Hendrick Motorsports 40 Years
by Tom Jensen August 22, 2024
The newest Great Hall exhibit in the NASCAR Hall of Fame honors and celebrates the most successful team in the sport’s history.
In 1984, Rick Hendrick (Class of 2017) launched his fledgling NASCAR Cup Series team with five full-time employees, 5,000 square feet of leased shop space in Concord, North Carolina and a big dream.
Forty years later, Hendrick Motorsports is the most successful team in NASCAR history with more race victories, championships, and championship-winning drivers and crew chiefs than any other team.
The success of the Hendrick organization has fundamentally changed the business model for teams seeking to compete for NASCAR’s highest prize. In-house manufacturing, the use of state-of-the-art technology, bold recruiting and re-imaging pit stops are just some of the innovations Hendrick Motorsports used to both enhance its own success and alter the sport for its competitors.
“Hendrick Motorsports 40 Years Presented by NAPA Auto Parts” will be on exhibit in the NASCAR Hall of Fame’s Great Hall until May 2025. Photo courtesy of Peyton Scot
Guided by the unwavering leadership of its founder and other team executive leaders, Hendrick Motorsports has won more than 300 Cup Series races and 14 championships spread among five drivers. And the once little shop now employs more than 600 team members and occupies 430,000 square feet of space at the Hendrick Motorsports campus in Concord, North Carolina.
To recognize and honor the four-decades-long success story, on August 8th the NASCAR Hall of Fame opened its latest Great Hall exhibit, “Hendrick Motorsports 40 Years Presented by NAPA Auto Parts.” Featuring seven Hendrick Motorsports cars, six 80-inch video monitors, more than 75 artifacts and more than 160 photo images, this exhibit tells the stories of the race team’s successes and records, as well as its trials and tribulations from its hardest days.
Hendrick Motorsports Vice Chairman and four-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jeff Gordon gave NASCAR Hall of Fame members a guided tour of the new exhibit. Photo courtesy of Tom Jensen
“Hendrick Motorsports 40 Years” features many unique and significant artifacts that have never been seen in public before. In their own words, Rick Hendrick and his leadership group relay the team’s story and history through a series of videos. The cars on display celebrate Cup Series championships and racing milestones in the Daytona 500, Brickyard 400 and even the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Among these items are helmets from each of the five drivers who have won championships while at Hendrick, internal components from the Randy Dorton-built Chevrolet engine that powered Jeff Gordon (Class of 2019) to his first Cup Series victory in 1994, Jimmie Johnson’s (Class of 2024) prized 2009 championship Goodyear gold car, and high-tech carbon fiber brake rotors and steering wheel from the Hendrick Motorsports Garage 56 entry that raced in the 24 Hours of Le Mans last year.
Unique artifacts, photographs, graphic panels and large video screens are used to tell the Hendrick Motorsports story. Photo courtesy of Bryan Blackford
Also on exhibit are Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s (Class of 2021) Daytona 500 trophy from 2014, a helmet actor Tom Cruise gave to Rick Hendrick after the completion of the film “Days of Thunder,” which was loosely based on the early days of Hendrick Motorsports, and Ricky Hendrick’s trophy from winning a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Kansas Speedway in 2001.
Rick Hendrick would be the first to tell you that the Hendrick Motorsports story is not about him, but rather about all the people who built the team over the last 40 years.
Many of the artifacts included in the Hendrick Motorsports exhibit are being displayed to the public for the first time. Photo courtesy of Peyton Scot
To that end, more than 55 individuals with ties to Hendrick Motorsports are represented in this exhibit, including drivers, crew chiefs, mechanics, engineers, shop workers, family members and more.
The exhibit represents a true team effort from the hundreds of individuals that built Hendrick Motorsports over the last 40 years and will carry it forward for the next 40.
At the grand opening of “Hendrick Motorsports 40 Years” team founder Rick Hendrick and his wife Linda got a first look at the exhibit. Photo courtesy of Tom Jensen
We invite you to visit the NASCAR Hall of Fame and enjoy “Hendrick Motorsports 40 Years, Presented by NAPA Auto Parts,” which will be on exhibit until mid-May 2025.
Plan your visit to the NASCAR Hall of Fame and purchase tickets by visiting nascarhall.com/tickets.
