Things were not exactly dire over at Hendrick Motorsports but winning the most recent Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway in advance of the Easter break\u00a0was a much needed momentum boost.<\/p>\n
Prior to Chase Elliott and crew chief Alan Gustafson breaking through with a pit strategy-aided victory over Denny Hamlin, the narrative surrounding the Chevrolet flagship was an organization and manufacturer that was struggling to get acclimated to a new body.<\/p>\n
This season was the first since 2019 that Hendrick failed to win one of its first six races, which isn\u2019t exactly a tremendously large sample size, but it also speaks to the standards over at the campus in Concord.<\/p>\n
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A consistent theme in talking to everyone at Hendrick is the word \u2018potential,\u2019 in terms of the maximum capacity of this body compared to its predecessor and that includes vice chairman Jeff Gordon.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that this new body, whatever the upgrades, they show a lot of potential,\u201d Gordon said during the post-race press conference at\u00a0Martinsville. \u201cBut that doesn’t always mean it’s just automatic on how you extract it. It’s definitely a little bit of a balance change, so we’re working through that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at the places we’ve run good this year, we had good notes and ran solid at those places last year. Places that we didn’t, we haven’t.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur competitors have stepped up too. I think you look at Ford in the areas, places they’ve been good, they’ve stepped up. Toyota’s been solid and consistent with Gibbs and 23XI pretty much every weekend. You have to give credit to them where credit’s due. All that does is make us work harder, come together stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n
So the question for William Byron crew chief Rudy Fugle is just how much of the narrative is manufactured or reality when it comes to the new body.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are learning this new car, 100 percent,\u201d Fugle told Motorsport.com after Martinsville. \u201cWe feel it has more potential. It\u2019s a car we want to race and expect it to be faster, but we just have to learn it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s got some new characteristics that we knew we wanted to include, but we have to encounter it in race conditions, and the only way to do that without testing is to race it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inside the Court:<\/p>\n
Fugle said they learned a lot during the Goodyear tire test at Las Vegas Motor Speedway\u00a0and have been able to incorporate that it into upcoming builds.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just don\u2019t have the opportunity to test so the only way to learn is to race it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Chad Knaus, the vice president of competition and a Hall of Fame crew chief, says there have been struggles while they learn.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re definitely trying to learn the car and get ourselves put in the right positions to extract the full potential out of the car,\u201d Knaus told Motorsport. \u201cWe\u2019re always trying to learn and get better.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, once we got to Las Vegas, a track and race, that\u2019s more normal, we executed and had races to win and that was a great showcase of the potential of the new Chevrolet.\u201d<\/p>\n
To his point, the first two races were drafting tracks, and then a road course at Circuit of the Americas, and then Phoenix and Las Vegas. You kind of have to throw the first three races out of the figurative window a bit.<\/p>\n
From that standpoint, the six race benchmark was a small sample size, but Fugle admits it\u2019s a grind back at the shop in ways people don\u2019t see.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to execute on race day to a level we usually can overcome on speed because we\u2019re stacking pennies with this car,\u201d Fugle said. \u201cI know that\u2019s a clich\u00e9 but we have to keep stacking good days and not jump the gun until we\u2019ve extracted the most potential out of this car.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not that far away. We\u2019re close. At Hendrick Motorsports, there is no one else more capable of taking on a project like this and I\u2019m excited to go to work every day with these guys to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cliff Daniels, two-time championship winning crew chief for Kyle Larson said Elliott won on a \u2018gutsy\u2019 pit call from Gustafson and he was proud of the No. 9 team for their race.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall, I think we are a very strong company right now,\u201d Daniels said. \u201cWe\u2019re probably not quite as strong as we should be, and I only say that because of Vegas. We were right there with the Gibbs cars that have been really, really good on mile-and-a-halfs, and yes, we are still trying to figure out the nuances of this new body.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s great, and there is a lot of potential there for us to unlock, and we were in the game at Vegas. At Phoenix, we were kind of hit-or-miss and Darlington was not a great day for us, but only because we pushed ourselves too hard to try too many things.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we\u2019re not that far away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Full circle, Gordon said winning at Martinsville just took some of the edge that could have been developing within the walls so the work could continue through the Easter break. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s a long season,\u201d Gordon said. \u201cWe got a lot of fighting to do. Today just feels good. It feels good to pull this off in the way that the 9 team pulled it off, taking some risks, executing, Chase getting after it when he needed to.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s always nice to reassure yourself of days like today that you can get it done, even as we’re searching a little bit in some of the other areas.\u201d<\/p>\n
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