The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Johnson aims to ride out Hendrick chaos
Even Cup champion has trouble as three teammates slump.
LOUDON, N.H. — Jimmie Johnson smacked the wall first, and Chase Elliott quickly followed the reigning NASCAR Cup champion’s miscalculated route when his car slammed into about the same spot at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The Hendrick Motorsports drivers traded their Chevrolets for golf cart rides to the medical center.
Even in practice, the hits kept coming Friday for Hendrick Motorsports.
At first glance, team owner Rick Hendrick’s organization, long the class of NASCAR, has had a nice season with three drivers in the 16-car playoff field.
But the team has won just four races while beginning a major transition behind the scenes and in the cars. Hendrick gave underachieving Kasey Kahne the boot, effective at the end of the season. Dale Earnhardt Jr. has trudged through a winless final season before he retires. Elliott is winless in his two-year Cup career, and his career-best second place last Sunday at Chicagoland was tainted because NASCAR deemed that his crew cheated.
Kahne and Elliott will have new crew chiefs Sunday at New Hampshire: Hendrick assigned Kahne a new chief for the final nine races and Elliott’s was suspended for a race by NASCAR.
Only seven-time Cup champion Johnson has had a decent season. But his three wins are his only three topfive finishes. Kahne has the other Hendrick win but is 15th in the standings with two races left before the playoff field is cut to 12.
“This year has been tough for our company,” Johnson said Friday before he qualified 12th for Sunday’s race. “Last year was tough, but we found a way still to get to the championship. This year has been tough again, but there is a lot of change going on internally. I think we’re making some great changes and obviously the addition of the two new drivers will shuffle the deck a bit.”
Alex Bowman will replace Earnhardt in the 88 and William Byron will take Kahne’s spot in the 5 next season.
New Hampshire hardly seems like an elixir to get playoff drivers Johnson, Elliott and Kahne rolling — Hendrick drivers have led just 14 laps at the track over the past seven races.
Further, NASCAR penalized Elliott’s team for a modification to his Chevrolet at Chicagoland. Elliott lost the playoff point he earned with a stage victory there, plus 15 driver points that dropped him from sixth place to eighth in the playoff standings. Crew chief Alan Gustafson was fined $25,000 and suspended for Sunday.
Rival playoff drivers thought the penalty was too light. Photos and videos presented to NASCAR appeared to show tape applied to the rear spoiler and a crew member removing the tape following the race. Other teams viewed the move as an effort to gain more downforce.
Elliott qualified 14th for Sunday’s race, like Johnson in a backup car. “I thought that really for everything that happened, it could have been a lot worse,” Elliott said. “We are out of race cars, so you don’t want to do anything stupid and wreck another one. So, that was the big thing.”
Another pole: Kyle Busch drove a lap of 135.049 mph in a Toyota and won the pole for the second straight week. Two mistakes on pit road were the main reason he faded to 15th at Chicagoland after leading 85 laps.