There’s no question that the recent Hendrick Motorsports’ pit-crew swap, where Jimmie Johnson took Jeff Gordon’s pit crew, and vice versa, worked out.
Sure, it didn’t help Gordon any, but in the bigger picture, it’s Johnson that has a chance to win the championship, so that’s all that matters right now.
What I saw at Phoenix International Raceway Sunday was the No. 48 team gaining positions on every stop. Unfortunately, Gordon's team didn’t have that great of a day on pit road. It was up and down all day, but that’s what we have seen, basically, with Johnson’s pit crew all year.
Now I have to be honest, I never in my wildest dreams thought that something as simple as swapping pit crews within an organization would cause such an uproar with the media and fans. Obviously, I think Johnson’s crew chief, Chad Knaus, proved swapping pit crews was the right thing to do, at least in the short term.
Man, the gamble they took Sunday on fuel mileage was huge. Rolling the dice and trying to run 89 laps on a tank of fuel was a really big gamble. Had they run out of fuel that late in the race, you could very well have said that probably was the nail in the coffin for their 2010 championship hopes.
Chad told me the engineer told them right after that fourth caution that they were going to be close on fuel and so Johnson started working on saving fuel right then.
Obviously, it paid off for them and they came home with a fifth-place finish.
Let’s move to Denny Hamlin, crew chief Mike Ford and the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team. Should they have gambled on fuel mileage? I just don’t know on that one.
Obviously, they were quite a bit short. Hamlin’s teammate in the No. 18, Kyle Busch, pitted at the same time and also came up short. The only Joe Gibbs Racing car to make it to the end was the No. 20 of Joey Logano, but they had come in and topped off.
All in all, I think Hamlin’s team went the safest route when they opted to pit late in the race instead of trying to make it on fuel, even though it cost them finishing positions. They are still the points leader. It’s very possible Jimmie Johnson could be our points leader today if Denny and the team had played it differently.
I don’t think anyone expected that last 70-plus laps of the race to be caution-free. Early in the race you saw excessive brake heat blow out some right front tires, so you had to assume there would be another caution or two before the race ended.
What Hamlin’s team has to do, if they haven’t already, is put Phoenix behind them. They had a lot of positives and they have to focus on that and not what might have been. Let’s face it, hands down they had the best car there. They led 190 of 312 laps.
Now they head to Homestead-Miami Speedway where, oh by the way, they won the last time we were there. If you watched Denny’s postrace interviews, the only time I think you saw him smile was talking about Homestead.
He has said they are taking that incredibly dominant car that won at Texas down to Homestead for the Cup season finale this weekend. But again, don’t forget Hamlin is still the points leader.
He and his team are not the hunter. They are still the hunted. So those are a few reasons why they have to put Phoenix behind them.
It just didn’t work out Sunday, so move on. Yes, Johnson and Harvick gained on Hamlin, but at the end of the day, Hamlin is still 15 points up.
Speaking of Harvick, late in the race he and his team were facing complete disaster where a missing lugnut forced them back to pit road. It took them from fifth to 19th in the race. Unbelievably, it actually ended up being their best friend. When everyone in the back of the pack came in, as did Harvick, they got four fresh tires and a full tank of fuel.
They then were good to go.
They were one of the teams praying the rest of the race would go caution-free. That ended up being their saving grace.
You have to love the irony that one minute a missing lugnut spelled doom for Harvick, but then in another minute it actually catapulted him to a sixth-place finish, only 46 points behind Hamlin in the Chase.
