SONOMA, Calif. -- Car owner Rick Hendrick said he's interested in getting the No. 8 from Dale Earnhardt Inc. but has not heard from DEI officials.

Teams own the car numbers. Although Dale Earnhardt Jr. will drive for Hendrick Motorsports next season, there's no guarantee the No. 8 will follow him.

"We're kind of waiting,'' Hendrick said Saturday at Infineon Raceway. "We gave them a signal ... that we'd like to have it but, you know, I'm not real sure what their position is and what they want for it. So, we haven't pursued it any more.''

Hendrick didn't expect any possible deal to be done for a few weeks.

Disagrees with NASCAR

Car owner Rick Hendrick defended the teams of Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson a day after they were penalized for failing inspection. The cars fit the templates that verify a car's legality but NASCAR penalized the team for work done on the cars between the templates.

"I don't necessarily say they bent the rules,'' Hendrick said. "I think they thought they were working inside an area they could. The fender on the car is sitting out there in front of God and everybody, so if you're going to try to do something to gain an advantage, you wouldn't do it.

"I would like to think when you come in (for inspection) and you've got something that needs correcting, guys say, hey, we don't like the looks of this, fix it rather than go through all this. They're the boss and we live by their rules.''

A new approach

Mike Brown, general manager at Bill Davis Racing, recently submitted a plan to NASCAR to change qualifying.

Instead of guaranteeing the top 35 in points a starting spot each week, Brown's plan would put more emphasis on qualifying. The top 31 in speed make the field. The final 12 spots would go to the highest remaining cars in car owner points not already in the field. The only champion's provisional would go to the defending champion. Since that driver likely would be among the top 12 in car owner points if he wasn't fast enough, this would all but eliminate the provisional.

Using Brown's system, Scott Riggs would have made today's race instead of P.J. Jones, who is driving for David Reutimann this weekend.

Last week at Michigan, Dale Jarrett and Kenny Wallace would have made the race instead of Reutimann and A.J. Allmendinger using Brown's system.

The issue of teams failing to qualify grows because teams outside the top 35 struggle to find or retain sponsorship. With some teams looking to expand for next season, there could be more cars going for the 43 spots. In some cases, those cars not guaranteed a starting spot have been among the 25 fastest cars but not made the race.

"It's hard to go back and justify to your sponsor how you're going to fix the problem when you've just qualified in the top 15 or top 20 and you go home,'' Brown said.

Upon further review

While it remains true that no driver has started worse than 13th and won at Infineon Raceway, there is hope for Jeff Gordon, starting 41st, and Jimmie Johnson, starting 42nd.

Track officials note that Ernie Irvan started second in 1992 and jumped the start. NASCAR penalized him by making him go to the rear of the field. He rallied to win. Some in the garage say that the competition level is so much greater now that such a run would be much more difficult.

Learning

Juan Pablo Montoya says he understands Infineon Raceway better after another day of practice. Montoya qualified 32nd but was the fastest in the first of Saturday's two practice sessions.

"With the lap time we did in practice on 10-lap tires, we should have been on the front row,'' Montoya said. "That's a little frustrating, but that's the way it goes.

"We're learning our way. You've got to be patient and work on the car and see what happens.''

Pit stops

Denny Hamlin was the fastest in the final practice session with a lap of 91.589 mph. He was followed by teammate Tony Stewart (91.567 mph), Robby Gordon (91.555), Kevin Harvick (91.501) and Elliott Sadler (91.479).