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The Team To Beat

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By TONY FABRIZIO, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 10, 2008

CONCORD, N.C. - At Hendrick Motorsports' preseason company luncheon, owner Rick Hendrick gave his usual speech about how the whole organization wins when one of its teams does.

To illustrate his point, he presented each of his 550 employees, from the lowest-paid shop hand to the highest-ranking executive, with a replica of the gold-and-diamond championship ring driver Jimmie Johnson received for winning NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series title.

Then, after allowing everyone a few minutes to enjoy their rings, Hendrick, 58, issued a company directive.

"That's the last time we're going to think or talk about 2007," he said.

That's Rick Hendrick. Always motivating, rewarding generously, but refusing to let complacency take root.

The approach has helped make Hendrick Motorsports NASCAR's most powerful organization, winner of seven of the past 13 Cup championships, including the past two by Johnson.

"Rick as our leader is just never content with the status quo," said Marshall Carlson, Hendrick's general manager. "He constantly challenges us to keep improving our game, and he has built an organization here with people who believe in that same approach."

Hendrick Motorsports hasn't been NASCAR's premier team through all of the past 13 years. Joe Gibbs Racing won three championships between 2000 and 2005, and Roush Racing, now Roush Fenway Racing, won titles in 2003 and 2004 and placed all five of its teams in the Chase in 2005. But Hendrick keeps cycling back to the front.

In 2007, the company was so much better-prepared than the competition to race the Car of Tomorrow introduced by NASCAR on select tracks, its four drivers combined to win half of the 36 points races. Johnson's 10 wins made him the first double-digit winner since 1998, and series runner-up Jeff Gordon won six times.

Hendrick Motorsports is a solid favorite to win its third straight title with its four-driver lineup of Johnson, Gordon, Casey Mears and ultra-popular Dale Earnhardt Jr., who replaced Kyle Busch. But Hendrick will not allow his people to get comfortable with that status.

"We are tied for last place," he said at the luncheon. "There are 45 other teams and we're tied for last with them."

Bountiful Resources

When Bill Elliott won the Daytona 500 and 10 more races in 1985, there were "11 guys" in his race shop, and two were his brothers. NASCAR has changed substantially, and nowhere is that more evident than Hendrick Motorsports.

The Hendrick race shop could pass for a small college campus, with 14 buildings totaling 600,000 square feet situated on 90 acres near Lowe's Motor Speedway outside Charlotte, N.C. Race cars are built from the ground up, with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equipment. Fifty-five of the 550 employees are degreed engineers, including two with PhDs and several with master's degrees.

Hendrick has specialists in practically every category, including a full-time consulting performance psychologist and multiple coaches for strength and conditioning and pit crew performance. Two teams are dedicated exclusively to testing, led by former Cup crew chiefs Lance McGrew and Jim Long.

It's all backed by the financial strength of Hendrick's 10-state, 80-dealership automotive empire, which produces more than $4 billion in annual revenue.

"It's kind of a wild cycle," said Carlson, the general manager. "You've got to have performance to get the resources, which include people: attracting talent and retaining it. But you've got to have the people and resources in order to have the performance. So sometimes I think about Rick like a squirrel running on one of those wheels in the cage. Man, he is just keeping that mix going, with performance and resources constantly feeding off each other."

Ray Evernham, who won three championships with Hendrick as Gordon's crew chief before leaving in 2000 to run his own team, credits Hendrick's people skills for keeping his companies strong.

"I don't know if you've ever bought a car from one of his dealerships, but I have," he said. "And I was amazed, just blown away, at how efficient it was. It's an experience that makes you think, 'I will never buy another car from anywhere else.'

"He has got that way, that system, whatever it is. He finally got that to trickle down through his racing organization, and it's going to be tough to beat."

Collaboration First

Hendrick's team always was stout, even in its early years when Geoff Bodine and Darrell Waltrip won the Daytona 500 in 1986 and 1989, respectively, and Tim Richmond won seven races and finished third in the standings in 1986. But only recently has the company that debuted as All Star Racing in 1984 demonstrated depth through its lineup.

Last year, Johnson, Gordon and Busch all made the Chase, and Mears, though he finished 15th in the standings, won the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's.

Hendrick made a conscious change in philosophy after Evernham's departure, telling his employees they were going to "win together or lose together" and he wouldn't have "one team doing it one way and one team another way."

When a fourth team was added for Johnson in 2002, it was housed in the same building as Gordon's to foster collaboration. It worked so well Hendrick paired his other two teams, now the No. 5 of Mears and No. 88 of Earnhardt.

For 2008, all four Hendrick teams have aspirations of at least making the Chase. Mears moved to the team vacated by Busch, and Earnhardt brought his cousin and crew chief, Tony Eury Jr., from Dale Earnhardt Inc.

Hendrick's is the organization everyone else is chasing, and throughout NASCAR's top tier, hardly anyone is standing pat.

In the past 12 months, Roush Racing owner Jack Roush sold half of his company to Boston Red Sox owner John Henry, generating $50 million. Evernham sold a majority stake in Evernham Motorsports to Montreal Canadiens owner George Gillette. Joe Gibbs Racing switched from Chevrolet to Toyota, banking on the Japanese giant's will to win. Richard Childress Racing and DEI combined their engine departments.

Michael Waltrip Racing general manager Ty Norris looks to history for hope of one day catching Hendrick.

"There was a time when it was impossible to beat Junior Johnson," he said. "Then there was no way you were going to beat Richard Childress Racing. Then it was Jeff Gordon and Ray Evernham. Eventually, things will turn, and hopefully we'll be there as one of the ones to take over that role."

No Regressing

Felix Sabates, part owner of Chip Ganassi Racing, is less optimistic.

"No one is going to be able to catch Hendrick," he said. "Unless NASCAR makes a rule that Hendrick can have three tires and the rest can have four, no one will catch them. No one is ever going to catch them.

"That doesn't mean they're going to win every championship. That doesn't mean they're going to win every race, because they don't. But that means when you go to the racetrack, that's the team you have to beat every week."

Unrelenting is how Hendrick Motorsports intends to stay. On the wall in the Gordon-Johnson shop is a sign that reads, "In a competitive environment, to remain the same is to regress."

"I think it starts at the top with Rick and runs from front to back with our whole organization," Carlson said. "We know we constantly have to be evolving and getting better."

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