"Papa" Joe Hendrick (left) with Ricky Hendrick. Joe Hendrick died in July after a long illness.

Younger Hendrick was following father's path

MARTINSVILLE, VA. -- Ricky Hendrick was the spitting image of his father. He was kind, thoughtful, generous beyond belief. He was gracious. And smart. His business savvy was uncanny.

Hendrick, 24, was killed Sunday along with seven other passengers and two pilots when a Hendrick Motorsports plane crashed 10 miles west of Martinsville Speedway.

With him goes a limitless future and a beautiful soul.

Ricky adored stock car racing. Had no choice, really. He grew up fantasizing about greatness at Daytona and Darlington and Bristol while soaking up knowledge from his father, from Randy Dorton, from Ken Howes and Jeff Gordon and Terry Labonte.

He was destined for NASCAR prominence. He had the pedigree.

Like his father, he gave driving a shot, and was quite successful before better judgment prevailed.

He won the inaugural Craftsman Truck Series race at Kansas Speedway at age 21, making him the youngest driver to ever win a CTS event.

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The following year, he moved to the NASCAR Busch Series and had tallied a pair of top 10 finishes when an accident during a NASCAR Busch Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway sidelined him for six weeks.

Following surgery to repair the shoulder, he hopped back in the car for a test at Atlanta Motor Speedway and quickly realized the nerve was gone. So he made the most difficult decision an athlete is faced with: he retired. At age 22.

"I can't tell you how proud I am of Ricky," said Rick Hendrick, Ricky's father and owner of Hendrick Motorsports, at the time of the decision. "He wants to give his team and his sponsors the tools to be successful, and when he realized that he wasn't physically able to do that, he showed a lot of character by making a tough choice.

Ricky made 38 starts in the Busch Series.

"With his experience in so many areas of Hendrick Motorsports, from race cars to sponsorship, Ricky will be a valuable contributor to the future growth and success of our company."

Mr. Hendrick had no idea how correct he was.

Ricky's first major decision came during the hiring process for his successor. Brian Vickers was his man, and saw to it that everyone else at HMS agreed.

Having hired Vickers to pilot the No. 5 Chevrolet for the 2003 season, Ricky transitioned into an ownership role, as well as opening Performance Honda/Suzuki, a motorcycle dealership in Charlotte.

In his first year as an owner he won a championship, Hendrick Motorsports' first in the NASCAR Busch Series and ninth overall.

Then, when Vickers moved on to the HMS' No. 25 Nextel Cup Series entry, Ricky was given an ownership stake in that team. And when Hendrick began a driver development program, HMS turned to Ricky as the primary scout for young talent.

He signed Blake Feese, Boston Reid and Kyle Krisiloff.