A crewmen for Joe Nemechek is distraught after his driver's engine went sour on Sunday. Nemechek led a race-high 63 laps. Credit: AP

Hendrick hit with rash of engine problems

Nemechek, Gordon biggest victims of late parts woes

FONTANA, Calif. -- Despite an engine RPM-sapping gear rule that debuted this weekend at California Speedway, seven cars fell out of Sunday's Auto Club 500 with engine failures.

	Joe Nemechek
	An engine dynasty Hendrick Motorsports supplies engines to seven -- and sometimes up to nine -- of the 43 starters every Sunday: Driver Team Engine supplier Gordon Hendrick Hendrick Johnson Hendrick Hendrick Busch Hendrick Hendrick Vickers Hendrick Hendrick Labonte Hendrick Hendrick Bliss Haas Hendrick Nemechek MB2 Hendrick Riggs MBV Hendrick Said MBS Hendrick

And despite finishing 21st -- the last car on the lead lap -- Brian Vickers' race was badly affected when his Chevrolet dropped a cylinder about two-thirds of the way through the event.

But the most maddening scenario of all to Hendrick Motorsports -- which had malfunctions with four of the eight engines it had in the race -- was that Jimmie Johnson steered Hendrick's lead car into a charging second at the end.

But Jeff Gordon fell out of the top five -- and ultimately the race -- with less than 20 laps remaining when he dropped a cylinder. He finished 30th.

Joe Nemechek was leading when his Hendrick engine failed, resulting in a 39th-place finish.

"It's inconclusive," said Jeff Andrews, Hendrick's head of engine development. "The two I've looked at -- the 01 [Nemechek] and the 25 [Vickers]-- were definitely the same thing."

Andrews said the similar issue involved parts in the cars' valve trains, which he said was "definitely a part issue, but I don't think it's anything to do with a batch -- it's probably more a part design issue."

While Andrews hadn't had time to check the exact cause, the two other Hendrick engines that failed also involved dropped cylinders.

"We're a little bit different in that area," Andrews said. "But it was some stuff we ran towards the end of last year and had a lot of confidence in doing this year.

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"We've got 100 of the best guys back in Charlotte and we'll go back and make some changes."

In addition to the Hendrick engine woes, other engine failures were suffered by Ricky Rudd, Michaell Waltrip and Jason Leffler.

Hendrick engines powered seven of the top 12 starters Sunday -- including the front row of Kyle Busch and Vickers.

Andrews indicated not only were Johnson's and Gordon's engine setups identical -- but so were the engines delivered to the eight teams using Hendrick power.

"We build seven identical engines every weekend," Andrews said. "And we hand them out, whether it's a lease or our company cars, so everything's identical there."

Hendrick's part-time car for Terry Labonte fell out of the race, but his problem was a a rear gear failure.

Hendrick engines led 68 of the race's 250 laps, with Nemechek pacing 63 of the first 177 circuits, when he appeared to have a dominant car.

"I'm definitely disappointed," Nemechek said. "But I've got to thank this Army team [because] we're going in the right direction. We got the car driving good in practice, we qualified well and raced well.

	Brian Vickers managed a lead-lap finish despite running on seven cylinders. Credit: AP
	AUTO CLUB 500 •   Results •   Standings

"That's all I can ask for and I was doing everything I could. It's very seldom that we have engine trouble."

"It's just one of those days where we didn't quite have everything go our way. We were running extremely fast laps out there and I don't know if that had anything to do with it, but they'll diagnose it, they'll fix it and we'll be back at Vegas and I guarantee you we'll be there to win."

MBV/MB2 general manager Jay Frye said of the similar malfunctions: "Sometimes a part will break and get sucked out an exhaust port -- but [Joe's] was catastrophic."

Nemechek said he was seeing as many as "300 or 400 RPMs less than we were last year," and Andrews said there would "absolutely be less strain" on engines with the new gear rule.

"It was just a durability issue we've got to go back and work on," Andrews said.