Can Hendrick Motorsports Return To Victory Lane At Talladega?

No other owner has quite the amount of restrictor plate success in his garage as Rick Hendrick. Sure, Richard Childress can boast a good bit of success, both by the late Dale Earnhardt and in recent years with Kevin Harvick and Clint Boyer. However, he still comes up short of Hendrick’s 17 wins at Daytona and Talladega. If you add the wins that Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mark Martin had before coming to HMS, the team has the experience of 26 wins heading into this weeks race at Talladega.

What is somewhat surprising of late at the restrictor plate tracks is that HMS has not visited victory lane at either track in 14 races. From July of 2001 to October of 2007, the trio of Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. won 15 of 26 plate races. Yet since 2007 they have been relegated to doing post race interviews barely within earshot of the victory party.

Even worse, in the 7 races since an HMS win on a restrictor plate track, the for teams have only added up a total of 6 top 5 finishes out of a possible 28. The good news for 88 fans is that 3 of those top 5’s were posted by their driver. The bad news is that the last time Junior posted a top 5 at Talladega was two years and four races ago.

As if the HMS teams needed any more discouragement for the coming race, they again have to return to 2 car pack racing. Since it started in 2010, the new “form” of plate racing has not smiled on HMS drivers. Although Dale Jr. and Jeff Gordon showed some strength in the season opener at Daytona, they never were able to dominate the way they have so often. It is highly likely that, unless they want to rely on being lucky like the rest of the field, they will have to adapt some new strategy to regain their plate dominance.

If there is anyone out of the HMS stable that has concreted his Talladega strategy, it may be Jimmy Johnson. Although he has not had a top 5 there in 4 years, he has repeatedly had a solid top 10 in each of the last 4 chase races there. His strategy there seems to have been survive to the last lap then get all you can. No doubt this strategy is what Johnson will go with this fall, but in the current season where wins are premium to solidify a chase berth, look for some aggressive racing from each of the HMS drivers this weekend.

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