LOUDON, N.H. -- Steve who? Chad what?

For all the talk about how the recent NASCAR suspensions of Hendrick Motorsports crew chiefs Steve Letarte and Chad Knaus might impact Sunday's Lenox Industrial Tools 300 at New Hampshire International Speedway, it didn't appear to have any ill affects whatsoever on the Chevrolets driven by Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, respectively.

Lap-by-Lap

Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson led in New Hampshire at one point and brought home top-fives in New Hampshire despite their crew chiefs being suspended.

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And as far as Dale Earnhardt Jr. was concerned, one Tony is about as good as another when directing his Chevy -- whether he's got a Junior tailing his last name or not.

Each of the three drivers -- who will become teammates at Hendrick next season after Earnhardt finishes this season driving for Dale Earnhardt Inc. -- overcame the loss of his usual crew chief to register a top-five finish Sunday. Gordon finished second behind race winner Denny Hamlin (watch video), while Earnhardt placed fourth and Johnson fifth.

Like Gordon and Johnson, Earnhardt ran Sunday's race with an interim crew chief. But Earnhardt's regular crew chief, Tony Eury Jr., was serving the final week of a six-race suspension while Letarte and Knaus were serving the first of their six-race sentences.

Eury Jr. will be back on top of the pit box for Earnhardt's No. 8 Chevrolet team this Saturday night at Daytona International Speedway. After Sunday's strong finish in a Car of Tomorrow race at New Hampshire, Earnhardt said Eury Jr. will have to be on top of his game to do as well as the other Tony -- as in Tony Gibson, Earnhardt's interim crew chief during the last six weeks.

"I can't say enough about Tony Gibson being crew chief for the last six weeks. He's done such a great job," Earnhardt said. "Tony Jr. has his work cut out for him. Seriously, man, Tony Gibson has been amazing. We've run great with him.

"So Tony Jr., he's been lazy. He's been laying out for six weeks. He's got to come in here and work hard. We expect a lot of him."

Johnson said the Hendrick teams expected a whole lot out of their substitute crew chiefs, including Ron Malec for his No. 48 car and Jeff Meendering for Gordon's No. 24. Both interim chiefs were promoted from within the Hendrick organization.

"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."