24, 48 and 8 keep success going with interim chiefs (cont'd)

"Well, we've got a solid team. It certainly does hurt not to have Chad here [on the pit box]. There's no way around that," Johnson said. "But we've got a very strong race team. We've worked hard to put ourselves in this position -- where we have strong people around us at all times.

"I think since we promoted within, it was business as usual for the most part. Ron Malec is [normally] the car chief. He's been there every week. He runs these guys, takes care of these guys. Our guys didn't have to learn how to operate with somebody new leading them -- and I didn't, either. That's why I think it worked so well, because we promoted within."

There was a moment early in Sunday's race when Meendering and Gordon had an issue with communication during a pit stop. But other than that, they experienced a smooth transition atop the pit box as well.

"You've got to have confidence in the person that you put up there on that box, and we have confidence in Jeff," Gordon said. "Obviously, you know, Steve [Letarte] and him have been in quite a bit of communication throughout the week -- talking about strategy, talking about setups and everything leading into this weekend.

"So I feel like Jeff was well prepped. And I think we had enough guys up there helping him."

Meendering was assisted on the pit box by former Hendrick crew chief and competition administrator Ken Howes, while former Busch Series crew chief Lance McGrew assisted Malec on Johnson's crew. All parties involved said they had no communication whatsoever with their suspended crew chiefs once the race began.

"All an additional person on the phone or texting would do is complicate things a bit more," Gordon said.

Earnhardt added: "We rely on Tony Gibson. They've got to rely on who's in that spot for them right now. If you try to do a lot of back-and-forth with the crew chief on the cell phones and the Internet and what-not, it just confuses everybody. It gets everybody all riled up. You've got two guys trying to make calls, and you need one chief up there."

Sources confirmed that Letarte, Knaus and Eury Jr. were all at the track. Spokesman Ramsey Poston said the suspensions imposed on the crew chiefs prohibits them from being in the garage area at tracks and from being involved in radio communications with their teams during a race, but that NASCAR cannot police Internet or cell-phone communications, should a suspended chief attempt to use those means to interact with his team.

Earnhardt said that he wasn't surprised the Hendrick cars ran so well despite this being the first week with the interim crew chiefs in place.

"Those guys are setting those cars up at the race shop, and they come to the racetrack in the ballpark. There aren't a lot of adjustments that are needed to improve the car from there, if they're as good as they are," Earnhardt said.

"I've run pretty good with Tony Gibson. I don't think it slowed our team down a bit, to be honest with you. Not even a tiny bit. It didn't really slow our team down at all."