CONCORD, N.C. -- The days of penciling in a Hendrick Motorsports team as a championship contender aren't exactly over, but it would be inaccurate to describe the four-team organization as peaking with just one race remaining before the start of this year's Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
A year ago, HMS had all four of its teams, with drivers Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon and Kasey Kahne, ready for the start of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series' 10-race playoff.
Heading into this weekend's Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond International Raceway (7:30 p.m., NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR), only Johnson and Earnhardt have secured bids for the 16-team Chase. Gordon can make the field based on his position in the points standings (he needs to finish 17th or higher Saturday night) or with a victory, while Kahne mathematically can get in on points but more likely needs a win to get in.
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The Chase officially gets underway Sept. 20 at Chicagoland Speedway.
While many organizations would be content with such a scenario, team owner Rick Hendrick knows that’s not what's expected from his group -- which has won 11 series titles. Hendrick engines and chassis have also been on the entries of eight of the last nine championship-winning teams (including those won by Stewart-Haas Racing's Kevin Harvick and Tony Stewart).
The bar rests high for his organization, Hendrick said Tuesday at the HMS campus.
"People catch up; people work hard," he said. "Rule package, rule changes, usually we're on top of it and we come out in front.
"To think that you can be in this sport every single year and be the dominant guy that wins them all, that isn't going to happen. NASCAR isn't going to let that happen."
Johnson won four of this year's first 13 races, equaling his win total from a year ago, while Earnhardt Jr. has a pair of victories this season.
Earnhardt Jr. has five top-10 finishes since his win in the July Daytona race; Johnson and Gordon have three while Kahne has none. Combined, the four have led just seven laps in the past eight races, a statistic that doesn't please the team owner.
"It's just part of it," Hendrick said. "I'm a big fan of (Winston) Churchill … I don’t like it when we're behind, but it motivates me. We've just got to work hard, work smart and we'll be back.
"We get in position in Darlington where we have three in the top six or seven and we run out of tires and that's our fault. … Maybe we just didn't use the right strategy, who knows? There's been a lot of that this year. We've just fumbled the ball more than normal."
Earnhardt Jr., who finished eighth, was the only HMS driver to finish in the top 10 at Darlington Raceway this past weekend. Kahne finished 12th, Gordon 15th and Johnson 19th.
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HMS personnel aren't blind to the situation.
"We know as a company … we see the obvious," Earnhardt Jr. said during Tuesday's edition of the "Dale Jr. Download" podcast heard on Dirty Mo Radio. "We see we've got to improve and get more speed. We as a whole group sense that."
Knowing the strength and past success of the organization tempers concerns with the Chase on the horizon.
"I'm real confident that our company's going to be able to find what they want and what they're looking for," Earnhardt Jr. said. "They always have."
While his group may not be competing at the level expected, Hendrick isn't ready to toss in the towel. He admits the organization, as a whole, is "off a little bit."
"Maybe we're the same and everybody else is better," he said. "We've had a lot of success and these people want it and they want it bad. They have a lot of pride and they don’t like to be beaten. So does Joe Gibbs (Racing), so does (Team) Penske, so does everybody out there.
"The question is how do you get back?"
JGR and Penske teams have been the teams to beat of late, with JGR drivers winning seven of the past 10 races and Penske teams scoring two wins in that stretch.
"We've been (there) before when we weren't looked at as the best team out there, the best record or whatever," Hendrick said. "But it isn't over yet. So you go ahead and count us out."