Hendrick drivers have a forgettable day at Kansas Speedway
Don’t tell Hendrick Motorsports about the terrific sports week in Kansas City, about the Royals and all. Forgive the Hendrick race teams if they don’t want to see Kansas Speedway for quite some time.
Hendrick entered Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 with all four of its drivers alive in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. None had a good day.
Jimmie Johnson was involved in a four-car accident on the 85th lap, Dale Earnhardt Jr. hit the turn four wall on the 123rd lap and Kasey Kahne ran into the wall out of turn two on the 235th lap.
Jeff Gordon was the only Hendrick racer still alive in the Chase who didn’t have troubles, finished a so-so 14th after starting fifth.
“It’s a tough track,” Kahne said after his 22nd-place finish. “It’s always tough here. … It’s slippery and when you’re in a bad area you can lose it so quick. Something can happen so quickly.”
Johnson started 32nd and was pushing his way through the pack when he was bumped by Greg Biffle. Johnson dropped to 12, last in the Chase standings. That’s a precarious position for the six-time champion. The bottom four drivers will be eliminated after Talladega in two weeks.
“It just means we’ve got to be on our game at Charlotte and Talladega. There is still a lot of racing left. Stuff can happen,” he said. “We’ll see how the other Chasers fare. If I can get taken out today, somebody else can … at Charlotte.”
Earnhardt, like Kahne, was one of several drivers who experienced tire troubles.
“I was going into turn three and the surface of the tire unwound all the way across the surface,” he said. “It just came off the tire and it popped off the corner. I felt it coming apart through the corner and the surface of the tire is gone.
“It’s a good car. Hopefully we didn’t hurt it too bad, and we’ll just try to go to the next one. This is going to hurt us in the points, obviously, but we’ve got a lot of racing left and a lot of racing to win. We’re running good.”
Kahne fell behind with tire trouble before wrecking on the backstretch on lap 235. Those two events made for a sour ending to his day.
“The team, the pit stops, everything was there today,” he said. “We had something go wrong with the tire. It was ready to explode, I could tell, so I shot into the pits and we got behind. Then I just tried to make too much happen at the top, got free and hit the wall. … We had a top-three car easy today.”
This story was originally published October 5, 2014 at 7:27 PM with the headline "Hendrick drivers have a forgettable day at Kansas Speedway."