Team owner discusses the economy, the No. 48 team and more

BY JIM UTTER McClatchy Newspapers   Since debuting as a full-time team owner in 1984, Rick Hendrick has won seven Sprint Cup Series championships - all since 1995. The driver of his No. 48 Chevrolet team, Jimmie Johnson, has won the past two titles and is trying to win his third consecutive championship in Sunday's season finale at Homestead, Fla. Hendrick, 59, fields four Cup series teams this season, including drivers Jeff Gordon, Casey Mears and Dale Earnhardt Jr., and also co-owns JR Motorsports, which fields two teams in the Nationwide Series. We recently spoke to Hendrick about a variety of topics, including the effect of the bad economy on NASCAR and the automotive industry, Johnson's championship chances and where Johnson stands among the sport's greatest drivers. Q: How concerned about you about General Motors and the automobile industry? Hendrick: I'm concerned for the whole industry. When you look at the numbers for October, it's the worst month (in sales) since World War II. GM has the best products they've ever had and they got the best management team they've ever had. They need a bridge to get through next year. When you look at the possibility of 2.5 million people out of jobs, there is no way the government can't help them. I believe in them. I just have confidence that we have to get through one year. Q: Is it business as usual for the race teams?

RUSTY JARRETT FOR NASCAR Hendrick, left, and driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. celebrate the No. 88 team's win in the 2008 Budweiser Shootout.   Hendrick: Absolutely. I talk to them on both sides because I'm also a dealer. They've been very upfront and open about what they are trying to do. I think they will be fine. I've seen better days (as a car dealer). We had a decent month last month in the midst of all this. Our guys dug real hard, worked real hard. We came off the best year we ever had in '07. We were tracking along about the same, maybe 10 percent off through the summer and then it hit everybody - I don't care what you're selling. I'm very thankful our guys dug really deep last month, and I was really surprised we turned a profit. I think it's starting to pick up. Q: Has Hendrick Motorsports made cutbacks? Are there changes made on teams based on performance? Hendrick: We've had some cutbacks because we ran four (Cup) teams, a (Nationwide) team and then we brought Dale (Earnhardt Jr.) in and we didn't cut anybody back.

We are not running as many cars, and we're running one full-time car (in Nationwide) next year. It's all sponsor driven. There are also changes you make to make everybody a little better. So, you have a little bit of both going on right now. Q: What do you think of Johnson's chances? Hendrick: Very good. When you take into consideration you've got to have racing luck, and people make their own racing luck, but they just cinch it up every year. He missed it in '04 by what? Eight points? So he's been there every year. I don't think it's going to slow down. If Carl (Edwards) doesn't have bad luck, Jeff (Gordon), (Earnhardt) Junior, any of those guys have bad luck, but those guys (the No. 48 team) bounce back so much. I'm real proud of them. They have good chemistry and they work hard. They really dig deep this time of year. Q: You've seen Cale Yarborough, who also won three championships in a row. Can you compare him to Johnson? Hendrick: I watched Cale and he was like a bulldog. He was unbelievable. But I don't think I've ever seen anybody any better in a car than Jimmie Johnson. He reads the chassis, the way he communicates with the team, his pure drive and at 190 mph he's like a professor in there - 'We need a little bit of this. I'm about a six here' when other guys can't even get their breath. He rides a mountain bike on Monday mornings. He's in great physical shape. Whatever it takes. He's just got talent. I'm just really proud of him.

1. Jimmie Johnson (car No. 48): Kurt Busch is right. This team simply is doing some special things. Last week: 1.

2. Carl Edwards (car No. 99): Not going down without a fight, but the odds are astronomical now. Last week: 2.

3. Greg Biffle (car No. 16): and Edwards also were second and third the last time both made the Chase. Last week: 3.

4. Kevin Harvick (car No. 29): Six finishes between sixth and 10th in nine of this year's Chase races. Last week: 4.

5. Jeff Burton (car No. 31): Fuel Leads in the race for best points finish by a Richard Childress Racing car. Last week: 7.

6. Clint Bowyer (car No. 07): In and Harvick both have worst finishes of 20th in this year's Chase. Last week: 6.

7. Kyle Busch (car No. 18): Four top-10 finishes in the past five races may be a little bit of solace. Last week: 9.

8. Jeff Gordon (car No. 24): With this team's '08 luck, of course it got the bad valve spring at Phoenix. Last week: 5.

9. Matt Kenseth (car No. 17): Did he lose his car or his temper coming off the final turn at Phoenix? Last week: 8.

10. Denny Hamlin (car No. 11): This team has figured out how to make the Chase. Beyond that? Not much. Last week: 11.

For the rest of the top-40 rankings, go online and visit www.thatsracin.com

Things are getting so tough in the economy these days that even people in stock car racing are beginning to notice it.

"You need to just take what you can afford and when it comes to assets, people, parts, pieces, everything," Dale Earnhardt Jr. said last Friday at Phoenix International Raceway. "We were all on the upswing for so long I think a lot of people kept it under control and some people got a little ahead of themselves a little bit."

That may not sound like piercing business analysis, but the Sprint Cup garage can be an insulated place. The real world doesn't always get through the gate.

This situation, though, is different. When General Motors recently announced that it lost $2.5 billion in the third quarter and could run out of

money by next year without government help, people had to notice.

"We certainly worry about it," Jimmie Johnson said. "I think everyone in the world is worried about their financial future."

A GM official told Scenedaily.com that the company would be able to honor its contractural obligations to NASCAR teams in 2009. But GM has already made cuts in its marketing plans and teams clearly can't expect the manufacturer to add a lot of things to what it is absolutely committed to provide.

There's talk of layoffs - hundreds of them -

once the current NASCAR season ends. Hendrick Motorsports

and Earnhardt Jr.'s team, JR Motorsports, have already cut staff. Depending on how you count it, as many as 15 current full-time Cup teams face questions about their sponsorship for 2009.

Earnhardt Jr. was probably right Friday when he said GM is too big for the government to allow to fail outright. But if you think NASCAR is going to come through the next 18 months or so with things just like they are right now, you're nuts.

Even NASCAR seems to be aware that things aren't lovely. Plans to allow Cup teams to test 24 days next year seem to be on hold.

What NASCAR needs to do is make that number zero. Some teams will still go to tracks not on the circuit to test, but if NASCAR allows 12

days of testing on tracks where Cup cars race then every team that wants to be competitive will have to test 12 days.

NASCAR also is right not to make rules changes to the new car. New rules make teams spend more money, and that's not smart right now.

What NASCAR isn't doing, though, is providing enough of the kind of leadership this sport needs. I know NASCAR wants to treat teams like independent contractors because that makes their business lives a lot less complicated. But I don't know if that model works anymore.

Can NASCAR just sit around and afford to let six, eight or 10 race teams just go away, figuring someone else will come eventually to replace them?

I guess it can, but I don't think it should.