Hendrick backs keeping Dale Jr. and Lance McGrew together

Car owner Rick Hendrick talked about a variety of topics from sponsorship of Jeff Gordon's car to the future of the pairing of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and crew chief Lance McGrew and more. Here's what Hendrick said.

On how a few years back Hendrick replaced Robbie Loomis with Steve Letarte as Jeff Gordon's crew chief at the start of the Chase (when Gordon failed to make it) and if Hendrick would do the same with  Dale Jr since he won't make the Chase:

HENDRICK: "Actually, I'm pretty happy with the chemistry there now. Maybe some of you guys (media folks) don't agree. I'm around them. I'm in the shop during the week and in the Tuesday's meetings. I talk to Dale and I talk to Lance and I've talked to them both after they've been testing. We had some good momentum going and then we kind of fumbled the ball a little before the Chase. If you can't pinpoint where your problem is in the whole organization, then your whole organization needs to be better. We're working hard, but we're not as sharp as we want to be with all four cars. The guys are working hard and working together. If you miss the Chase and you just decide you're going to change something to be changing it, I think that's a mistake. I've never tried to do that. I keep my options open but at the same time, if the driver and the crew chief are getting along and they're working together and they're trying, that's all I can ask for.''

Q: Understanding you still have options to change your mind, it sounds like at this point you plan to keep Dale Jr. and Lance McGrew together through the rest of the season and have them together at the start of next year. You're  not planning on a change.

HENDRICK: "That's correct. We make decisions as things develop during the season and the end of the season and right now we've got a gameplan and we're sticking to it. Today, next week and going into the Chase and during the Chase our plan is for those two guys to be together.''

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Hendrick also talked about sponsorship issues with his teams for next year. Quaker State announced it had signed a three-year extension to be with Hendrick Motorsports. That will also include serving as the primary sponsor for four races next year for Mark Martin. Quaker State will remain an associate sponsor for all the Hendrick cars. That's why Mobil 1 won't be going to Hendrick Motorsports next year. Hendrick said that teams that lease his equipment -- such as Stewart-Haas Racing -- can use whatever products they want, so that means Stewart-Haas could still sign Mobil 1 as a sponsor for next year.

Hendrick said he plans to have all the sponsors announced for all his cars in the next 60 days. He declined to say how many races needed to be filled on Jeff Gordon's car with DuPont expected to back down on the number of races it will serve as a primary sponsor.

Hendrick said that the timing just didn't prove right for Wal-Mart.

"It's like everything else, you talk to a lot of people and they were someone we were talking to,'' Hendrick said. "We got down the road a bit but timing is kind of one of those things. I think we'll possibly do something down the road with them. It won't be next year. It's good to see companies have interest. I guess at the end of the '08 and '09 it was pretty dismal. If someone wasn't already on the car, you didn't talk to anybody. Now, there is interest from people who haven't been in the sport. It feels better today than it did in the first half of '09.

As far as a licensing agreement with Wal-Mart to get more of his drivers' products in Wal-Mart stores, Hendrick said: "That's still ongoing. We've had a good relationship with them. It's a timing issue. We're still working on a lot of things.''

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With Dale Jr. missing the Chase again and NASCAR looking at expanding the Chase from 12 to 15 or so, would Hendrick be in favor of that? Here's what he said about expanding the Chase:

"I have got kind of mixed feelings about expanding it to 15,'' Hendrick said. "If you expand it to 15, somebody will want to go 18. The 12 is fine with me. If 15 happens, it's OK, but that's not going to make or break any kind of sponsor deals in my opinion.''

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On the issue of testing, Hendrick said he would like to see NASCAR make some changes:

"With a lot of young guys you've got coming on and if you've got a new driver coming on or if you're in a slump, you can use a test. I think you should have some tests at the tracks where we're at. When I talk to owners, if they're running good, they don't want any testing. If they have a bad week, they want to test.

"I think we need some tests. I think we need to be able to test a certain number of tracks we're going to race at. I think coming in a day early and I also would like to see us put some instrumentation (telemetry) on the cars. Everybody here has got instrumentation. We used to run them in the trucks up to qualifying years ago. I think that would help just to be able to compare and I think that would be good. I'm for some more testing.''

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