Hendrick Motorsports drivers Terry Labonte, Jeff Gordon, Brian Vickers and Jimmie Johnson with team owner Rick Hendrick. Credit: Autostock
By Lee Montgomery, Turner Sports Interactive
June 3, 2004
10:34 AM EDT (1434 GMT)
HARRISBURG, N.C. -- Back in 1984, Rick Hendrick was a small auto dealer who wanted to be a part of NASCAR racing.
Twenty years later, he's one of the major players in the sport, owning four Nextel Cup teams and one Busch Series team. He's won nine championships -- five in Cup, one in Busch and three in the Craftsman Truck Series.
Hendrick Motorsports held a fan festival last week to help celebrate its 20 years in NASCAR, and Rick Hendrick made sure that it was not only about him. Several former Hendrick drivers made appearances, as did all of his current drivers.
NASCAR.COM's Lee Montgomery sat down with Hendrick at the massive complex near Lowe's Motor Speedway and talked about the past, the present and the future of Hendrick Motorsports.
Q: When you started in NASCAR 20 years ago, I'm guessing you had a vision of things. What was it, and was it anything at all like it is now?
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Rick Hendrick: No. Twenty years ago, I thought I was going to hook up with C.K. Spurlock and do a Winston Cup team. I had no ambitions or dream, other than if I was able to do that -- run a car, be a Winston Cup car owner -- from the time I started, survival was the only thing on my mind. Sponsor deals fell through, and I was committed to a young driver, Geoff Bodine, for 15 races, so we were going to run without a sponsor and see what we could do.
Boy, I tell you what. I had a couple, three dealerships, and I was extremely nervous. But my goal then was to be competitive and make through the year and not embarrass myself or embarrass anybody or hurt Geoff Bodine.
We got a sponsor, and then all of a sudden, it was, "Hey, we can do this." And then, kind of parallel to my automobile business, when you're doing well and have another opportunity, you don't what to give up what you're doing, but you want to add to it.
I had talked to Tim Richmond about driving, and he came back to me and wanted to drive. It just so happened that a sponsor had come along and called me and said, "You're the kind of guy we want." So, I said, "Hey, I've got a sponsor and I've got a driver. I'm going to run another team."
It kind of started from there. You know, I never had had a goal, other than to be competitive and try to win as much as we could. Now I'm starting to think about the next five years, the next 10 years. We're building buildings and doing some things, and, hopefully, we're going to be here a long time.
| JEFF GORDON | | | | | | | |
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Q: Somebody recently told me that when you started in NASCAR, you were very, shall we say, tight with your money. Was that because you didn't have a whole lot to throw around like some people do? Was that just smart business?
Hendrick: I didn't have any money. You had to be tight if you didn't have any. I had no business trying to start a race team with no more money than I had. It was like, "Do I have enough money to pay my bills and eat and do this?" It was out of necessity. I didn't have any options.
Q: The 20th anniversary celebration that is going on this week is not all about you. I've heard that you preferred it not to be about you. Why is that?
Hendrick: I'm just a piece of it. Really, the success of this company -- I personally don't believe I deserve any more credit than anybody who's been here 20 years, whether it's (chief engine builder) Randy Dorton or some of the other guys who have been here, (like) Robert Thorpe, who drives one of our showcar rigs -- one of my first employees.
We've all done it together for a long time. Without good people, you don't make it happen. This is really a celebration for the fans and our employees to see. We've been doing something for a long time and have been successful. A sure sign of success is if you're still here today. So that's what it's about.
Q: I've also heard some of your employees -- Terry Labonte was just talking about this -- about working for you. One of the reasons they like it is because you hire them for a job and then let them go do it. You're not a "micromanager," so to speak. Is it fair to say that's part of your business philosophy?
Hendrick: Yeah, you can't do as many multiple deals as we've got going all the time, and I can't know as much about it as Jeff Turner from the general manager's seat or Randy Dorton or a Jim Long, Terry's crew chief, or Robbie Loomis. I have to give them the tools, and then try to set guidelines and budgets.
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But basically, I feel like I'm almost a consultant. I stand back and watch, and then I ask a lot of questions. If I see areas we're weak in, I try to fix those. If I can keep everybody here on the same page, working together, we've got enough talent here that we should be able to do real well, as long as we communicate and working together for the same common goal.
My job is kind of a cheerleader, motivator. But then I have to pull the ropes when they get off the reservation a little bit. I don't try to tell them how to do their jobs, but I hold them accountable for their jobs.
Q: You're also one of the country's biggest car salesman. Is it true you can sell ice to an Eskimo?
Hendrick: (long pause) Well, I think I've got some guys here like Jeff Gordon and Brian Vickers and Terry Labonte, they're pretty good salesman, too. They may be better than I am. Ricky (Hendrick, Rick's only son) also. I don't know. When I have to sell, I'll sell hard. We all do.
Q: Changing gears a little bit. NASCAR recently changed the schedule for next year a little bit. You're a North Carolina guy -- not born here, but raised here. What do you think of Rockingham losing a date? Is it just part of expansion? That's the price you pay?
Hendrick: I think so. Everybody has personal interests. They want what's good for everything, but then they want what they want out of that. I hate losing Rockingham and Darlington, but I hated losing Wilkesboro. That was a track that was real good to us.
But at the same time, if you're going to have a bog corporation like a Lowe's or a DuPont or Kellogg's, they're just as big in the West and the Midwest as they are here. Running eight or nine events in the same state is not helping them. If you want the money and you want the TV coverage, you want Fox to be happy, you want your sponsors to be happy, you've got to reach other markets.
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| Credit: Autostock |
If you don't want that, then you've got to go back to where it was 10, 15 years ago and be willing to live off the purses and everything else. You can't have part of it without having all of it. I think it's inevitable. It's got to happen.
Q: So your sponsors like you guys going out West? We're talking about maybe a Mexico date for the Busch Series. Do sponsors like that stuff, too?
Hendrick: I haven't talked to them about Mexico. I don't know how that fits in their plans. Everything else, though, West Coast, Midwest, all of our sponsors have big events out there. If they only go there one time vs. 10 times in the East, then it's an important event for them. I can believe they would want to go there more.
Q: We hear a lot about the rising costs of this sport and ways to cut it. But as a car owner, aren't you going to spend as much as their budget allows, no matter what NASCAR says or does?
Hendrick: Racers are going spend everything they've got. I don't care. Since I was 10 years old, my first drag racecar I had at 14, every nickel I could get went in to being better. I think too many people feel like if you've got all the money, you'll win. You can buy it. That's not true. I've seen some people come in this sport with a lot of money and couldn't buy it. They tried to buy it.
You can throw all the money in the world at it, but you've got to have chemistry. You've got to have the resources with the chemistry, too, but you've got to have good people.
I don't know how to put a limit on what you spend. NASCAR's done an exception job in that area. The single-engine rule saved us a lot of money. And they try. But the problem is, you've got so many events, so many weekends you've got to race. And when you're doing that, it puts a burden on your people. All of a sudden, you've got to have two tractor-trailers per team, you've got to have airplanes to get your people back and forth. It's just logistics.
| TERRY LABONTE | | | | | |
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But it's the price of success. Everybody wants a piece. I don't you could split it up and run two divisions. I don't think that'll work. I don't think we can run any more races. I think we're tapped out in races. Matter of fact, I'd like to see two more weekends that we could have, even if it meant we run Wednesday night somewhere and Friday night somewhere and have Saturday and Sunday (off).
These guys need more. I'd like to see more Friday night races and Saturday night races and more Sundays off with their families.
Q: Is it getting to the point where you're going to have to have two teams or two crews for each team? Is it getting that close?
Hendrick: It's getting close to that now. We have a road crew and we have an in-house crew. It's real close to that now. What we're seeing is the burnout factor. The older guys just don't want to do it because it's just too hard on them.
Q: Talking about rising costs and stuff and expansion -- you're expanding the complex out here. Tell me a little about what's going on. I know the 5 and the 25 are getting a new shop. What else is happening?
Hendrick: We're looking at a new museum. We've got a collision center. We've got two dealerships going across the road at Speedway Boulevard. We've got a lot of plans. The new shop's under construction. We need more room. We're out of space for our engine shop, we're out of space for our chassis shop, we're out of space at our gym, we're out of space at our museum. We've just grown. The place wasn't built to run this many races with this many teams. So we're building a new shop for the 25 and 5, and as we backfill, we're giving the space they had to split it up with the chassis and engine and engineering research.
It's a big commitment for us. I told Ricky I'm signing a lot of notes. He's going to have to work a lot of years. I really think we're in good shop. I think we're as poised and as competitive as we've ever been. I'm looking forward to the future.
Q: When you paired the 24 and 48 guys together, a lot of people took notice of that and how they worked together. Is that the same kind of goal you want with the 5 and the 25?
Hendrick: Right.
Q: What was the idea behind it, just to get more of that team interaction between the 24 and 48?
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| Credit: Autostock |
Hendrick: Yeah, I felt like when you built a facility, instead of having two gear guys or two brake guys, you could kind of combine a lot of the functions and build all the cars alike, and then you'd have a seasoned driver and a rookie driver. And the rookie driver could learn from the seasoned veteran.
It just worked out great. I did it with a truck team, actually, first. That was the pilot, with Jack Sprague and Ricky, and it worked extremely well with Dennis Connor. And then we did it with Jeff and Jimmie, and it worked well, and I think it'll work real well with the new deal.
Q: A lot of people are assuming that whenever Terry decides to retire, that Kyle Busch will be the "heir apparent." Is that what the long-term plan is with him? Or you just don't know right now?
Hendrick: Well, right now, we don't know. But Kyle will definitely be the guy considered after Terry decides it's time.
Q: And that would give you Kyle Busch, Brian Vickers, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon as your four Cup drivers whenever that happens. Sounds like you'd be set for 10 or 15 more years.
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Hendrick: Well, and we've got three really good young guys behind them, so we definitely have a youth movement here.
Q: We talked a little about this before. The next 20 years, do you look that far down the road? Can you see what's going on in 10, 15, 20 years?
Hendrick: I kind of like to look at it in five-year bites. I think 20 years is just speculation. But I do think you can see three to five years. That's what we usually try to plan, three to five years. We try to stagger our sponsors so it works that way.
We've already laid plans for the next five, and we're executing it. Some of the things we're getting ready to do right now have been on the drawing board for a couple of years. You have to stay about two or three years ahead to try to figure out what you've got to do and where you need to be.
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