Media Tour Notes: Hendrick Says '12 Title, Chase or Bust

The annual stop at Hendrick Motorsports on the Sprint NASCAR Media Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway doesn't usually yield all that much in the way of news, and it didn't again this year.

It did, however, yield something in terms of attitude and focus, and that is a very scary proposition. For everyone else, I mean.

"I'm going to be real disappointed if we don't get all four teams into the Chase, and I'm going to be real disappointed if we don't win the championship," said team owner Rick Hendrick, not two minutes after the program started.

That's a big difference from the last five years, probably because for the last five years, they've been the champions. Funny, Tony Stewart's run to the title has probably energized HMS like nothing else since Ray Evernham left.

"We've never been so prepared going into a season," Hendrick continued.

Johnson, winner of the five straight titles from 2006 to 2010, was even more direct. "I'm as hungry as I've ever been," he said. "(Crew chief) Chad (Knaus) is. The whole team is."

Jeff Gordon followed suit. "Once you have won one championship, no other result is good enough."

Dale Earnhardt Jr. said he didn't want 2011 to end. "We were running so well at the end of the season, I didn't want to stop," he said. "We had found some things that we were missing, and I liked that feeling. The break was good, though, and I really thought we had a good test at Daytona."

Junior feels Chase-worthy this year, and so does crew chief Steve Letarte, who at Junior's urging is keeping up the strict adherence to what he needs on the part of the driver.

"I told him I didn't want him to back off of that, just because we're more comfortable with each other," Junior said. "That wasn't something I was used to before, but..."

Kasey Kahne was not at the appearance on Wednesday, off doing civic duty as a juror in Iredell County. "And before you ask, no, he wasn't on the Kyle Busch jury," cracked host Doug Rice.

Kenny Francis, who is Kahne's crew chief, was playing a role in the teams late last year, fueling some of the changes made to the 88. That's going to be a good addition to an already motivated, high-performance racing team.

Earlier in the day, the tour stopped at Furniture Row Racing's "shop," which is actually the Furniture Row retail store off I-85. Driver Regan Smith was celebrating his first victory at Darlington last May as well as a move to Denver, Colo., where the team shops are, and his marriage to long-time girlfriend Megan.

"I had a little bit going on," he said with a smile. "I'm probably not going to do too much away from the car this year."

Furniture Row added sponsors CSX Transportation and Agro-Culture Liquid Fertilizers to the mix this year, supplementing owner Barney Visser's team. Agro-Culture is part of the team's Farm America initiative.

The team principals praised their partnership with Richard Childress Racing and Chevrolet as well. Since RCR has scaled back to three cars, the No. 78 team considers itself as an independent fourth RCR team in many ways.

"They share information with us real-time, even at the race track," said Mark McCardle, the director of competition. "We buy the cars from RCR, engines from ECR, and we hang the bodies. It's a great partnership."

Chevrolet execs inclduing Jim Campbell, VP of motorsports for Chevrolet, Terry Dolan and Pat Suhy, were also on hand to bolster the car maker's relationship with the team.