I HAVE FIGURED IT OUT!!

How do you keep competition from getting close to your guys? If you are Rick Hendrick and, there are only a few guys out there who can make a legitimate challenge of your superstar drivers, Johnson and Gordon, what do you do?

Simple, you sign the competition to a 5 year deal and put them in a shitty car with a shitty team that hasn't done anything over the years. Not only can you dictate their direction, but you get to share in the revenue of licensing the sports most popular driver.

You may say, what about Mark Martin... To that I answer, simple, get Mark in the chase, he's never won a cup championship, ever. Likely, even if he is in the chase, he'd not win a championship anyway. He's a small liability to Johnson, whereas Earnhardt Jr is a larger threat to Johnson.

In this blawggers opinion, that is the deal. Hendrick cajoled Earnhardt Jr when he was at his lowest and badly needing change. He assured him life with Hendrick would be great, happy, and full of rainbow colored unicorns. Jr bit, hook, line, and sinker...