Hendrick Motorsports has been the inform team halfway through the 2021 season and with only just seven races remaining in the regular NASCAR Cup Series season,
HMS drivers has a total of nine wins so far this season, star-man Kyle Larson with four victories, followed by Bowman with three after winning Pocono 1 on Saturday. 2020 Cup Series champion Chase Elliott and William Byron both tied with one win apiece.
According to NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. that kind of performance will be demanding to maintain during the second half of the campaign and leading into the anticipated championship race at Phoenix Raceway 0n November 7th.
“I believe that there will be another organization that starts running as well as Hendrick,” Earnhardt told For The Win about his former team. “I don’t think Hendrick can sustain the the gap in performance that they have to the rest of the field all the way to the Phoenix.
“Every year we see it: There’s an organization that shines in the regular season, and then somebody else comes up and at least competes with them one-on-one in the playoffs. And I think that’ll happen again this year.”
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When asked about championship long shots and dark horses Dale Jr replied.
“Wow, that’s a tough question,” Dale Jr. said. “I don’t know who is even a dark horse anymore. If you’re not Larson, or maybe Chase Elliott, everybody’s kind of a dark horse.
“I might call William Byron a dark horse. I might call Kevin Harvick a dark horse. It’s crazy to think that after last year, but I mean, Kevin’s not won race this year, not really been super competitive. Ran fifth [at Nashville Superspeedway]. But they would tell you themselves that they’re not where they need to be.”
“William Byron, though, is having sort of a career year,” Dale Jr. said. “I don’t know that anybody looks at him as a threat to win a championship, so in my mind, maybe that makes him a dark horse. We’ll just have to see.”
No. 4 Kevin Harvick and his (SHR) Stewart-Haas Racing team winless run remains one of the biggest shocks of the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season.