Hendrick has bad engines

And so does Richard Childress Racing and some of the Toyota teams.
Ten cars in all changed engines on the eve of the Gatorade Duels, the qualifying races for the Daytona 500.
All four Hendrick drivers, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Casey Mears, will have new engines in their cars for the race.
Jeff Andrews, the head engine builder for Hendrick Motorsports, said the problem appears to be a bad batch of engine valve lifters.
"We did not have any of them that truly broke. Right now we are looking at the lifters," Andrews said. "We don't have anything apart yet, we just have assumptions based on some early signs we saw in some check overs following that early practice. We have a group of guys back in Charlotte, the best group of guys in my mind, have already started on a fix for the program. We will get this stuff back, get it rebuilt and get it brought back down here."
Clint Bowyer, a driver for Richard Childress Racing, Scott Riggs, a driver for Haas-CNC racing, and Toyota drivers Denny Hamlin, A.J. Allmendinger, J.J. Yeley and Tony Stewart had the engines in their cars replaced as well.
Hendrick Motorsports supplies Chevrolet engines to Haas-CNC Racing, which has a two-car operation. Ricahrd Childress Racing also uses Chevrolet engines.
"I am not sure of their exact problems," Andrews said of the reasons for some of the other manufacturer's decisions to change motors. "Right now we are making a lot of assumptions because we haven't been in and haven't looked at the full picture until we get the engine completely apart. We know we have a problem there with that lifter interface and until, like I said, we get the engine dissembled and find out what has actually caused that problem, I can't really comment. I can't really relate it to Toyota's problems, because our package is different is theirs."
All drivers who replace the engines in their cars will have to start the qualifying races from the back.
Johnson, who won the pole for the Daytona 500, will not lose his starting position in the race even though his team is replacing his car's engine.