Pressure building for Hendrick teammates
Rea White
Special to FOXSports.com, Updated 17 hours ago
Now the pressure builds. Crews are already feeling the heat as races are won and lost on pit stops. Crew chiefs spend hours rehashing strategy, figuring out which calls worked and which ones didn't.
And the two men carrying the weight of the championship on their shoulders? In many ways, it's all up to them — and they know it.
While there are still 12 drivers, 12 teams, with something at stake in NASCAR's Chase for the Nextel Cup, there are only two that truly still have a shot at the title. One might think that makes things easier. With three races to go, they know their opponent. They know what to expect and what to do.
But for Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, that opponent is his teammate. That pressure that is mounting is building throughout the Hendrick Motorsports organization. The group seems certain of winning the title this season — the closest competitor to the pair is Richard Childress Racing's Clint Bowyer, and at 111 points back, he needs both of the Hendrick drivers to stumble if he's to move back in to contention — but from what side of the shop will it come?
So maybe knowing the competition doesn't really help things at all. Maybe narrowing the field hasn't eased the pressure. After all, in the greater scheme of championships and careers, is there really that much of a difference between finishing second and finishing fifth?
For four-time champion Gordon and defending champion Johnson, it seems unlikely.
For Gordon, the pressure comes not only from being on top of the standings by a mere nine points, but also from a season of success that is being threatened by Johnson. For Johnson, the pressure comes from needing to rally late, from winning back-to-back races and finding that's still not enough to take the lead from Gordon.
How will these drivers deal with it?
"All I can say is that when we had a 58-point lead coming in, we didn't feel like we had a lead and the pressure was on," Gordon says. "Now we have a nine-point lead and the pressure is on even more."
Yet, there's not a lot he can do about that.
"All we can do right now is go out and put up the best numbers and performance that we possibly can on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and hope that's enough," Gordon says.
Team owner Rick Hendrick reiterates week after week that, inside the Hendrick walls, this is a unified group. That no one will be withholding information from the other team. However, that doesn't mean these men aren't intent on competing.
But instead of letting this get to them, instead of all the people involved allowing this to tear into relationships, the Hendrick group is looking at the positive side of having teammates vying for the title.
Certainly that is nothing new, but it is for this pair.
They haven't been at this place before, first and second in the standings with a few races to go, separated by a handful of points.
Yet they think this is a good thing. Who better to fight for the title, after all, than one's teammate?
"We are really bringing the best out of one another and we are being required to step up our games to both the 24 (of Gordon) and 48 (of Johnson) shops and keep just duking it out," Johnson says. "... It's not impossible and I don't think Jeff and I are the only ones in this situation to be racing for a championship and be friends with one another."
No one plans to let this change things at the shop.
While some might suggest that having the Hendrick duo in this position is stealing the drama from the Chase, the group disagrees.
"I think the guys are racing each other really hard," Hendrick says. "Each one wants to win, and I think to the Jimmie Johnson fans and to the Jeff Gordon fans, it's a battle. And they have put on a really good show at Martinsville and they raced each other hard and they raced each other clean. So I don't — it sure has not taken any drama out of it for us, so I hope it hasn't for the fans."
For Hendrick fans, there can be no loser here, and for other fans, there might be no possible winner, but Johnson says that this actually creates more drama since it is teammates and fans battling down the stretch.
"I think there's more people paying attention because of the drama and what team is going to race each other and what's going to happen," Johnson says. "It's not like we're out there just giving each other positions and pulling by, 'Hi, buddy, go on.' 'No, sorry, you go through.' It's far from that, and I think that is putting a lot of drama in our sport."
Where there is no drama is in the area of trash talking, the gentle ribbing that can flow between two men at the top of their game trying to unseat one another. Don't expect any catty remarks between this pair.
Instead, they speak highly of each other's skills, talk of what an accomplishment it would be to beat the other to the championship.
In many ways, when the season ends, this may be the most special championship of all to whichever one wins it — simply because he beat the other head-to-head to do so.
And he did so in a way that didn't endanger or damage the nature of their friendship or the overall Hendrick organization.
"I think there are some teammate situations out there where there is not as much love flowing around and guys are not being as good as they need to as teammates," Johnson says. "But at Hendrick, that's something we work really hard on. And I can think of other really great teammate situations that exist out there, and if those guys were in the situation, it would be the same thing. It's just a level of respect that everyone like to operate with."
In the lexicon of today's text messaging teens, Nextel Cup point leaders Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson are self-professed BFFs.
Best Friends Forever.
With the two Hendrick Motorsports teammates battling each other for this year's championship, I'm afraid that acronym has a second meaning:
Boring For Fans.
It's impossible to avoid the topic of the Gordon-Johnson friendship, given the current circumstances in the Nextel Cup Series. The two sit atop the championship standings, separated by just nine points with three races left in the season - the closest margin ever at this point in the four-year history of the Chase.
You'd think that such a tight match-up would make for an intense rivalry and nail-biting drama, but just the opposite is true.
No matter how hard the media and the marketing moguls try to create a sense of friction or animus between these two - you know, the stuff that great sports rivalries are made of - all they uncover is layer upon layer of good will.
It's about as exciting as watching your uncles play horseshoes at the family reunion.
"It does make for a unique situation there," Gordon said of his friendship with Johnson. "The competitor in me always rules out. I want to win as a driver. But the cool thing is that if I can't win as a driver, then I want to see him win."
Yawn. Not exactly Ali versus Frazier, is it?
The ties that bind Gordon and Johnson run so deep that it's almost eerie. Both drivers are attractive, dark-haired, California-born racing superstars who happen to be married to supermodels. Gordon helped Johnson get his start in the Cup Series, and is not only his teammate at Hendrick Motorsports, but an equity owner of Johnson's car.
"Everybody knows the story," said Gordon. "Just the way I support him - he came to me for advice and me going to Rick (Hendrick) and saying, 'We need to start this new team up. Jimmie, I think, would be a great driver for it.'"
Since then, the 24 and 48 teams have shared a garage at HMS. Their respective crew chiefs, Steve Letarte and Chad Knaus, are also best friends. As much as possible, they share information on engineering and set-ups, making the teams stronger than the sum of their individual parts.
Johnson has been called Gordon's student, his protégé, even his disciple.
But in a classic case of the pupil outshining the professor, Johnson has outperformed Gordon at times, including winning the 2006 Cup championship (Gordon finished 6th), and competing in all four years of the Chase, while Gordon failed to make the cut in 2005.
Now, Gordon sits atop the standings by nine points, but his hold on the lead is tenuous. Johnson has won eight races this season compared to six for Gordon, including two straight recently at Martinsville and Atlanta, and has closed the gap on Gordon by 44 points in just one week. Last year at this time, Johnson was running second to Matt Kenseth in the Chase by 26 points, but went on to win the title.
Despite their close-knit relationship, Gordon and Johnson insist they are fierce competitors on the track. They both claim to want to beat each other more than any other driver. But to onlookers it remains a friendly competition, and a tame one at that.
Take Gordon's response to an interviewer's question about how he and Johnson have handled a couple of recent racing incidents: "It's not about friendship at that point. But come Tuesday or Wednesday, and I say Tuesday because usually when we're battling one another like we were here at Martinsville or Talladega, it takes a couple days just to get over that. Then you go back to the friendship. But the good thing is that we're able to put that aside, put that behind us and the friendship rises to the top."
Sigh.
I don't begrudge Gordon and Johnson their friendship - really. The two share a unique bond that other teammates - and people in general - envy. Whatever their relationship is on and off the racetrack, it clearly works for them.
It's just that all these warm fuzzy feelings have made the NASCAR post-season as void of drama as watching the Red Sox sweep the Rockies in four to win the win the World Series.
Just look at the controversy that exploded two weeks ago after a TV cameraman filmed Carl Edwards shoving teammate Matt Kenseth after the Martinsville race. The incident completely dominated racing talk for over a week - demonstrating just how little real excitement exists in the NASCAR Chase otherwise.
"I think there are some teammate situations out there where there is not as much love flowing around and guys are not being as good as they need to be as teammates," said Johnson regarding the Edwards-Kenseth tussle. "But at Hendrick, that's something we work really hard on."
So, while Gordon and Johnson reassure us that they really do want to beat each other on the track, they clearly have no intention of ruining a good friendship over it. "It has driven me, it has pushed me, it has inspired me to see how well (Jimmie) has done, knowing his equipment," said Gordon. "I think that this year is probably one of the first years that he and I have really been able to push one another … That competitiveness is there, but because of the friendship that has built, that allows us to be totally different than any other teammates that are out there."
Wake me when it's over.
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Coincidence has always had a role in the Gordon-Johnson story
DAVID POOLE
AVONDALE, Ariz. – Chandra Johnson, wife of Nextel Cup points leader Jimmie Johnson, is determined to help keep her husband’s stress level down as Johnson pursues his second straight championship in NASCAR’s top series.
So, for the week between races at Texas Motor Speedway and Phoenix International Raceway, she planned a mini-vacation for them in Mexico.
“We were just trying to get away and relax and have some fun,” Jimmie Johnson said. “We’re sitting in this beach bar having lunch. And in walks Ingrid and Jeff.”
That would be Jeff Gordon and his bride, of course, who were celebrating their first wedding anniversary and Ingrid’s birthday with a little jaunt to Mexico of their own. Gordon, Johnson’s teammate at Hendrick Motorsports, is also the driver with whom Johnson is battling for this year’s title. They’re separated by just 30 points entering Sunday’s Checker Auto Parts 500 at the 1-mile track just west of Phoenix.
“I knew they were in that area,” Gordon said. “We were (staying) about 20 minutes away and we just happened to see them. We pulled over and said hello.”
Ella Gordon, Jeff and Ingrid’s daughter, was due for a feeding so they couldn’t stay.
“It wasn’t like we sat down and reminisced about his win in Texas,” Gordon laughed. “We talked about having lunch the next day, but it didn’t work out.”
Johnson said the chance meeting while both drivers were trying to reset their minds for their championship battle over the year’s final two races was “quite funny.”
“We were like, ‘We’re all the way down here, and what are the chances of running into each other in this tiny beach bar?’” he said.
But, then again, odds-defying coincidence played a very big role in how Johnson came to drive for Hendrick Motorsports in the first place. With Johnson and Gordon locked in this championship showdown, it’s certainly a story worth revisiting.
It started in 2000 when Johnson was driving in the NASCAR Busch Series for Herzog Motorsports.
“I was at a Busch test at Darlington helping Ricky Hendrick out,” Gordon recalled. “I saw Jimmie and was impressed. Then I got a chance to race with Jimmie in the Busch series. I knew what kind of equipment I was driving and from the looks of his equipment it wasn’t as good and he was still driving the wheels off of it.”
Along about that same time, Johnson was facing some critical decisions about his driving career.
“I really needed someone to talk to who could wave a magic wand and fix my problems and make it seem clear and easy for me to make some decisions,” Johnson said.
He was thinking about leaving the Herzog team and about leaving Chevrolet, which had been a big part of Johnson’s early racing career. He knew that Gordon had started with Ford in the Busch Series before signing with Hendrick and Chevrolet, so he thought Gordon might have some insight into his choices.
“So I thought I could get some great advice from him to carry over to maybe move to a different team and if needed, to a different manufacturer based on the opportunities that were there,” Johnson said.
In August at Michigan International Speedway, Johnson approached Gordon to initiate that conversation. Funny you should ask, Gordon told Johnson that day, because as it turns out we might have an opening for you right here with the Hendrick team.
Gordon knew team owner Rick Hendrick was thinking about a fourth Cup team.
“I made a suggestion about Jimmie being a driver and bringing this fourth team at Hendrick a reality,” Gordon said. “Rick said, ‘Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is?’”
Gordon agreed, putting up some of his own compensation from Hendrick to get an ownership position in the new team. Within a few weeks, Johnson had a deal that led to him starting his Cup career with three races in 2001 before his rookie season in 2002.
“I was two-thirds of my way through my first Busch Series schedule and I'm signed up with Hendrick,” Johnson said. “I couldn't believe it. I just had no clue that was going to take place, no clue that they were looking for a fourth driver and they thought I was that prospect. It was wild times.”
You might think Gordon rues that, given that Johnson and his team right now provide the primary obstacle between him and a fifth Cup title. Not so.
“That’s what I love about this series and NASCAR,” Gordon said. “I walked around in the (open-wheel) garage area and nobody gave me the time of day. They all wanted money to help fund the program. Then I went to the Buck Baker Driving School and got a ride in NASCAR.
"Go figure. These car owners want talent and they’ll figure out how to find the money. That’s the exact opposite of what I see in other racing series.”
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Goodbye to the #'25: The #25 Chevrolet will make its final start for Hendrick Motorsports Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Hendrick Motorsports first entered the #25 Chevy in the 1986 Daytona 500 with Tim Richmond behind the wheel. The #25 has had 11 different drivers, including car owner Rick Hendrick, in 656 starts. Six drivers have visited victory lane with the #25 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, with Casey Mears adding win No. 17 at Lowe's Motor Speedway in May.(Hendrick Motorsports PR)(11-14-2007)
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Through each challenge, Hendrick became stronger
From his start in the car business, owner's found success
By David Caraviello, NASCAR.COM
November 15, 2007
06:27 PM EST
MIAMI -- Rick Hendrick was tired of listening to them bicker. It was late in the 2005 season, and the once-promising title hopes of Jimmie Johnson, who fell from first to fifth in the final five races, had crumbled. The once-unshakable relationship between the young driver and Chad Knaus, his intense crew chief, had developed fractures. One day in the Hendrick Motorsports shop the two were clashing again, and their championship car owner had heard enough.
So he called them up to his office, where he set out a box of cookies and a gallon of milk. If they were going to act like children, then they were going to be treated like children. The message delivered, he sat them down and brokered a truce. Johnson learned to speak up. Knaus learned to cool down. And the bond between the two, now on the brink of their second consecutive championship in NASCAR's premier series, improved as a result.
"I'd been down that road before, with Harry Hyde and Geoff Bodine and countless other drivers and crew chiefs," Hendrick said Thursday during interviews previewing Sunday's Nextel Cup season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. "But it's probably the first time I've seen one that was going that far south turn and do that well."
It did so because of the car owner, a kindly gray-haired man who sets the standard in NASCAR for excellence. He's been faced with challenges since the earliest days of his professional career, when he risked everything to turn around the lowest-producing Chevrolet dealership in the Carolinas. He's faced off against federal prosecutors, battled leukemia, and dealt with the tragic deaths of family members and team executives in a plane crash. Through it all Rick Hendrick perseveres, smiling and shaking hands in Victory Lane, building an empire that's 23 years old and only just reaching its peak.
Now he comes to South Florida guaranteed a seventh Cup title, with Johnson leading teammate Jeff Gordon by 86 points and everyone else out of the running. The most popular driver in North America, Dale Earnhardt Jr., moves to his stable next season. Hendrick Motorsports has never been stronger. Ask the team owner how it happened, and he'll rave about engine department heads Jeff Andrews and Jim Wall, compliment executives like Marshall Carlson and Ken Howes, laud the driving talent of Jimmie and Jeff. The only person he won't give credit to is the one who put it all together, who signed all the checks and took all the risks, who built it all up from a single-car outfit called All-Star Racing back in 1984.
Himself. Other people have to do that for him.
"He's a plain ol' country guy from somewhere up there in Virginia who started out with nothing," said friend and seven-time champ Richard Petty. "He got him a used-car lot and then a dealership, and he's worked for everything he's got. So he deserves everything he's got, and he's good people on top of that."
The King nearly drove for Hendrick, striking a deal with the car owner for that inaugural 1984 season, but longtime sponsor STP wouldn't go along. But the Hendrick story really began much earlier, when Chevy hired him to turn around a dealership in Bennettsville, S.C., that was selling six cars a month. He had 18 employees, hardly any inventory, no showroom, and a facility that bordered a cotton field. In less than two years, he was moving 125 cars a month. The brass in Detroit took notice, and moved him to their regional superstore in Charlotte. Suddenly he had the cash and the connections to pursue his dream of running a race team.
In the process, he changed the sport. Suddenly, it wasn't just for former drivers and mechanics anymore. He changed the sport again when he put Gordon in a Cup ride before anyone else would, knowing that a champion lurked somewhere inside that kid who wrecked all those cars. He took the Joe Gibbs Racing model of merging two teams under one roof and perfected it, creating a 24/48 operation that's the envy of every other car owner.
"He's put a lot into it, and has helped take it to another level," Petty said. "He's been a big instigator of taking it out from being just all about racing and making into more of a business. He took it out into the business world. Back in '84 or whenever he got involved, he started looking at it strictly as a business. He was a racer. But racing was his hobby, not his job. He was able to take that hobby and get the right people in the right places and make it his job, and go out in win races. He went out and bought it."
He's respected throughout the garage because he treats his people well, as evidenced by his organization's relatively low turnover rate. He's respected because of his attention to detail, reflected in engine shop employees who tore up everything they'd built after a piston problem was detected in an 800-mile simulation run. He's respected because of the grace and class with which he's handled personal tragedies like the 2004 crash outside Martinsville, Va., that claimed 10 people including his brother and son.
"For a guy like him to go through everything he's gone through the last few years, and be his age and been in it this long, to still come to the racetrack, to still come to the test at Atlanta, to still travel around and see all his dealerships, people wonder why he still does that. But he does it because he loves it," said Steve Letarte, Gordon's crew chief, who started at Hendrick sweeping floors as a teenager. "He doesn't do it for the money; he doesn't do it for any other reason. That's why I'm in this sport. One day when I wake up and I'm not energized to come to the racetrack, I'll find another job."
He's renowned for spotting talent, and trusting the recommendations of others. He took Gordon's word that Johnson was ready for the Cup circuit. He took his late son Ricky's word that Brian Vickers was ready to move to a better team. He took GM Brian Whitesell's word that Knaus was ready to become a crew chief. Sure, he's raced cars, even built a few of them. But it's the old car salesman's ability to relate to people that has made his organization work.
"I know a little bit about all the parts in racing -- I built my own motors and stuff like that -- but I'm not good at anything," Hendrick said. "If there's anything I try to work the hardest on, my job is to keep all the people pointed in the right direction. Keep them motivated. If there's a problem, get it out on the table and talk about it, and at least try to keep harmony in the camp. That's hard to do when you're competing against each other and you're trying to beat each other and the guys have to get on the plane and ride home together. But our competition guys ... they get paid on every win, just like it was their team. When a guy on the 25 team sees Jeff Gordon win, he knows that's coming into his check the next week. It motivates them."
He's built an organization so deep, it barely missed a step in the aftermath of the executive reorganization following the 2004 crash. All the people Hendrick credits with making his team work, from engineer Rex Stump to vice president Doug Duchardt to new crew chief Tony Eury Jr. have one thing in common -- the man who hired them. Even people at other teams recognize it.
"One of the things I admire about Hendrick is that he's smart enough to hire the right people and put them in the right position, and then let them do their job," Petty said.
Still, getting Hendrick to take any credit is difficult. The philosophy he preaches at his shop is that no individual is bigger than the team. That includes the man at the very top.
"The plan has worked," Hendrick said. "I just lead them to the water. They have to drink."
The opinions expressed are those solely of the writer
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Hendrick donates van to injured soldier: Nurses arranged John Hyland's hospital bed in Texas with safety in mind. And it's a good thing, the Charlotte native said, because he almost fell out of it early Saturday when he got a phone call from his mother. That's when Hyland, an injured U.S. Army corporal, learned that Charlotte car dealer Rick Hendrick had offered to give the family a new Honda Odyssey, equipped for handicapped use. Hendrick said he was moved to donate the vehicle after reading a story that described how Hyland, 37, needed a specially equipped van to return home to his family after he was badly injured in Iraq. Hendrick said he called Hyland's mother Saturday morning, minutes after reading the Observer story and seeing the photographs that ran with it. The story described how a blast split Hyland's Humvee in Iraq's Diyala province Sept. 10, crushing his feet and fracturing bones in his back and pelvis. He has spent 10 weeks in a Texas military hospital, but it has been a struggle for his wife and two young sons to visit him there. They live two hours away in Fort Hood, Texas, but they don't have a working car. Hendrick phoned Hyland on Saturday afternoon and told him he appreciated the sacrifices he had made for his country. He learned during that phone call that Hyland was a NASCAR fan. Hendrick, who owns Hendrick Motorsports, says he'll also ask Jimmie Johnson to call Hyland. The van -- worth more than $50,000 -- will be delivered to Hyland's wife Monday or Tuesday, a Hendrick spokeswoman said. The general manager of the company's Hickory dealership will travel to Texas to present the car, the spokeswoman said.(Charlotte Observer)(12-10-2007)
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That's pretty cool but it still doesn't make me like Jimmie.
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Other areas of the Hendrick Motorsports complex will remain open.
CONCORD, N.C. – The Hendrick Motorsports museum, located on the team's racing complex in Concord, has been temporarily closed to the public while it undergoes a full renovation.
The redesigned facility will reopen in time for NASCAR's annual visit to Lowe's Motor Speedway in May. Hendrick Motorsports is located one mile from the race track.
Also undergoing a facelift is Hendrick Motorsports' team store, which will reopen in a temporary location on Jan. 28. The store will operate under its regular business hours in the race shop of drivers Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson until construction on the new facility is completed.
Other areas of the Hendrick Motorsports complex, including the team race shops, will remain open to the public during the museum renovation. The project marks the first major redesign of the Hendrick Motorsports museum since it first opened in October 1995.
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Coincidence has always had a role in the Gordon-Johnson story
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