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For our first in a series of team previews for the 2008 season, I present you the New York Yankees of NASCAR: Hendrick Motorsports. Like the baseball team of re-known, the rich only seem to get richer, possessing a “Murderer’s Row” lineup of talent behind the wheel, in the pit box, and in the shop. Can these guys do any wrong? Meh, forget that question- while some may question the scruples of some within the organization, let’s just say that EVERYTHING and I mean EVERYTHING seems to go their way. They are home to a 2-time defending Cup champion, and he’s not even their “star” driver. Jimmie Johnson may be the man of the moment, but clearly, this is still the team that Jeff Gordon leads. As if not having a 4-time Cup champion is enough, Rick Hendrick now has NASCAR’s most popular driver-he of the legendary pedigree- that is one Dale Earnhardt Jr. And then speaking of pedigrees, let us not forget that Casey Mears (nephew of Indy car stud Rick Mears) is also on the team.

Hendrick Motorsports is without a doubt “King of the Mountain” in NASCAR (with all apologies to Brian France). With all the talent throughout the organization, it’s hard to imagine a bad season for HMS because with the acquisition of Junior, they’ve only gotten better. Think about it- this team won half of the races ran in 2007, and now they’re adding one very motivated superstar eager to prove he’s worthy of his rock star status.

Let’s not forget- it’s not only the drivers who are great here. With Steve Letarte, Chad Knaus and Tony Eury Jr. (to name a few), you have the best pit bosses in the business. All their styles may vary, but they all get great results.

In 2008, it’s hard to imagine much will change. A 3-peat for Johnson may be asking a bit much, but certainly a top 5 finish at season’send is not. My gut tells me that Gordon may lose some of his edge as he gets older and he settles in more with his new found role as a father, but this is more than made up for by Earnhardt and Mears. Besides already having a great relationship with Rick Hendrick- Dale Jr. is here primarily for one reason- a reason big enough to leave the racing team his late father founded: by joining HMS, Junior places himself in the best position to be a winner. There’s a discipline with this organization missing from DEI. These guys start early and finish late with a single minded dedication to achieving great results. With 10 wins for Johnson, 6 wins for Gordon, a victory for the upstart Mears and one for the departed Kyle Busch, I’d say they have a formula that works. This team was clearly ahead of the curve on the “Car of Tomorrow” and just about anything else.

Other teams are catching up. That’s true. But guess what? I think Rick Hendrick and company know that and have taken that into consideration. Knowing this, it’s hard to imagine Hendrick Motorsports being anything less stellar in the upcoming season.

Junior Nation is banking on it.

(A special post-race edition prepared for letsgoracingfans.com. Also known as shameless cross-promotion).

In preparing for the Pep Boys’ 500, I think Jimmie Johnson and Crew Chief Chad Knauss stole a page from General George Sherman. The driver of the #48 Lowe’s Chevrolet showed tactical brilliance down the stretch to collect his eighth victory of the 2007 campaign, narrowing his defecit to Jeff Gordon down to nine points.

Admit, like me, you had your doubts at times. Kurt Busch looked “scary fast” early on, and after he faded, Martin Truex looked like the guy to beat. For quite some time, it just looked like Johnson and his buddy Jeff Gordon had a lackluster day going. Heck, it looked Junior had a good run going. It says a lot for the Budweiser Chevy driver that he overcame a commitment cone penalty and an unscheduled pit stop to fix bum tire to be in top five position at the end. The DEI boys had GREAT engines today. Once again, Roush- Fenway was well-represented with Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards getting in the mix and playing nice today. But 99% of the race it was the Truex- Busch Show.

You hear a lot from fans about racers getting lucky. Racing is no different than any other sport- if you prepare well, play smart, and put some good weapons in your corner, you’ll get some luck. Plenty of it.

I know a lot fans are bored with HMS dominating the Chase, but what can you do? If you happen to be lucky enough to race against them, learn what they do and imitate it. To me, it’s interesting to see how the top two guys in this year’s chase lay back for about three-quarters of the race, in a middle-of-the-pack but competitive position, and then strike at the end. The only real risk to this strategy is that you might get collected in a slobberknocker with an also-ran. That’s where the luck comes in. Is that what Johnson doing? If he is, he’s not telling. I’ve said it before, I think there’s a little David Pearson influence on HMS.

You need it with all these green-white-checkered finishes. What a mess! I don’t know how you remedy that, but it’s ridiculous how many we’ve had this year.

Call dominance boring if you want. I’m sure said the same thing about the Cowboys, the Celtics, and the Yankees.

Other observations:

Tough Day For The Old School- It was a real bummer to see Mark Martin go down early. He handled his mishap with David Gilliland with his signature class. I was also looking for good things from 6-time AMS winner Bobby Labonte, but he was one of many drivers today with tire troubles.

Juan Pablo Montoya “Bonehead Manuever of The Day” Award- It stinks to run out of gas at the moment Denny Hamlin did. They HAD to be thinking about it. Everybody else was. It’s got to be a bummer when you know your mistake collected a potential winner. This was not a good day for the Gibbs family. Papa Joe’s Redskins got mauled by the Patriots 52-7 (ouch!) and then Smoke has a crap day, to go with this little foible by Hamlin.

The Ryan Newman “Creative Way To Lose” Award- Can somebody explain to me how in the name of Junior Johnson that a wheel comes off a race car in a NASCAR event? What did Junior do in a previous life to end up with this kind of luck? Some of Newmans’ mojo must have rubbed off on him. Poor guy- he had a car quite capable of winning.

Now it’s off to Texas. I don’t know if the Fat Lady has sung yet for the Chasers not named Johnson or Gordon, but I do believe I heard her warming up. Certainly she’s singing a sad swan song over the ruins of Atlanta.

I walk away from today’s race in Kansas with the same reaction I frequently had with a former co-worker who just tended to babble on in unrelated cliches: Huh?
I should have known something was up when the answering machine at home featured a cryptic message from my brother-in-law Brad. He with an evil Beavis-n-Butthead laugh and a “watch what happens around lap 30″ remark. I’ll let you in on a little secret: we frequently have to TiVo the races because we’re usually in church when a race starts 10 am PST. Given the fact he returns home earlier than we do, we often get such messages when something good, interesting or downright bizarre happens. In today’s case, the latter occurred on cue.
In my mind, it ranks up there with the Busch race in Montreal as the weirdest race we’ve had all year. Everything started out the way you’d expect with all the usual suspects (Kenseth, the Busch boys) running up front and all the usual suspects (Michael Waltrip, Scott Riggs) fading back after qualifying well. Then, as promised, Junior inexplicably whacks Kyle Busch on lap 28 for no apparent reason. Now I am no real fan of the #5 Kellogg’s Chevy, but it looks fishy. Junior apologized later and took responsibility, but you really have to wonder if the guy who had nothing to lose felt like messing with the guy he replaces at HMS next year. It makes me wonder.
Then there was the 2nd red flag of the day, and the ensuing drama of Tony Stewart’s fuel supply. In my mind, you could have made an argument for finishing the race here. I knew that a resumption of the race would result in circus following it, but since Tony’s no favorite of mine, I didn’t fuss much about it. I got to watch my beloved Broncos get pummeled by the Colts and would get to see the finish in real time. Like I said, it was shaping up to be a weird day.
I can’t forget the Jeff Burton “I wasn’t messin’ with my car” flap. He got sent to the back because he was working on his car during a red flag- a NASCAR no-no. I like J.B., but he’s gotta be the worst actor in NASCAR. I’m not a big fan of Rusty Wallace as a commentator, but I got a laugh as Wallace shared about having one of his crew on sentry duty when he would do the same. Seriously Jeff, with all those cameras around, you need to plan your skullduggery better than that.
Sure enough, though the race would be shortened, we weren’t shortchanged on drama. Throughout the race we watched the lead get tossed around like the old baseball game of “Flip.” We had Matt Kenseth running hard and running well, Dave Blaney making some noise, Kurt Busch representing Penske and Dodge well in this race, Jimmie Johnson charging hard from the back, and Kansas’ favorite son Clint Bowyer looking like he could be a man of destiny. Let us also not forget that Tony Stewart was looking pretty good for a while there too.
The Tony and a whole gaggle of other participants set off a chain of events that greatly altered the outcome. Chasers Kyle Busch and Jeff Burton were already having a bad day. Smoke already had a bent up fender and there were questions about how the fender on the Home Depot Chevy would “travel.” Crew Chief turned commentator Andy Petree questioned the move by the #20 team to stay out, and by golly, Greg Zipandelli and Tony Stewart made the former Earnhardt pit boss look like a prophet. Sure enough, Tony seemed to slow down a bit, got hit by his old buddy (NOT) Kurt Busch and got taken out of the game, while collecting Carl Edwards in the process. Unlike yesterday, Tony wisely took a look around and declined comment. The picture of him throwing his steering wheel said quite enough.
Oh, but only if the drama ended there! You remember how things got nasty between Denny Hamlin and Paul Menard yesterday. It was followed with more drama between the 26-year-olds. On one of the restarts, we had 3-wide action between Menard, Hamlin and Jamie Mc Murray. Mc Murray on the inside, brushed Menard in the middle, who in turn, rammed Hamlin. Of course Hamlin’s people blamed Menard. It was his fault right? Sure (cough,cough- Nextel’s next nasty rivalry).
So, as the race nears the finish we have Kevin Harvick gutting out a tough day and yet running towards the front with company from fellow chasers Clint Bowyer, Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon. As the laps click away, it sure looks like Bowyer may have a shot at catching Mr. Hard Luck himself- Greg Biffle. Just as it looks like we’re gonna have a Dayonta style dogfight at the end, Juan Pablo Montoya brushes the wall. Caution comes out, darkness prevails, and Greg Biffle finishes under yellow. Or did he?
Of course there has to be more drama. For reasons unclear to me and a lot of other people, the #16 Aflac Ford cruises onto the infield grass. Some say Biffle was running out of gas and couldn’t finish under his own power. Others would say that the “frozen field” rule was in effect and this whole flap is immaterial. I’m not sure myself (after all, I am a fan and not an expert), but it gives those unhappy with the NASCAR governing body one more reason to complain about how such matters are handled.
Me? I was just glad to have it over, glad to see a face in Victory Lane we had not seen in a while, and glad to see the leaderboard shuffled just a little bit more.
Man, I need a nap.

If you’ve come here looking for great revelations, I have none. I do this more for the purpose of record-keeping than anything else. There will be things that seem like big deals today that won’t be tomorrow. It will also measure on some level my prognosticating skills. Ahem, I warn you that my track record is VERY spotty on a good day. I subscribe to the “hand grenade theory” of predictions: if I throw enough of them up there, I’ll hit something sooner or later. Here’s what’s making noise today:

1) We can stop asking questions about Jr.’s number and sponsor. He’s driving the #88 car with Mt. Dew/Amp and the National Guard. I like the green car.

2) Silly Season For Sponsors. Word has it that the #18 car that Kyle Busch will be driving in 2008 will be sponsored by M&Ms. No idea what this means for David Gilliland who currently drives the #38 M&Ms car, or Interstate Batteries for that matter. The Budweiser logo will now go to a guy who doesn’t look old enough to drink the stuff- Kasey Kahne.

3) David Reutimann. There’s word going around that Reutimann could be leaving Michael Waltrip Racing to take on a 4th car at Richard Childress. Officially, Michael Waltrip is committed to keeping “Beak.” Rumor has it that Reutimann is seeing who ponies up the best offer. Prediction: IF RCR takes on a 4th team, Scott Wimmer will be driving it. #00 is staying put.

4) Mighty Mo is with Jimmie Johnson. JJ won the pole today at Dover. This guy can’t seem to do anything wrong right now. I still say this is the most underrated driver in NASCAR. I think he’s a victim of being an HMS driver (which makes him unpopular in some circles), his crew chief has been in trouble (Chad Knauss)- so some label Jimmie a cheater. Soome hate him because they fancy him a “Gordon lite.” I say the man’s a winner. Prediction: His late charge will steal Jeff Gordon’s thunder, and he’ll win a 2nd consecutive cup.

5) A NASCAR invasion.It looks like open-wheelers Dario Franchitti and Jacques Villanueve will be joining the ranks next year, as well as Sam Hornisch Jr. I spoke with a fellow fan today who’s concerned we may see more Juan Pablo Montoya types in the sport. Hopefully, they have learned from JPM’s experience and have a smoother transition.