One of the main consequences of the corporatization of NASCAR racing teams has been the creation and entrenchment of technical alliances in which some racing teams rely on others for parts and information, including everything, from the motors to the chassis. While such alliances have been to the competitive advantage of some Cup Series teams, there are also times when they can be very detrimental to a racing team’s performance – like what was experienced last week. by Chip Ganassi Racing.

While Hendrick Motorsports cars dominated the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Chip Ganassi Racing – who has a technical alliance with Hendrick – saw both of his cars have major problems with the engines built by Hendrick. First, Ross Chastain was forced into the garage after his engine’s oil pump belt broke, leaving him 41 laps behind at the end of the race. Then Kurt Busch went to the garage after losing oil pressure and power steering before the engine failed completely on his return to the track. Busch was the only car not to complete the 600, while Chastain was the last car to run.

Ganassi’s problems led Hendrick Motorsports general manager Jeff Andrews to post a mea culpa, stating during an appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio that the team accepted responsibility and were sorry for the Ganassi car’s problems.

“We’ve made some fixes there. I have to say it’s some of the toughest nights of all when you hit a great partner like we have in Chip Ganassi Racing and all of their employees. We owe them a big apology, because that we dropped them in a huge way with their two cars over there the other night “, Andrews said. “We made some fixes to the issues we had with the front drive system, and we were really exposed in this particular situation, in this environment.

“We’ve made adjustments there and we’re going forward and working closely with these guys and keeping in touch with them on exactly what happened. But it was 100% for us. had nothing to do with anything in their race cars, or in particular their teams or vehicles. It was 100% on our group there. We own that one, so we’re going to fix it and do a better job for them. We owe them a lot better than what we did there on Sunday night for them. “

Beyond the four cars it presents under its own banner, Hendrick Motorsports also supplies engines to Ganassi as well as the two JTG Daugherty Racing cars driven by Ryan Preece and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Despite the problems Ganassi encountered, none of the others Hendrick motor cars The cars suffered from engine problems during last week’s race – especially not Hendrick themselves, as they once again placed their four cars in the top 5.