WRAL Sports Fan

NASCAR

Hendrick Motorsports' Doug Duchardt blames Fontana engine failures on faulty parts

By SceneDaily.com

Feb 25, 2009

A Hendrick Motorsports official says the team has discovered the source of engine failures in the cars of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mark Martin during last Sunday’s Auto Club 500 at Auto Club Speedway and is confident the problem won’t happen again.

The engines in the No. 88 Chevrolet of Earnhardt Jr. and the No. 5 of Martin failed within a few laps of each other in the race.

Doug Duchardt, vice president of development for Hendrick, said the problems were traced to a set of parts from an outside supplier.

"Both cars had valve train failures that were related to a specific batch of parts from a vendor,” Duchardt said in a news release. “All of our engines, lease programs included, had parts from the same batch, so we're glad it wasn't more widespread.”

Duchardt said the team has taken steps to make sure the problem won’t occur again.

“It's always extremely disappointing when something like that happens, but, fortunately, it's a problem we can quickly address and fix,” Duchardt said. “Our engine team did a great job identifying the root cause, and it shouldn't affect us moving forward."