CONCORD, N.C., May 18 — Hendrick Motorsports was at the height of its dominance of Nascar in the late 1990s when the driver Jeff Gordon showed up for the annual all-star race here with the T-Rex racecar.
Designed and developed by the Hendrick engineer Rex Stump and featuring a Jurassic Park-ride paint scheme on the front hood, T-Rex was within the rules but far ahead of its time and the competition.
Apparently, it was too far ahead. After Gordon won the all-star event, Nascar banned the car. Series officials then rewrote the rules to outlaw many of the car’s innovative designs, ensuring that the rest of the garage would not be left so far behind.
Ten years later, Hendrick and Stump are at it again. Stump is the lead engineer in charge of the team’s Car of Tomorrow program, which has set the bar in the Nextel Cup. Hendrick is 5 for 5 in Car of Tomorrow races. Kyle Busch won the debut of the Nascar-designed racecar in Bristol, Tenn., in March, and Gordon and Jimmie Johnson have each won two races since.
Of course, Hendrick drivers have been strong just about everywhere this season, regardless of the racecar or the track. Going into the all-star weekend at Lowe’s Motor Speedway here, they have won 8 of 11 races over all, including 3 of 6 in the old racecar. Gordon and Johnson are 1-2 in the points standings, with Busch not far behind in seventh. Only the Hendrick newcomer Casey Mears lags behind, in 35th.
Hendrick drivers are on pace to win 26 of 36 races this season. The last time a team was this untouchable was perhaps during Hendrick’s four-year Cup championship run from 1995-98.
At least in the old car, opponents have a 50-50 chance against the Hendrick juggernaut. In Car of Tomorrow events, others have challenged for victories, but no team of drivers has consistently raced up front with the Hendrick contingent.
“It’s really odd, because from the inside it doesn’t feel that way,” Doug Duchardt, the vice president for development for Hendrick Motorsports, said during a recent telephone interview when asked about the team’s dominance. “We, internally, aren’t really doing anything any different than we did last year.
“I think that whenever you have something brand new, like the Impala is, it’s an opportunity for a team with a lot of resources. And I guess that’s how we looked at it.”
Few teams have the resources to match Hendrick, a four-car operation with six championships over all, including Johnson’s title in 2006. And no one else has Stump, 41, a former Corvette engineer for General Motors who joined Hendrick in 1996.
“Rex is a brilliant guy,” the car owner Ray Evernham said Friday before practice at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Evernham won three Cup titles as the crew chief for Gordon in the 1990s and worked closely with Stump, including on the development of the T-Rex. “He was a lot of the success behind the scenes when I was there,” Evernham said of Stump. “I’m surprised he hasn’t kicked our butt worse than this.”
Maybe that is because the Car of Tomorrow is not like the T-Rex project, in which Stump found plenty of room within the rules to adjust the weight, aerodynamics, balance and other areas to improve the racecar. The Car of Tomorrow has strict templates and little gray area to work with, making it more challenging in some ways.
“Nascar has actually confined this car, the C.O.T. car, much more than the other car was; there are dimensions that never existed on the other car,” Stump said in a recent telephone interview. “So I think what we’ve done a better job in is understanding how to tune that car.
“The rules have got us quite a bit more constrained. That was part of the reason why we felt we needed to get a handle on it so quick.”
Hendrick’s testing program, led by the former crew chief Jim Long, who heads the research and development for the Car of Tomorrow, has been perhaps unmatched by other teams. Hendrick even hired the former Busch Series champion driver David Green to test the Car of Tomorrow on oval tracks. It has now added Max Papis, a road-course expert, to test in preparation for races in Sonoma, Calif., and Watkins Glen, N.Y.
“They say that Hendricks have almost 100 days of testing in the C.O.T. car,” the driver Greg Biffle said. “We’ve spent nine days testing.”
Hendrick disputes the number, although its general manager, Marshall Carlson, acknowledges that the racecar has been tested more than 50 times. And Hendrick is one of only a few race teams with a seven-post rig, a million-dollar piece of equipment that allows engineers to do in-house tuning rather than having to go to a racetrack.
Even with all that expense and effort, Stump said he did not believe the Hendrick advantage would last much longer. Other teams are closing the gap, from Joe Gibbs Racing and the drivers Denny Hamlin and Tony Stewart to Penske’s Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch.
“Ultimately, we’re trying to get it while the getting’s good,” Stump said. “I’m hoping we’re not peaking too soon, because you know in the final 10, we are going to want to have that kind of an advantage and, mark my words, it’s going to be lost.”
Five of the final 10 races in the playoff at the end of the season will involve the Car of Tomorrow.
But just as other teams catch up, Stump and others continue to push to find advantages. That means Hendrick drivers are likely to be factors in the championship hunt. And there is no telling how many races they may win before the season is done.
“I never expected us to win as many as we have,” Gordon said when asked if Hendrick could keep winning at its current pace. “So anything’s possible right now.”
Designed and developed by the Hendrick engineer Rex Stump and featuring a Jurassic Park-ride paint scheme on the front hood, T-Rex was within the rules but far ahead of its time and the competition.
Apparently, it was too far ahead. After Gordon won the all-star event, Nascar banned the car. Series officials then rewrote the rules to outlaw many of the car’s innovative designs, ensuring that the rest of the garage would not be left so far behind.
Ten years later, Hendrick and Stump are at it again. Stump is the lead engineer in charge of the team’s Car of Tomorrow program, which has set the bar in the Nextel Cup. Hendrick is 5 for 5 in Car of Tomorrow races. Kyle Busch won the debut of the Nascar-designed racecar in Bristol, Tenn., in March, and Gordon and Jimmie Johnson have each won two races since.
Of course, Hendrick drivers have been strong just about everywhere this season, regardless of the racecar or the track. Going into the all-star weekend at Lowe’s Motor Speedway here, they have won 8 of 11 races over all, including 3 of 6 in the old racecar. Gordon and Johnson are 1-2 in the points standings, with Busch not far behind in seventh. Only the Hendrick newcomer Casey Mears lags behind, in 35th.
Hendrick drivers are on pace to win 26 of 36 races this season. The last time a team was this untouchable was perhaps during Hendrick’s four-year Cup championship run from 1995-98.
At least in the old car, opponents have a 50-50 chance against the Hendrick juggernaut. In Car of Tomorrow events, others have challenged for victories, but no team of drivers has consistently raced up front with the Hendrick contingent.
“It’s really odd, because from the inside it doesn’t feel that way,” Doug Duchardt, the vice president for development for Hendrick Motorsports, said during a recent telephone interview when asked about the team’s dominance. “We, internally, aren’t really doing anything any different than we did last year.
“I think that whenever you have something brand new, like the Impala is, it’s an opportunity for a team with a lot of resources. And I guess that’s how we looked at it.”
Few teams have the resources to match Hendrick, a four-car operation with six championships over all, including Johnson’s title in 2006. And no one else has Stump, 41, a former Corvette engineer for General Motors who joined Hendrick in 1996.
“Rex is a brilliant guy,” the car owner Ray Evernham said Friday before practice at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Evernham won three Cup titles as the crew chief for Gordon in the 1990s and worked closely with Stump, including on the development of the T-Rex. “He was a lot of the success behind the scenes when I was there,” Evernham said of Stump. “I’m surprised he hasn’t kicked our butt worse than this.”
Maybe that is because the Car of Tomorrow is not like the T-Rex project, in which Stump found plenty of room within the rules to adjust the weight, aerodynamics, balance and other areas to improve the racecar. The Car of Tomorrow has strict templates and little gray area to work with, making it more challenging in some ways.
“Nascar has actually confined this car, the C.O.T. car, much more than the other car was; there are dimensions that never existed on the other car,” Stump said in a recent telephone interview. “So I think what we’ve done a better job in is understanding how to tune that car.
“The rules have got us quite a bit more constrained. That was part of the reason why we felt we needed to get a handle on it so quick.”
Hendrick’s testing program, led by the former crew chief Jim Long, who heads the research and development for the Car of Tomorrow, has been perhaps unmatched by other teams. Hendrick even hired the former Busch Series champion driver David Green to test the Car of Tomorrow on oval tracks. It has now added Max Papis, a road-course expert, to test in preparation for races in Sonoma, Calif., and Watkins Glen, N.Y.
“They say that Hendricks have almost 100 days of testing in the C.O.T. car,” the driver Greg Biffle said. “We’ve spent nine days testing.”
Hendrick disputes the number, although its general manager, Marshall Carlson, acknowledges that the racecar has been tested more than 50 times. And Hendrick is one of only a few race teams with a seven-post rig, a million-dollar piece of equipment that allows engineers to do in-house tuning rather than having to go to a racetrack.
Even with all that expense and effort, Stump said he did not believe the Hendrick advantage would last much longer. Other teams are closing the gap, from Joe Gibbs Racing and the drivers Denny Hamlin and Tony Stewart to Penske’s Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch.
“Ultimately, we’re trying to get it while the getting’s good,” Stump said. “I’m hoping we’re not peaking too soon, because you know in the final 10, we are going to want to have that kind of an advantage and, mark my words, it’s going to be lost.”
Five of the final 10 races in the playoff at the end of the season will involve the Car of Tomorrow.
But just as other teams catch up, Stump and others continue to push to find advantages. That means Hendrick drivers are likely to be factors in the championship hunt. And there is no telling how many races they may win before the season is done.
“I never expected us to win as many as we have,” Gordon said when asked if Hendrick could keep winning at its current pace. “So anything’s possible right now.”