NASCAR Cup Series

Joe Gibbs Racing is dominant, but what's up with Hendrick?

Published Apr. 11, 2016 4:05 p.m. ET

foxsports

I like what I saw Saturday night at Texas Motor Speedway.

While we had our share of cautions (six total), we also had our share of long green-flag runs which turned into I believe four different sets of green-flag pit stops. We had a big wreck that brought out the last caution that unfortunately a lot of good cars were caught in.

What I liked about the other night was watching all the comers and goers. You had rookie Chase Elliott who actually had qualified fourth, but had to start at the rear of the field, yet by the time the night was over that young man got his very first top-five finish.

We had some interesting strategy at the end. I know that there's probably a lot of folks wanting to bash Cole Pearn who is Martin Truex's crew chief on his strategy call. Cole did not make the wrong call. When you are the leader of the race and have that few laps on your tires like the No. 78 had, you can't pit. If they had pitted and lost this race, folks would be bashing Cole for pitting.

You have to make a call based on the circumstances in front of you. Cole made the call and unfortunately it didn't work out for them as Kyle Busch ended up winning the race.

My gosh, Martin had a dominant car. He led 141 of 334 laps Saturday night. Naturally his competitors are going to do the opposite of what the No. 78 did. They stayed out, so the others pitted. I promise you, had he pitted, others would have stayed out. So Cole Pearn did not make the wrong call. Unfortunately, it wasn't a winning call but it wasn't a bad call.

Kyle Busch and that entire No. 18 race team simply continue to impress us all. He's won both the truck race and the Cup race at Martinsville. Last week he won the XFINITY race and the Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway. The interesting difference is at Martinsville he had a dominant car. He didn't have a dominant car at Texas but his team kept getting it better and better until when it came down to "go" time, the car was right where Kyle needed it to be.

In two weeks the guy has won for races in all three of NASCAR's top touring series all in a span of only eight days. His ability and talent is off the meter. All in all, it was a good race Saturday night, but Joe Gibbs Racing has everyone's number right now. Obviously I'm not going to sit here and tell you that they are going to win all the races and the 2016 championship.

What I am going to do is state the obvious. They have four teams and four drivers that can win at any track we go to. They have simply picked up right where they left off last year.

On the flip side of that is Hendrick Motorsports. Saturday night at Texas Motor Speedway was the first time in a year that they have had all four drivers finish in the top 10. Who would have ever believed we'd be saying that about Hendrick Motorsports?