For Hendrick, No. 25 has always been the family car

In a joyous Victory Lane last Sunday night, there were too many subplots to count. The relief and raw emotion of a driver finally securing his first Nextel Cup win. The poignancy of another racer named Mears celebrating on Memorial Day weekend. The significance of expatriate open-wheelers finishing first and second on the day of that discipline's biggest race. And behind it all, the wistful, knowing smile of the gray-haired man in the white button-down collared shirt.

• Send David your thoughts

Rick Hendrick had been there many times before. Geoffrey Bodine, Ken Schrader, Jeff Gordon, Jerry Nadeau, Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch, Brian Vickers and now Casey Mears -- they all experienced their first taste of victory on NASCAR's premier level while at Hendrick Motorsports, an organization with an unparalleled record of turning young drivers into champions. The Coca-Cola 600 marked the 158th race victory for the former car salesman, who pioneered the multi-car concept and now makes winning look routine.

But there was nothing routine about Sunday. At Hendrick, victories by the No. 25 car are momentous, for reasons both personal and professional. While the organization's other three vehicles have won with relative regularity, the No. 25 outfit has lagged behind. In recent years, it's been such a carousel of drivers, sponsors and crew chiefs that some have questioned whether it was really a glorified research and development team, its purpose not to win races but to unearth information for everyone else.

As Sunday's results attested, that isn't the case. No one has been more frustrated by the inconsistencies of the No. 25 team than Hendrick himself, for whom the vehicle holds a deep personal significance. Because the Chevy that Mears drove to his breakthrough victory at Lowe's Motor Speedway isn't just any car. It's the family car.

From almost its inception, the vehicle's listed owner was Rick's father, Joe Hendrick. Later, son Ricky Hendrick was added as a co-owner. It was Ricky who befriended the young Mears, who in the years since has become so close to the Hendrick family he seems almost related by blood. It was Ricky who convinced his father to hire his buddy Vickers, a Busch Series hotshot who drove the No. 25 car to its first victory in three years -- albeit a controversial one -- last season at Talladega (watch video).

It's the No. 25 car that encapsulates so much triumphant and tragic Hendrick history -- Tim Richmond, winning seven races in 1986 before dying of complications from AIDS; "Papa" Joe Hendrick, the man who passed the motorsports bug on to his son, who passed in July of 2004 at age 84; Ricky Hendrick, the former racer turned team executive who perished along with nine others in a plane crash near Martinsville, Va., later that year. Vickers is with a different team now, but every day he still wears a purple wristband as a memorial to his good friend.

Lap-by-Lap

Casey Mears used fuel to his advantage and stayed out while others came in to pit. The move worked as Mears held on to win the Coca-Cola 600.

• Complete story, click here

Rick Hendrick himself even drove the No. 25 car once, finishing 33rd with transmission problems at Riverside in 1987 while Richmond was sidelined with the virus that would later claim his life. There are some old-timers in the media center who believe Richmond left some type of curse on the vehicle, and have advised Hendrick to change the number in an effort to change the team's luck. In a way, he did -- prior to this season, the font was altered to make it look more like those on the organization's other three cars.

But it wasn't witchcraft that held the No. 25 car back. It was something much more mundane -- turnover. With Richmond and then Schrader behind the wheel, the team was on solid footing. Then came a revolving door of drivers, from Ricky Craven to Randy Lajoie to Wally Dallenbach to Nadeau. Crew chiefs came and went, once as many as four in a single season. For nearly a decade, despite race wins by men like Nadeau and Joe Nemechek, the No. 25 has lacked the stability that has marked the teams of Gordon and Johnson, and even the No. 5 outfit with Terry Labonte and Busch,

"I think the circumstances just haven't been right," Rick Hendrick said late Sunday night. They still may not be -- the Coca-Cola 600's wacky fuel-mileage finale (watch video) stands as a lone bright spot in an otherwise snake-bitten 2007 season for Mears, who has finished inside the top 10 only one other time this year. So Hendrick and his people will go back to work, trying to make the stars align for a vehicle that means as much to the car owner as any other in his stable.

Because it's not just his car. It was Ricky's, and Papa Joe's before that. It's been driven by kids like Vickers and Mears, close enough to be family. Now the listed owner is Mary Hendrick, Rick's mother. The family tradition continues.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.