Spotter's Stand: At Slumping Hendrick Motorsports, Last Top Five Was July 10

Jimmie Johnson took home top honors for the Hendrick Motorsports camp in Sunday's Carfax 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Michigan International Speedway.

That's not surprising, Johnson being a four-time defending champion of the series and all. What is surprising, though, is that Johnson took best-of-Hendrick honors at Michigan with a lowly 12th-place finish.

Thanks to the team's sub-par showing, the Cup series hasn't seen a Hendrick-owned Chevrolet finish in the top-five for four consecutive races. That span -- races at Indianapolis, Pocono, Watkins Glen and Michigan -- marks the first time since 2002 that Hendrick hasn't been represented in the top five for four consecutive weeks.

The last Hendrick top five was on July 10 at Chicagoland, when Jeff Gordon finished third.

Gordon, despite starting 36th after his worst qualifying effort in a year and a half, looked to be the one carrying the Hendrick banner at Michigan with a mid-race march that moved him to second. After a poor restart dropped him back, Gordon suffered a cut tire and enough contact from Jeff Burton to change the aerodynamic handling of his No. 24.

That, and late-race problems that developed with the safety engine shut-off system, relegated Gordon to a 27th-place finish -- second worst of the Hendrick camp.

"We cut the front tire and got damage to the right rear and the vacuum system and we had a problem with that," Gordon said. "I don't know if we caused that or if the system failed or what. We've never had a problem with it. Everything just went wrong there at the end."

Gordon edged Mark Martin, trailing a lap down in 28th, after Martin ran into issues at multiple points during the race. First, Martin slapped his neon green No. 5 Chevy off the turn four wall in the early laps before contact with Scott Speed caused problems with the splitter and nose of his machine.

"I ran into the back of (Speed). He lifted for Juan (Montoya) and I didn't know it was time to lift yet and I pounded him pretty hard and that really messed it up," Martin said. "But I put us behind anyway earlier in the race getting up against the outside wall. We got a little behind because of that too. I'll call it my mistake but we were racing hard."

Martin took a hit in his bid to secure a spot in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. Martin trails Clint Bowyer in 12th by a single spot and 35 points.

Meanwhile, Dale Earnhardt Jr. continued his disappointing campaign with a 19th-place run -- his best finish since a fourth at Daytona six races ago. Earnhardt is 94 points from the Chase cutoff in 17th-place.

So when should we expect the Hendrick gang to dump the funk they've been in? Well, for those who think history is an indication of the future, Gordon snapped the no top-five streak in 2002 with a win at Bristol the following week -- a win that also snapped a 32-race winless streak of his own.

WHO'S HOT: For the sheer fact that he's making everyone happy that the Chase cut-off is coming, Kevin Harvick. Sunday's race winner -- his third of the season -- now holds a 293-point lead in the championship standings over Gordon.

WHO'S NOT: I can't write about the poor finishes of Hendrick Motorsports as a group and not list them here, too, so here it is: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Mark Martin -- all cold as ice right now.

NOTABLE: Despite tearing up the Nationwide Series with win after win, Brad Keselowski has quietly had a year of frustration in the Sprint Cup Series. Though not technically a rookie, Keselowski's ride in the No. 12 Penske Dodge is his first full-time season in the top ranks.

To date, Keselowski has yet to find the top-five or top-10, and has just five top-15 finishes. Sunday at Michigan, Keselowski started 26th and finished 34th, three laps down after a breaking his splitter during the race's longest green-flag run.