Familiar turf: Hendrick right at home with multiple drivers in title hunt
Obviously, Kasey Kahne took it right down to the wire, but last Sunday evening he did secure a spot in the 2014 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. That also means that all four of the Hendrick Motorsports teams will be in the 16-driver championship field.
That's pretty impressive when you stop and think that 25 percent of the entire Chase field will be made up of cars from one organization.
I am a big believer in strength in numbers. These owners don't have multiple teams simply to be able to say they have multiple teams. With more teams come more opportunities to learn and gather data to make all your cars better. Obviously with this Chase format or any Chase format, there are no guarantees.
Now I'm not a guy who bets all that much, but I think a safe bet in Las Vegas would be to say that when we get to the Final Four at Homestead at least one of those four cars will be from the Hendrick Motorsports camp. I'll even go further out on that limb and say I won't be the least bit surprised to see two Hendrick cars in the Final Four.
The reality is this isn't unchartered waters. If memory serves me right, Hendrick drivers Jimmie Johnson, Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon battled right to the end in 2009 at Homestead.
So from an experience standpoint, Hendrick Motorsports knows how to handle two or more teammates battling for the title. None of the other organizations in the Chase this year have the experience, so that also will give Hendrick Motorsports a leg up on the competition, if indeed at Homestead in November it comes to pass.
VIDEO: Is it better for teams to have two or four cars in the Chase?
