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Rick Hendrick is going into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, and the owner of Hendrick Motorsports might be the one most surprised by his selection.
“It is more than just ‘Hey, this is cool,'” the 67-year-old said recently. “It’s more than that to me. It’s humbling; it’s just very humbling to me that I could even be looked at.”
Hendrick will be inducted into the Hall Friday (8 p.m. ET, NBCSN), along with fellow team owners Richard Childress and Raymond Parks and drivers Benny Parsons and Mark Martin.
There hasn’t been much time for reflection, Hendrick said, as he continues to oversee an organization that fields four Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series teams in addition to one of the nation’s most successful automotive sales groups.
“I think when you are in the day-to-day and in a day-to-day race and you are going to the track and you are trying to win races … or you are running for a championship, all that other stuff is kind of back there, but it doesn’t come to the forefront,” Hendrick said. “But then when you get to an event like this and you are going into the Hall of Fame with Raymond Parks and Benny and Richard and Mark and all these guys and you look at who is in there and you look at what the sport has meant to you and your family, it is really special and it’s very emotional.
“You think about those things. It’s humbling. I think the word is humbling because … I never thought I would ever race in NASCAR. I never thought I would ever win a NASCAR race. I never really thought we would win a championship and now to be in the position we are in to win as much and have the success we have had and to be recognized as doing something in the sport to get into the Hall it’s a tremendous honor.”
Parsons and Martin each drove for Hendrick at one time. Childress and his Richard Childress Racing organization were the benchmark when Hendrick arrived on the scene in 1984.
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“Really when I first started I didn’t think anybody would ever beat them,” Hendrick said of Childress and his driver, Dale Earnhardt. “I thought they were just, basically, unbeatable.”
That changed with Jeff Gordon‘s arrival at HMS in the early ’90s, and for nearly a decade, the two organizations were the best in the NASCAR garage, winning seven championships between themselves from ’93 through ’01.
The Hendrick organization continues to set the pace today, with Jimmie Johnson winning the 2016 championship to become just the third driver to win seven titles. Officially, HMS teams have won 12 championships in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series and 245 races. Previous programs in the XFINITY and Camping World Truck Series produced nearly 50 more victories and three additional championships.
It’s almost overwhelming for Hendrick, who built his first car (for drag racing) when he was a teenager with help from his father.
“When you get something like this in life, when someone recognizes you, you think about going to Hillsborough (North Carolina) to watch a race on dirt,” he said. “You think about all the sacrifices your Dad made to get you in the cars and your son’s love for the cars, your brother, (engine builder) Randy Dorton, all those guys that aren’t here now that gave it all.
“It’s super emotional for me because I know how much they loved it, how much they sacrificed for it and this is almost like the culmination.”
Sixteen drivers have won at least one race while competing for HMS at the NASCAR Cup level. Johnson, Gordon and Terry Labonte won championships as well.
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In spite of all his accomplishments and those of his organization, Hendrick said he still feels a bit awed by his selection.
“I think it feels a lot like the first time I went to New York after I won a championship, the first championship,” he said. “You feel … it’s an unbelievable accomplishment when you dreamed about being involved in a sport or just watching the sport and to think that now you are being recognized in the Hall of Fame, it’s a really emotional and a very special feeling.”