BRANT JAMES

James: With William Byron's ascension, Hendrick Motorsports will have whole new look

Brant James
USA TODAY

Hendrick Motorsports has won 249 races and 12 championships at NASCAR’s highest level. Chances are Jimmie Johnson will push the organization to the commemorative-logo-worthy next victory.

William Byron, left, celebrates with team owner Rick Hendrick, right,  after winning the NASCAR Xfinitty Series race at Daytona Interntional Speedway on July 1.

He has 83, all with HMS, since beginning his career as a fulltime driver in 2002. That next championship would also likely stem from Johnson. He’s one of the greatest the sport has ever produced, shares with the championship record Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt Sr. and is currently defending his seventh title.

Johnson has never offered a firm expiration date for his run of excellence. But at 41, he has done more than he ever expected and has time and money to lavish on a family that includes two small children. He has a crew chief and cohort in history in Chad Knaus that doesn’t necessarily want to do this until he’s 50, either.

That’s what made HMS’s maneuvers over the last month — culminating in 19-year-old William Byron’s ascension to the Cup series next season — so crucial. There is a real mystery in which driver might hoist a trophy for win No. 275. And whether this is the beginning of another long game.

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Since 2015, the team has seen four-time series champion and 93-race-winner Jeff Gordon retire, and 26-race winner Dale Earnhardt Jr. follow this season. And on Monday, Hendrick cut loose 18-time winner Kasey Kahne after six seasons with the organization.

Though not the otherworldly, prime-of-career in his last season, Gordon won a race and competed for a fifth title in his final race at Homestead-Miami Speedwa in November 2015.

Earnhardt won nine times in Hendrick equipment since 2008, claiming the 2014 Daytona 500 and seemed to be approaching the type of consistent performance his enormous fan base craves with seven win combined in 2014 and 2015. A recurrence of concussions cost him half of last season and 2017 has been a slog, however.

Kahne won six times at Hendrick while under constant scrutiny for why his performance never seemed to sufficiently mirror that of his teammates in similar equipment. A perennial prospect, perhaps because of the tantalizing six wins he produced in the sleek Dodges of Evernham Motorsports in 2006, or the youthful looks he has carried to age 37, his chances ran out when someone younger and more tantalizing showed Hendrick he was ready.

Chase Elliott, front, and Jimmie Johnson, back, have combined for 30 top-five finishes since the start of the 2016 Cup season.

Hendrick still fields cars, of course for Chase Elliott, 21. The son of former champion Bill Elliott, he’s seventh in the current Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series standings and therefore currently ticketed for the playoffs.

Since replacing Gordon last season, he has 16 top-5s and 29 top-10s in 58 Cup starts and finished second three times in that span. He’s really, probably going to be way more than just fine, if not fulfill the greatest predictions for him as backed up by his 2014 Xfinity Series title.

But until he does it, he hasn’t done it, just like Alex Bowman, who will replace Earnhardt next season, and Byron, who enters a less scrutinized position in not following a legend.

“I don’t really have much of a concern,” team owner Rick Hendrick said on a national teleconference Wednesday. “Alex got in the car when Dale was out, sat on the pole in Phoenix, could have, should have won the race. … Chase should have won three or four races last year, very competitive and made the (playoffs).

“William, look, he has surprised us every time he gets in the car. My goal is to not let too much pressure be on them, let them go out and learn.”

The car salesman that is Rick Hendrick has known how to pick a winning model before.

He secured Gordon at 21 and backed the future Hall of Famer for his entire career. Same with Johnson. He gave Bowman a job scores of veterans coveted in reward for his simulator and test work and the promise displayed in replacing Earnhardt. Hendrick elevated Byron a year earlier than some believe prudent, eschewing a potentially formative second season in NASCAR’s top-tier developmental series.

We’ve sort of seen this before at Hendrick.

Gordon won his last title in 2001, Johnson debuted in 2002 and became the stalwart of the organization. Of course, Gordon was 30 in 2001 and had roughly a third of his wins left in him. That’s probably not the case with Johnson.

So for now, Hendrick needs Johnson to be Johnson for as long as he can. But Elliott, Bowman and Byron need to sort out what they can be soon if the organization is to remain an elite power — or at least if they’re to remain a part of it in an unforgiving sport where the next younger, cheaper, ostensibly more potential-risk option is always close,

But for now, there’s opportunity there for them all.

Follow James on Twitter @brantjames

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