By Cole Cusumano

With eight races now in the books for the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series season, it’s safe to say the dominance and success of Hendrick Motorsports is no fluke. 

After all, Alex Bowman is making a convincing argument to be considered a championship contender. Then following a week from hell, Chase Elliott notched two statement victories across two of the sport’s national series. Bad luck aside, Jimmie Johnson and William Byron have shown top-10 speeds and led laps in multiple races. 

The team owned by Rick Hendrick is now ascending from the depths of a nightmare they had seemingly grown accustomed to.

Since the resumption of racing alone we’ve seen it all. Johnson wrecked while leading at the end of a stage at Darlington Raceway, while Elliott came out on the wrong end of a judgement call made by Kyle Busch while challenging for the win in the following race. And most recently, the No. 9 team was a lap and a half away from winning the Coca-Cola 600 until Byron brought out a caution. The 24-year-old’s crew chief, Alan Gustafson, made the call to pit and naturally, this resulted in a second-place finish.

Over the past two years, the once dominant team’s competitive flames had been smothered by cars with packages that Chevrolet couldn’t adjust to, organizations like Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske, and simply bad luck — not anymore.

Hendrick Motorsports leads the Cup Series in stage wins with eight, as well as laps led with 692. While Kevin Harvick at Stewart-Haas Racing has paced the most laps this season, Bowman trails by just 22. Not to mention, the driver of the No. 88 also has a series-leading four stage victories. 

The only area where the quartet of drivers is bested in is total victories, and even that is not as apocalyptic as it’s made out to be. Team Penske leads the sport with three while Hendrick Motorsports has a pair of wins, tied with the most dominant team over the past few years, Joe Gibbs Racing.

Here we are, now a quarter of the way through the 2020 season and the young Chevrolet team is finally coming into their own and hanging tough with their veteran competitors — and it’s not going unnoticed.

“That group is definitely pretty special right now,” Ryan Blaney of Team Penske said following his second consecutive third-place finish at Charlotte. “They have really great speed right now on the mile-and-a-halfs or the bigger tracks. I’ve seen it.”

Much like the rest of the world, the 26-year-old is not blind to the misfortunes that have gone Hendrick Motorsports’ way. Elliott actually stayed with Blaney after the devastating loss in the 600-mile event to talk things out and focus on the next race. 

While the driver of the No. 12 admits Team Penske was able to capitalize on a multitude of those situations, he feels his organization is not too far off pace — and he isn’t alone in this assessment.

“I think this is as close or the closest we’ve been to them,” Brad Keselowski said after securing his milestone 30th win with Team Penske in the Coke 600. “We still have a little bit of work to do. In clean air we’re close to them, maybe even a touch faster. In dirty air they seem to be just a little bit faster. We can do it. We just have to put our head down and stay focused on it.”

Just how close is the team owned by Roger Penske?

While they have a leg up on the competition with three wins, they have half the amount of stage victories as Hendrick Motorsports with four. The Mustang trio has led laps in every event this season, but trails the Camaro camp by over 100 laps with 504 led. 

That’s about as close as it gets being up to speed with a team without actually trumping them. The Penske crew may not be fielding the most dominant cars each week, but they’re strategizing to succeed where it matters most, and that’s the win column.

Shifting focus to the Toyota brigade of Joe Gibbs Racing, there should be some pretty serious levels of concern. Although they’ve compiled two wins this season, that’s about all that’s gone right for the NASCAR and NFL Hall of Famer, Joe Gibbs’ race team.

Denny Hamlin is the sole claim to his organization’s single stage win, and that came all the way back in the Daytona 500. Astonishingly, the four-car team has only led 249 laps through eight races — that’s less than half as many as Penske and Hendrick.

Now, to really put in perspective how staggering this information is you’d have to look at these stats compared to this point last year. Through eight races in 2019, Joe Gibbs led the Cup Series in victories and stage wins with five each, as well as laps led with 649.

Could this just be the result of a cold start, similarly to how the New England Patriots dynasty had begun their seasons over the last few years? Surely a team as dominant as Joe Gibbs Racing has been can’t just fall off the map? Then again, the same thoughts had been tossed around when Hendrick Motorsports’ performance began to plummet. 

Following his runner-up finish in the Alsco Uniforms 500, Hamlin feels there is a logical explanation for Chevrolet’s recent resurgence.

“They’re really the only manufacturer that got to build a car directly for the package that we run,” Hamlin said. “These other cars, the Toyotas and Fords, were built on the low downforce package and then we added a bunch of spoiler and splitter to them. Certainly there was an advantage knowing that, ‘okay, this is the real package, how can we optimize downforce and drag’, and I think Chevys have done that.”

The head of the No. 9 team, Gustafson, is aware of not only Toyota’s struggles, but the enhanced performance of the bowties in general. He attributes this success to working closely with Chevrolet in the offseason, as well as staying focused and diligent, but he knows this advantage won’t last forever. 

“They’re going to work hard, and they’re not going to be down for long,” Gustafson said. “They’re going to be improving, and we’ve got to do the same thing. We’ve got to continue to improve and continue to get better on and off the track and execute better in all facets of what we do.”

Previous year’s dominance aside, Joe Gibbs Racing is still stringing together wins and they have the speed. While they may not currently be the powerhouse team of years past, they are keeping pace with Hendrick Motorsports and Team Penske, and this raises an interesting point.

The Cup Series is now seeing production from its three most prominent teams that are loaded with star-power. Not just that, now you have the added element of the manufacturer battle each week of competition. This adds yet another layer to the sport. 

The bottom line is NASCAR now has three of its top-tier teams back into championship caliber-form, battling for wins week in and week out. This should bring much needed personality and fire to the sport and it should propel the sanctioning body to success for years to come.

Hendrick Motorsports will attempt to continue their dominance in the Supermarket Heroes 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. Their last victory at Thunder Valley came in 2017, when Johnson picked up his 82nd career win. 

EMAIL COLE AT: colecusumano88@gmail.com

FOLLOW ON TWITTER: https://twitter.com/Cole_Cusumano_

The thoughts and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of PopularSpeed.com, its owners, management to other contributors. Any links contained in this article should not be considered and endorsement.