Has anyone noticed???? Opinions wanted

[songsmith1950]

Has anyone noticed how much slower Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman are these days??? Seems like Stewart Haas had dropped an entire level.
My point?
After the last race Stewart won, and at that time Stewart Haas was running well and winning often, something happened.
An announcer asked Jeff Gordon how he felt about Stewart winning so often and the performance of Stewart Haas.
Gordon said it was bad being beaten like that so often with "thier own stuff".
After that Stewart and Newman were no longer really threats to win. They ran between I believe eighth and twentieth mostly after that. . . .
Do you believe what I believe here???
And yes, I do believe Stewart Haas is getting lower grade engines and chassis now. That is the only explanation.
I do believe it completely.
The emergence to dominance of Martin and Johnson immediately after Stewart began to drop off seems to underline it.
Opinions???

[chilipepper]

I completely agree 100%

[altman43]

Wow that is a great point!!! But what about Dale Jr.?

[maj45]

That makes a lot of sense! I hadn't thought about that angle. I hope Tony is able soon to build his own stuff and not rely on the competition for it. Dale Jr.? pretender.

[chilipepper]

I think Dale, Jr is just hard on equipment. I first observed that when he was still with step-mommy-dearest but it has continued at Hendrick. I don't think Rick Hendrick had any idea just how hard it would be to build a car Junior couldn't destroy and I think Junior though Hendrick COULD build a car that would hold up under his style of driving. In that area, I believe Junior is a lot like his dad. Senior was pretty hard on equipment too.

[stuck]

The only surprise on my part is that it took that long.