May 13, 2008 6:13 PM

What a difference a year makes

There's little doubt Hendrick Motorsports dominated the 2007 Sprint Cup season.

Jimmie Johnson captured his second consecutive championship and Hendrick drivers won 18 of 36 races as Johnson and teammate Jeff Gordon made the season-ending 10-race Chase for the Championship a two-driver affair.

But, that was last year and Gordon, a four-time Cup champion, is the first to admit that other teams have caught up with Hendrick Motorsports this season.

"We're not up to par this year with the competition, not with Biggs or Roush," Gordon said.

He should have also include Richard Childress Racing as the four teams mentioned each have three drivers in the Top 12 of the standings and the leading 12 drivers will qualify for the Chase.

Hendrick Motorsports' three drivers (Dale Earnhardt Jr., Johnson and Gordon) are postiioned well but only Johnson has won a race. Joe Gibbs Racing has points leader Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Tony Stewart in the Top 12 and has four wins.

Carl Edwards of Roush-Fenway Racing has won three races and his two teammates Greg Biffle and David Reagan are also in the Top 12 while RCR has Jeff Burton, Clint Boywer and Kevin Harvick in the Top 12 and the team has notched two wins.

"We're working diligently to turn that around and change that," Gordon said. "Just, you know, it shows you how competitive this series truly is. And the competititon's gone to work and they've gotten ahead of us. We just don't have that edge we had last year and we're working hard to get it back.

"You could have gone off last year's stats and success that we had and said 'oh boy, Jimmie Jonson is going to win the championship again and Jeff Gordon's going to run good. Dale Jr.'s going to run. All the Hendrick cars are going to be strong and dominate like we did last year.' But you don't know which teams are going to hit on something that's going to really fall into place for them and which teams are going to rise to the occasion and which ones are going to fall by the wayside."

Posted by Jim Benton at 6:13 PM | Comments (0)