, but like so many times this year, continued to get worse as the day went on.
 
Auto Club was a handling track I thought. The Hendrick's started the race in pretty good shape position wise, 2 in the top ten, but like so many times this year, continued to get worse as the day went on.

Remember how good Hendrick was on the 2 mile tracks? Michigan, Fontana, and Pocono were all good tracks for them. I agree that Fontana is more for handling and showing how well cars can handle its surface. Just I think the big Chevy teams need to collaborate more than ever right now. Ganassi, HMS, and RCR all have the resources to right the ship.
 
Remember how good Hendrick was on the 2 mile tracks? Michigan, Fontana, and Pocono were all good tracks for them. I agree that Fontana is more for handling and showing how well cars can handle its surface. Just I think the big Chevy teams need to collaborate more than ever right now. Ganassi, HMS, and RCR all have the resources to right the ship.
They mentioned this during the broadcast, but interesting enough, Gustafson said their car drove beautifully all weekend but lacked straight line speed. When has that ever been an issue for HMS? Just bizarre.
 
Gustafson said the problem is straight line speed, that’s to much drag in the car.
I kept my mouth shut but yeah a good driving car is usually a slower car. Straight line speed is much faster when tied to a fast corner. KDB was cutting some good ones.
 
Gustafson said the problem is straight line speed, that’s to much drag in the car.
Which would be interesting considering how good HMS usually are in qualifying at Daytona and Talladega the past few years - very trimmed out and/or very good HP levels, but then don't usually fare as well in the draft. A place like Fontana obviously isn't the exact same, but given the new rules for 2019 you'd think some of the same concepts apply. Perhaps they went too far in the other direction.
 
The 4 is coming, the 2 and 22 are already there and the Toyota's are there as well ............ HMS has a problem that is getting worse before getting better
 
I think like Ford did when they missed the last change, Chevy's timing was off and they designed their car for the existing rules. Problem is they haven't figured out a way to get around it.
 
I think like Ford did when they missed the last change, Chevy's timing was off and they designed their car for the existing rules. Problem is they haven't figured out a way to get around it.

Could the nose of the Z1 Camaro be causing problems? just curious.
 
Could the nose of the Z1 Camaro be causing problems? just curious.
Hard to tell, but Nascar standardized the splitter and the pan underneath the cars and this is all new after the Chevy car was designed and that changed the downforce/drag alot.
 
Not sure I buy the body being the reason. Toyota's body is a few years old and they've adjusted to several aero changes fine. Ford has a new body and didn't miss a beat, fast with the old body also. SHR was embarrassing HMS the last few years of their alliance. Lift up the skirt and I'd bet you HMS chassis are dogs.
 
Not sure I buy the body being the reason. Toyota's body is a few years old and they've adjusted to several aero changes fine. Ford has a new body and didn't miss a beat, fast with the old body also. SHR was embarrassing HMS the last few years of their alliance. Lift up the skirt and I'd bet you HMS chassis are dogs.

yeah that too. There is no way of knowing if the manufacturers continue to be able to make sleight changes to the cars. I know year before last SHR got busted in the wheel arch area when they changed some things, but under the car changes were being made with the front end parts streamlining. The longer front pan this year covers all of that. I don't think Chevy is on the ball, Bowman kind of blew the whistle a bit. And Nascar let the Yotas race a two seater all brand new for Nascar only and it is tearing up the Xfinity series out of the box. The manufacturers have to keep up with all of that and it is expensive. And Nascar tries to keep it level when cost is no limit. It has to change or become an F-1 out spending contest. Penske has a recent bitch about the costs involved..more like a threat.

“It has to happen, we have to make a change. Because the revenue side is not growing the way you want it to, and the costs are continuing to go up.

“The only way to get the costs down are to run your engines for three or four races, and the customer in the stands don’t know if you’ve got a super, super driveshaft or not, or which of the four types of brakes we’ve got.

“Today, when you’re spending $8,000-10,000 to build a front upright when everybody can have the same one for $1,500, it doesn’t make any sense.”
https://www.motorsport.com/nascar-cup/news/penske-nascar-gen7-revolution-plan/4355379/
 
I think its time for HMS and RCR to merge engine programs. HMS had an advantage for a long time because the engines were so damn powerful. The tapered spacers have taken away that advantage. Not to mention HMS talent has been poached quite a bit in many areas. Chevrolet needs to start working together more IMHO. Now it looks like Ganassi has their bodies to a decent level and so does RCR. HMS seems like they just do not have the same amount of power they used to have. Also, it seems like their bodies are not up to snuff.

Take notes from Toyota and Ford. Try working together to get themselves up front.

I agree, the wheels are coming off HMS. I think that is why Rick wanted Jeff to come back and run things. In racing complacency is your second worse enemy while funding is the worse.
 
At one point during California (maybe early second segment before I tuned out) Chase was asking where he was getting beaten. D’Hondt gave him some lines to try based on 18. Alan came over and said “I think you tapping the brake is killing us. According to the data they’re backing the corner up by lifting with no brake.” Chase was like “no brake?!?!” Then they worked it out and he started cutting top 10 to top 5 times but burnt the tires off doing so. That’s something that should be figured out in practice imho. HMS is sorely lacking mechanical grip it seems, while the Toyotas and SHR, Penske have found it. I believe others that have stated that HMS used to have a sizable horsepower advantage, but the rules neutered that and exposed their chassis deficiencies.
 
Take notes from Toyota and Ford. Try working together to get themselves up front.

Toyota doesn't have anyone work together. Gibbs is a full-on factory team. Their satellite started winning, and most people think it pissed off Gibbs, they raised the price for their stuff, and that team went out of business, meanwhile Gibbs picked up the scraps they wanted (Truex, Pearn). The only other cars that are Toyotas are the Leavine car and the part-time Gaunt Brothers car, which cannot compare. I personally wonder if the only reason Leavine is a Toyota car is there's some largely unknown NASCAR rule that a manufacturer must be with more than 1 team.
 
At one point during California (maybe early second segment before I tuned out) Chase was asking where he was getting beaten. D’Hondt gave him some lines to try based on 18. Alan came over and said “I think you tapping the brake is killing us. According to the data they’re backing the corner up by lifting with no brake.” Chase was like “no brake?!?!” Then they worked it out and he started cutting top 10 to top 5 times but burnt the tires off doing so. That’s something that should be figured out in practice imho. HMS is sorely lacking mechanical grip it seems, while the Toyotas and SHR, Penske have found it. I believe others that have stated that HMS used to have a sizable horsepower advantage, but the rules neutered that and exposed their chassis deficiencies.
Yeah this must have been when he drove his way up to 10th or so before the stage break. Interesting stuff.
 
Yeah this must have been when he drove his way up to 10th or so before the stage break. Interesting stuff.
I believe so. He surged shortly after, but said that the tires were so shot at end of the run that he was bleeding positions back again. There's been a lot of talk "in code" as well. Chase will give detailed feedback and Alan will say "yeah, I know what it is. We'll talk about it later, nothing I can do on a pit stop." That sort of thing. At Cali this weekend Chase said something about "knowing what to talk about in team meeting" when relating to a setup issue. It wasn't angry or anything, just a "I have something that I can't say over the radio" kind of thing. It's things like that which give me the only hope I can cling onto right now as a Chase fan. Losing Rex to SHR several years ago has really come back to bite HMS.
 
Hendrick needs to be working with Ganassi and/or JTG more since they're both affiliated with Hendrick.

I really think Hendrick should be going after Denny Hamlin when JGR possibly puts Bell in his place.
 
I don't think Denny has anything to offer. HMS has gone for the youth and it will take some time
before they can really challenge. I do feel however they must make some changes in their engineering group. HMS has made some mistakes in this department's personnel.
Reminds me of a company who is unionized and senior people get the promotions rather than those most deserving.
 
So it's not a Chevy Problem and the fact that Chase Elliot ran very good yesterday at Martinsville, it's starting to look like at least one HMS team is starting to figure it out. I'm starting to wonder if putting a rookie crew chief like Kevin Meendering in Jimmie's Box was the right call.
 
So it's not a Chevy Problem and the fact that Chase Elliot ran very good yesterday at Martinsville, it's starting to look like at least one HMS team is starting to figure it out. I'm starting to wonder if putting a rookie crew chief like Kevin Meendering in Jimmie's Box was the right call.
they haven't been doing well at the larger tracks, Larson and Kurt have better results at the larger tracks so far.
 
I don't get to watch as many Cup races as a lot of you on here but the ones I did watch Alex Bowman was doing pretty good at the start of the season and was probably the 2nd best HMS team out there. But, he had a tire problem and he banged the wall a few races ago and then he banged the wall in qualifying this week. Is Alex over driving the car or is the car that far off that he is trying to make chicken salad out of chicken crap? Alex has never been the type of driver to wreck race cars unless he was caught up in some one else's wreck he couldn't avoid.
 
[i think everyone with cars that used to be fast try too hard when to cars suck,thier cars look good this weekend,good luck to them.QUOTE="Nitro Dude, post: 1552027, member: 5427"]I don't get to watch as many Cup races as a lot of you on here but the ones I did watch Alex Bowman was doing pretty good at the start of the season and was probably the 2nd best HMS team out there. But, he had a tire problem and he banged the wall a few races ago and then he banged the wall in qualifying this week. Is Alex over driving the car or is the car that far off that he is trying to make chicken salad out of chicken crap? Alex has never been the type of driver to wreck race cars unless he was caught up in some one else's wreck he couldn't avoid.[/QUOTE]
 
Hendrick Motorsports places two cars in top 10 but ‘still a lot of work to do’
2hRM0ZJO

https://nascar.nbcsports.com/2019/0...cars-in-top-10-but-still-a-lot-of-work-to-do/
 
I think the problem has been solved regarding the car itself. They may have to work on
personnel though. They sure did better than Team Penske this week.
 
I think the problem has been solved regarding the car itself. They may have to work on
personnel though. They sure did better than Team Penske this week.
Pretty odd for Penske or any of the top teams for that matter to have three different mechanical problems that took cars out of the running. They were fast though. The Hendrick cars were too. I was starting to think it was the drivers, but they found something.
 
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