Hendrick: Humble start to business, racing empires (cont'd)

Q: How did you decide to form All-Star Racing back in 1984?

Hendrick: Well, when it started, Richard Petty was going to drive and C.K. Spurlock, who was Kenny Rogers' tour manager, they had a company called Gambler Chassis. They wanted to get into Cup and Max Muhleman had this idea of All-Star Racing. At the last minute, Petty pulled out and then Spurlock pulled out. So I was left with a couple of cars and four or five people and Harry Hyde decided to try it. We started working on trying to get sponsors and showed up at Daytona. And everybody said, 'What is All-Star Racing?'

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We said, 'Nothing right now but it was going to be the king of country music and the king of stock-car racing.' I rented the shop from Harry. I rented the equipment from Harry. I rented rear ends and transmissions from Chevrolet, and Randy Dorton was running a little engine shop next door and he was about to close the doors. So we were all kind of going down the tubes together. And we won Martinsville and turned it around, got a sponsor and it was unheard of that you could take five people and enter this sport on a shoestring like we did and end up winning three races that year.

Q: You won that first race with Bodine at Martinsville. How much of a thrill was that?

Hendrick: Well, I told Harry we were going to have to stop. We thought we were going to get a sponsor, and things just didn't materialize after Richard was going a different way. We kept saying, 'One more race, one more race.' And literally that was it. I wasn't even at the race that day. I was at a church function with my wife and kids. I called my mother from a pay phone to find out how the race ended up, and she told me that Bodine blew up. Then she laughed and said he won, and I couldn't believe it.

It was a turning point. We had a sponsor kind of on the fence, a partial deal, that came on after that. Then we signed Levi Garrett before the end of the year and the rest is kind of history.

Q: You drove your own car at Riverside twice. Why did you decide to do that, and why did you get out?

Hendrick: I always drove. I was driving and racing when I was 14, and then I raced boats and won three championships. So I always loved speed and driving. The first car we built at Charlotte, I drove it right after Earnhardt drove it. He shook it down and I drove it. I always really liked the Cup cars on road courses, and I went out to Riverside and ran a couple of races, ran a Busch race at Road Atlanta. But I clearly didn't have the talent. I had the love, but not the talent. I was better to put the right people in place. It wasn't hard to find better drivers than I was.

But I think being able to build my own motors when I was drag racing, the cars and some of the early boats -- worked on cars, built cars, built motors, driving -- allowed me to know just enough to get me in trouble. I have a real appreciation for what those guys do. But I learned to stunt it and pull from a lot of resources, once we started. I used some of the drag racing connections to make more power in the engine shop. I was a tool and die maker when I was going to school with Westinghouse, making parts and pieces. I had experience doing that and all those years on the farm with the modified cars.

Q: What has been the biggest change in the sport?

Hendrick: A lot of people who worked in 1984 were volunteers, a lot like it was when I was growing up with my dad. Nobody got paid. Even though we won the national championship with Ray Hendrick, nobody who worked on the car got paid. Your pay was you got to go to the race track. You could volunteer and hang around at the shop at night, and if you were lucky, somebody'd buy you some food and a hotel. You did it because you loved it.

When I first started, we had five people that were paid, but we had a lot of volunteers who helped out that had other jobs during the week and we just paid their expenses, getting them to and from the race, and food. That's the way it was. Then all of a sudden, our sport just started to explode in the mid-'90s, and now all of a sudden, there are other manufacturers coming in and a ton of new teams. Everybody trying to hire everybody else's folks.

When you see a driver like Jeff Gordon on the cover of Fortune magazine, we became a big-time pro sport. So just watching the deal evolve into a big business, where you're getting not only drivers from all over the world, but you're getting mechanics from all over the world. Our competition director's from South Africa.

Q: Is there one moment that stands out to you?

Hendrick: When I started, going to Daytona was a thrill. To think you'd ever compete in it or win it was unbelievable. Then you check that off and think you've made it, you've got enough sponsorship and going to race the whole year. I used to think I'd go to New York just to watch Earnhardt get the championship and never thought we'd win one. Then we got to be a Cup champion. That was a huge thrill in New York. All the emotions came back to me of growing up on the farm, my dad and all the people along the way that I raced with. I wanted to call them all and thank them for all they did for me in my life.

If I have to think of one thing now that stands out that meant so much to me and still does is when [son] Ricky won that inaugural Truck race at Kansas. I think that one will go down as probably the best. I guess part of it is just being a father and a big part of it is missing him, but just seeing that and remembering that and how proud I was of him wanting to do that and then accomplishing it.

Q: The 2004 season was the highest of highs and lowest of lows. How do you look back on that?

Hendrick: The accident -- birthdays, holidays -- you think back on the ones you lost and the teams were doing a heck of a job before the accident. And to come back and win the week after and have two cars eight points and 15 points away from the championship that year, that's unbelievable. I think that's where they got the name for the movie, Together.

I'm real proud of them being able to do that. You just never forget those folks -- your family and your friends and all those folks on that plane. Any time you say, "2004," I lost my dad 90 days before the crash. That was just a terrible year.

Q: Who would you select for the inaugural Hall of Fame class?

Hendrick: Don't ask me that, because I wouldn't be one of them, I can assure you of that. There's so many worthy folks there. I don't feel that I'm worthy being one of the five, whoever the five are. There's more than five, if I had to vote, I don't know who I'd choose. You have to look at the Pettys and the France family and Dale, but then you look back at all the other champions, all kinds of folks, the pioneers and the people who have done so much for the sport. They have to be first, the ones who made it what it is today. They have to be first.

Q: What do you think your legacy will be?

Hendrick: Oh, man. I hope that now that I'm drinking that Mark Martin Gatorade that's from the fountain of youth, maybe I can do this another 25 years and we can win a ton of championships. I hope we can go down in history as being someone who did it right and made a contribution to the sport and plowed a lot of new ground along the way.

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