Some of NASCAR’s greatest drivers helped make Hendrick Motorsports one of the sport’s most successful organizations

In the beginning, the team was named All-Star Racing despite the fact that there were no all-stars. They would come later.

And, wow, did they ever show up. Tim Richmond, Darrell Waltrip, Ricky Rudd, Jeff Gordon, Terry Labonte, Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kyle Busch and Mark Martin.

When Rick Hendrick, a successful car dealer and drag-boat racer, formed his NASCAR team in 1984, he named it All-Star Racing in large part because he was working on a plan that would put NASCAR’s king, Richard Petty, in his Chevrolets. That ploy fell through. Petty developed other plans, but Hendrick stayed with “All-Star Racing” until later switching to the name with which his team soared to remarkable heights – Hendrick Motorsports.

Although Hendrick failed to sign Petty (and also didn’t succeed in a short pursuit of Dale Earnhardt Sr.), he would race for the next 25 years with some of the smartest, fastest and most successful drivers in stock-car racing. They would bring home almost 200 Cup victories and eight Cup championships and would make Hendrick Motorsports one of the most respected operations in international motorsports.

As the organization celebrates its 25th anniversary, Hendrick talked to NASCAR Scene about 10 of those drivers and shared memories of his first quarter-century in the sport:

Geoff Bodine
(1984-89)

Geoff Bodine was All-Star Racing’s first driver – and its first winner. He scored at Martinsville Speedway eight races into Hendrick’s first season. Ironically, Hendrick missed that race because he was attending a church service.

“Bodine’s name came up because he was young, he was fast and he had good short-track experience,” Hendrick says. “We talked at City Chevrolet [a Hendrick car dealership in Charlotte], and he was willing to wait outside three or four hours to get an answer. That sealed the deal for me.

“I was so tired of getting jerked around [by other prospective drivers]. Geoff was on fire. He was ready to go. He was perfect for what we needed. He was very instrumental in getting us up and going because he was super-smart on the chassis. He could drive, and to have a guy kind of laying in the weeds that would go with a new team was great. He was a huge piece of the puzzle.

“I was tickled the way it worked out because if I had gotten an established superstar it might not have worked as well. We had some real baby steps we had to take.”
Bodine won three races that first season, and the team, which started with no sponsors, picked up a $450,000 sponsorship from Levi Garrett.

Hendrick was on his way.

Tim Richmond
(1986-87)

Tim Richmond’s star shot across the 1980s like a bright-red comet, and much of his success came in Hendrick Motorsports cars. Teamed with crew chief Harry Hyde, who had been with Hendrick since day one (originally working for $500 per week), Richmond roared to seven victories in 1986 and had two more in an abbreviated season in 1987 before complications related to AIDS ended his career and ultimately his life.

“I liked Tim as a person,” Hendrick says. “I liked his flamboyant way and his cocky little attitude. I saw something in Tim. I watched him drive for Raymond [Beadle] and said, ‘Golly, this guy has an awesome amount of talent and car control.’ He wouldn’t quit.

“I knew all of the reservations about him – wild and crazy and a party animal and all that. I had a talk with Tim. He wanted it. He wanted to do it, and I remember him coming to Daytona when he had on his fancy street suit. He would listen. It didn’t take long to see how much talent he had. I had underestimated that. He was probably as talented as anybody I’ve seen in a car.

“He just loved it. He was leading a race at Pocono by a bunch. He came on the radio and said, ‘Hey, Rick, are you listening? Watch this.’ He went up high in Turn 3 and let Earnhardt go by. Then he got back in the gas. He caught Earnhardt about at the flagstand and jacked him up about off the ground. He carried him down the frontstraight and let him go and went on. He said, ‘How do you like that?’

“What thrilled me about him was he had this charm with the fans. If Kyle Busch had that charm, he would be more popular than Earnhardt. He’d go sit down in the middle of the stands. He didn’t care. Everybody loved him. Watching him qualify at Riverside [Calif.] was like buying a ticket. Pit-crew members from other teams would go out just to watch him qualify there.”

Darrell Waltrip
(1987-90)

Darrell Waltrip was sort of a surprise arrival at the Hendrick shop in 1987. He and team owner Junior Johnson had teamed to win championships in 1981, ’82 and ’85, but the bloom was off that rose, and Waltrip was looking for another good opportunity.

Hendrick provided the open door. Waltrip stepped in and won nine races in four seasons but couldn’t produce Hendrick’s first Cup championship. He left to start his own team, a popular avenue for top drivers in that time period.

“I hadn’t been used to a guy who was as vocal as Darrell was,” Hendrick says. “I remember him taking me to lunch and telling me what he thought. I think had he stayed with us he could have had a shot at some more championships and won a lot more races. He was fun. A ton of talent and a smart racer.

“We were fighting all kinds of things that were out of our control because we had made some miscues. We were slowly getting them fixed. I think he had in the back of his mind doing his own deal. It was the style then. If he had been wanting only to drive, there’s no doubt in my mind he could have won another championship with us.”

Ricky Rudd
(1990-93)

Ricky Rudd came on board with Hendrick in 1990 and, a year later, drove the team owner to the doorstep of his first Cup championship. Rudd finished second that season to Earnhardt.

Rudd was with Hendrick Motorsports for four years and won one race each year. Like Waltrip, he left to start his own team.

“Ricky was ready to win a championship, but we weren’t,” Hendrick says. “We came close with him. He could drive a car anywhere, and he was a really good guy.

“We had to learn that you have to run 500 miles. It was always a learning experience for us, and Ricky helped us. With him, we got as close as you can come to winning it and not.”

Jeff Gordon
(1992-present)

And then there was Jeff Gordon. When he walked through the shop doors at Hendrick Motorsports, the world changed. Hendrick had nabbed the best driver of his generation and an individual who would bring seismic change to the sport.

In 1995, his third full season, Gordon won the Cup championship for Hendrick, and he repeated in ’97, ’98 and 2001 as he wrestled with Dale Earnhardt for supremacy in the sport during much of that period.

Hendrick and Gordon seemed to be the perfect owner/driver match, and Gordon solidified their partnership by agreeing to a “lifetime” contract with Hendrick Motorsports and becoming an equity partner in Hendrick’s No. 48 team.

“Jeff cost us 17 clips [to repair cars] in the first year, but you could see the brilliance,” Hendrick says. “He got himself in tough situations, but you could see that he could drive the wheels off the car. I knew from watching him in the first test at Charlotte after only six laps that all he needed was seat time. He was so fast and so good.

“We always had a special bond and relationship. I could never see him running anywhere else. He helped us. We had had peaks and valleys in our deal. We had never won a championship. He comes along and changes the sport. Changes the marketing side of the sport. Changes the way you look at drivers coming into the sport. He brought a whole new group of fans to the sport. He revolutionized the sport. I was lucky enough to be the guy to be his car owner. You don’t have those guys who can make such an impact come along very much in life.

“What’s been really so good about having him is that I haven’t had to race against him.”

Terry Labonte
(1994-2006)

More than a few racing observers were somewhat surprised when Hendrick signed Terry Labonte for the 1994 season. Labonte had won the Cup championship in 1984 with car owner Billy Hagan, but the decade of the ’90s had not been kind to him. He was winless from 1990-93 and finished in the top 10 of the standings in only one (eighth in 1992) of those years.

He wasn’t expected to light up the scoreboard at Hendrick. There were no great expectations.

All Labonte did was win three races in ’94, three more in ’95 and then the Cup championship in ’96. Not bad for a guy whose career was sagging.

“I looked at his stats and his age,” Hendrick says of Labonte, who was 37 when he joined his team. “He matched up so close to Rudd. Then I watched him at North Wilkesboro driving Billy Hagan’s car. He lost a cylinder and almost won the race.

“What a surprise he was. He could run anywhere, and he was such fun to be around. Terry started so young. You thought he was at the twilight of his deal, but really he was still so young. I thought, ‘How is everybody overlooking this guy?’ Then I started watching him. I thought given the right equipment he can be very good. Terry is just one of life’s great guys. He won us a championship and won a lot of races. Gave us a real solid foundation on that team.”

And Labonte wasn’t always the Iceman, the super-cool and quiet guy most people saw in him, Hendrick says.

“I thought he was mild-mannered, wouldn’t say boo to anybody,” he says. “Man, the first time he cut loose on the radio and then wanted to get out of the car and whip somebody’s ass, I thought, you don’t mess with him. He walks softly and carries a big stick.

“We were at Bristol one day. Lake Speed had hit everybody on the track. He hit Terry and tore the car up. He sat in the car and said, ‘Fix it.’ [Crew chief Gary] DeHart said, ‘I don’t think this thing will make it.’ Terry said, ‘It doesn’t have to run long, just fix it.’ Man, he wadded Lake Speed up. They called us to the [NASCAR] trailer. They said, ‘I think you went out there and wrecked him on purpose.’ Terry said, ‘Yep, I did.’ And that was it.”

Jimmie Johnson
(2001-present)

Jimmie Johnson basically came from nowhere to land in a prime Hendrick Motorsports seat. He had not generated any excitement in the Busch (now Nationwide) Series, but Hendrick and those around him saw potential.

“We were at Darlington,” Hendrick says. “My son [Ricky] kept telling me this guy is going to be a superstar. Jeff [Gordon’s] helping Ricky. Jimmie is second quick in practice. Jeff goes over and asked Jimmie if he would talk to Ricky about the track. Jimmie said, ‘I’ve never been here before. You want me to talk to him?’

“Jeff raced against him at Michigan in the Busch car, and he says, ‘Man, you’ve got to get this guy. What a talent he is.’ And he doesn’t get enough credit for it. He’s smart. He’s in shape. He studies the sport. He’s a phenomenal guy.”

And a three-time champion, the only driver to win a title for Hendrick since Gordon’s 2001 run.

Kyle Busch
(2004-07)

The first three-plus years of Kyle Busch’s Sprint Cup career were recorded in Hendrick Motorsports cars, and he won four races during that stretch. When Dale Earnhardt Jr. became available, however, the Busch-Hendrick link was suddenly severed.

“I’ve never seen any more raw talent than Kyle has,” Hendrick says. “Look at how fast he adapts to anything he gets in. He might have too much talent. If there’s such a thing as being too good, he might be. He’s grown up a ton. We had some situations where, with us, there were a lot of things going on. It wasn’t Kyle; it wasn’t me.

Probably what happened was we made him grow up in a hurry.

“He can rewrite the record books. There are no regrets on my end. I’m just glad I had him when I had him.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr.
(2008-present)

The announcement of the Rick Hendrick-Dale Earnhardt Jr. partnership was one of the biggest stories in NASCAR history. Earnhardt Jr. left his late father’s team to jump to the most respected team in the sport, immediately putting pressure on Hendrick to build an environment in which Junior could succeed.

You might have noticed that that has been something of a struggle.

“He carries a lot of load,” Hendrick says. “He carries way more than he ought to. He cares a lot more than people think he does. This sport is so tough right now. You can be off this much and be off a lot. When Junior has struggles, it’s compounded by the pressure that comes with being him and from all his fans and the media.

“It’s almost like having to do heart surgery out in the yard where everybody’s looking at it. He’s done everything I’ve asked him to do. Everything. I feel better about where we are today. We’re just going to keep after it.

“I was confident we could do good and I could build it around him. I was more concerned about dealing with a superstar than about putting a team around him. But he is as easy to work with as anybody I’ve ever had. He’ll do anything I ask him to do. He’s nothing like what I thought he might be. You don’t know people until you’re around them. It’s an awful lot of pressure, but we’re going to keep after it until we get it right.”

Mark Martin
(2009-present)

Rick Hendrick signed the sport’s grand old man for a full season this year, and the early returns weren’t good. Engine failures booted Martin from two of the first three races, and four events into the season he stood a miserable 34th in points.

Where was the fun everybody had anticipated?

The team rallied with four straight top-seven finishes, including a victory at Phoenix. Then Martin won three more races, earning the points lead when the Chase began and the standings were reset. Now, after a fifth victory and a runnerup finish in the first two Chase races, Martin is not only leading the standings, but appears poised to challenge for his first Cup title.

“[Winning at Phoenix] was a sigh of relief because we felt like we let him down,” Hendrick says. “We were having mechanical problems early, and it was tearing me up. Ever since he drove our Busch car and I listened to him and watched him with that team, winning was never a question. I knew it was there. All our guys knew it was. What we were concerned about was getting a guy excited about something and then he comes in and the wheels fall off. It was tearing me up.

“He kept everybody’s head up and made the turn. It’s amazing how you know in your heart what you have and you don’t let your head listen to everybody else. You know it’s there. You just have to keep doing your deal.”