A Winning Formula: Exclusive Interview with NASCAR Team Owner and Car Dealership Mogul Rick Hendrick

[Music] his influence on Motorsports is astounding he owns the winningest team in Cup Series history you may have bought a vehicle from one of his dealerships I talked to the one and only Rick Hendricks right now on the Delano little show [Music] Bay Aqua Sports presents the Delano little show welcome to the Delano little show I am honored and privileged to have with me one of my longtime friends I hope I can say that absolutely Rick Hendrick NASCAR owner NASCAR champion Nascar Hall of Famer and you so graciously allowed us to come into your home today we are at the uh NASCAR Motorsports complex here the Hendrick Motorsports complex in Concord North Carolina this place is is absolutely gorgeous you did a lot of work out here it's amazing when you look at it today it's about 600 000 square feet and when I came out here to get started in 1984 I was leasing 5 000 feet from Harry Hyde this road was gravel and there were trailers house trailers along this Ridge so it has really changed and Harry Hyde was to you who was Harry High to you Harry Hyde was a crew chief and I met Harry I was racing boats and storing them over here Harry wasn't racing anymore and so I got a call one day for Max mullerman and he said how would you like to be partners with Kenny Rogers and C.K Spurlock and have Richard Petty as a driver I said is this a trick question and so because Max was looking for sponsors of my boats and we got together and that's how I'll start racing was formed and we had five employees and two of them were volunteer when we started I was renting the space the tools everything from Harry and so and we ended up winning a race and the rest is history five employees so what would you estimate that you have 600 600 wow that is absolutely amazing and just to be in the it almost feels like it's the hallowed Hall was here I mean you walk around and you see all the trophies and all the past drivers you've had so many drivers and um it just feels good to be here do you get caught up in it sometimes do you walk down do you spend time here I do I uh I walked through the museum and I had the first car we ever raced and so I look at we're at 295 wins and when we tied Petty and then broke Petty's record at 269 I have that car so I have all the championship cars 14 that won championships Daytona winners so there's a lot of history here and when I walked through it it you know brings me back in time to Ricky's truck that he won in the inaugural race in Kansas yeah so uh when you I think one of the most important things about history and is being go going back and reliving you know those days when you had Tim Richmond and driving it Riverside or Jeff beaudine or seeing Gordon when he had that little pencil mustache and thought he wasn't old enough to drive and so you know history is great and what we've tried to do here is is capture that so the fans can come in and see the cars and see the trophies and uh so it's it means a lot to me it's something that it's very heartwarming and I remember all the people that helped me get it here well we talk about other drivers I mean you've had numerous drivers over the years and and all pretty much famous you know is in their own rights so I'm already in the Hall of Fame just like you are are they kind of like you're do you kind of consider them to be kind of like your kids yeah I definitely Jeff Gordon and Jimmy Johnson and Terry Labonte is a great friend the champion and so then you come along and I've met Chase Elliott when he was 14 and hired and you did a deal with him to bring him up through the ranks and then he's a champion and William Byron he's been like a son and so watching them all grow up and from the crew chiefs the same way yeah and so you see him uh I get as much enjoyment out of watching them succeed and go from go-karts to sprint cars to becoming a NASCAR champion you know that you know if I've done it 14 times now so to see a guy win it for the first time it's unbelievable and and you you tell you can you care about all the drivers yeah you've seen them go through a lot of ups and downs you've been through a lot of ups and downs as far as your career is concerned but how do you how do you deal with those ups and downs do you have a philosophy of how you kind of handle those kind of things or do you you just played everything by ear well no I think it's your faith your family and your friends that get you through things when I lost my son my brother and my nieces in the plane crash going to Martinsville and the president of this company and you know my CFO I mean wiped out my family and the company and I didn't know if I could ever come back and do it again and I came over two weeks later and all the folks were together and we cried and and we had to you know I had to to protect them and I wanted the dream that those folks on the plane had to to go forward so we kind of grabbed our hands and said let's do this and then we just kept it rolling but it was tough and you still have those memories that's why those fountains out here with all the names and every time we win a race we point to the heavens and turn our hats on backwards to you know honor my son and so it's you know your strength comes from your people and your faith and family and uh and you know I'm blessed to have a lot of great people when you walk around here that people been here for you know 25 years 30 years and I give a watch at 20 years and every year it's 10 or 15 people that get watches and so you know it I don't care what kind of business you're in it's all about the people and when you can build a character and a relationship with a team that wants to win together then you're going to lose together you're going to lose more than you win but then when you have real struggles deaths or something like that that's when it really takes hold okay we're going to come back you know after the break we're going to talk a little bit more about that because I know this car right here behind us the number five car is very special to you I want to have you talk about that you're being being in the Hall of Fame I want to hear about all I just want to talk to you uh we have a lot in common I got I got something that that I discovered that you and I have in common it's probably why we're such good friends we'll be right back on the delayed a little show stay with us foreign welcome back to the Delano little show here with NASCAR owner Rick Hendrick and we were talking before the break about a family and how much that means to most of us as we go through life this car behind me the number five car uh is special to you you mind talking about that sure number five was my first number and so we for some reason we retired it I think it was because Junior was 88 and we had uh you know Elliott wanted nine so some of the numbers we shuffled around so when Larson comes in we went back to number five our first number and it's so special to me because it's got my son's paint Scheme on it so I've got the first number in the paint Scheme my son drove and then we put Hendrick cars on it when we started and that's been so good for the company so right it's worked out really well all right well um we were talking before uh we were on camera about the Nascar Hall of Fame and how much it means to you that all the the things that are in here this is a museum in itself I mean you can just walk right through this one building and you got more you got about a bunch of cars that you've uh if you want to talk about that because you come to the Corvettes right yeah yeah I've got a car collection and I've got the largest Corvette collection in the world and I never thought I'd own one and uh so I started when I got into business I've been in the automobile business since 1976 and uh so my first Corvette I dated my wife in we've been married 50 years right and uh when we had a big celebration we had it at the party and we drove away in it and uh so it's pretty smooth yeah that's pretty smooth well it broke down the first night we dated but now I've restored it and it's pretty special but but I've got a lot of serial number ones person I've collected for I've got Ferraris over the years so I've got about 300 cars that that I've collected over almost 50 years now wow and so a lot of Gold Wing Mercedes and things like that you need to come see them I would love to do you get a chance to visit it much and I was here yesterday I got one that came in I got to drive and put it up so so Jay Leno has nothing on you Jay Leno's been here a couple oh really get out of here okay yeah was he impressed with the car collection I know he's got a big one too late night star yes yeah I've been to his place it's pretty neat uh cool Hall of Fame what was it like when you got the call I mean because you obviously knew you were going to get the call but does it still resonate with you you know when you get when you you think you're going to get in because people tell you all right and and you get a call and and you say okay I'm in the Hall of Fame but it doesn't really hit you until the night of the ceremony and when you walk in and all the folks are there and you have your family friends and teammates and it's actually happening and you you have Jeff and Jimmy on the stage my wife gives me the ring then that is when it really hits home that you have finally a dream that you had you know my dream was always cars I wanted to sell cars and race cars and I've been fortunate to do both and to reach that Pinnacle I've now gone into the Hall of Fame with Corvettes and Automotive business and NASCAR so I guess I'm just getting too old I need to retire but I don't want to well that's the most one of the most interesting things is when usually when you go into the Hall of Fame your career is long gone yeah you're still at it and 295 wins yeah the most by any team ever yeah and you've got five to three hundred I mean do you jinx yourself or do you start thinking about how you're going to celebrate that 300th with you know we we start planting out in the head because there's a lot of things that you want to do when you get to 300 but I remember 200 and we got to 198 and we were stuck and I mean I we had banners we had hats we had we had everything ready we had everything but the winds yeah so we're five away and we've won four already this year so we're getting prepared but the big deal for me was well tying and beating Richard Petty's record of 269 right and so I think we got a lot left to give a lot left to do and uh you know so but we celebrate all those Milestones because they're super you know special yes and you've done so much on the track but you've done a lot a lot off the track as well I remember when I came here the first person I saw pretty much was was you because I was interviewing for a job back in television back in 1989 and a person that was going to hire me was a guy named Paul Cameron a very famous sportscaster here in town and he brought me in and he said the first thing I want you to do is go shoot a Charlotte Knights game so I know you can be a photographer and then he said the second thing I got something set up and he took me out to the racetrack and we got in the car with you yes he wanted me to meet you and we got in the car in a Lexus I believe and drove around and you drove us around remember that I remember that that was I mean that's pretty cool for me to have had that we should have had you in a race car well I don't know about all that now speaking of racing you you did some race we're gonna come back and talk about that um you didn't do it very long but we'll talk about that and I do have something I do want to do want to mention why I think we're a really good friends stay with us on the delay the little show oh welcome back to the Delano little show here with Rick Hendrick NASCAR owner NASCAR champion Nascar Hall of Famer uh We've we go back a long way we talked about you one of the first people I met when I got here to Charlotte back in 1989 but you you've also done some other things and I had a charity uh called One Nation Foundation at one point in my career right before 9 11 and I came to you and asked for a donation for that charity which was to bring people together and you'd never hesitated to give me money for that and you know I'm I've I've had that I'm sure I thanked you but I'd like to thank you again we were able to give uh 22 young kids a scholarship uh to school with that money and I appreciate that but you you do a lot of that not only just for me but you do it a lot for for charity as as does NASCAR right yeah yeah we you know we have had golf tournaments for 30 years and supported the hospital and our one of our big Charities is feeding the you know needy families and we we support 27 food banks throughout the country uh in every city I've got dealerships we support the food bank and then for Easter meals for the first quarter we gave them a million two and that would be enough meals to feed when you look at the families over 200 000 people wow so we do that four times a year and it's it all our employees are involved they donate I match and we go to the food banks and we work with the food banks and our drivers go to the food banks when we present the checks and and we pack food and it's it's it's brought our company together and you know it's been a real real blessing to be able to help and we've done same thing with scholarships for young guys that want to be in the automobile business and we did 350 scholarships where our employees kids this year so we've you know we've been a blessed company and we believe in in giving back into communities and nothing I can think of is any more important than the hospitals and feeding the hungry so it's been such a such a privilege that we've been able to do it right now you were you drove a little bit but you you got out of that with any particular reason or did I could hire somebody a lot better than I was I hear you I hear you I love it I've boat raced and won championships there and I drag raced one there and I piddled into the cup series Ransom races and that then called Bush series and uh out qualified Daryl Waltrip and all my guys that at Riverside yeah you beat me but no it was it was fun I did it for the fun and uh I still like to run fast boats on the water and I drive over to drag strip some but uh you know you realize that you can you can find talent that are a lot better than you are so right I think I'm I'm trying to probably better at trying to manage the company the team than I am driving but I still love to do it if you had a young kid that came up to you and say I want to be you one day how what would you reply to them how to get to that point well you know it's like they need to start young and it's like any college sport or any you know kids playing soccer kids playing lacrosse a football you know they all want to be in the NFL right but that not that there's a certain group that gets to go to college then it's a very small percentage two percent or whatever they get to go play in NFL well if you think about all the tracks around the country thousands and thousands of tracks there are only 40 guys that can compete in this series right and so a lot of competition a lot of Youth coming in and so I think my message is always starting go-karts or some kind of little Open Wheel cars move into stock body cars and then work your way up but I never go to a race there's not a father and kids who walk up and hand me their card and say he's going to drive for you one day and that's what happened with William Byron at 14 he said I'm going to drive for you going wow I bet I didn't didn't know that was going to ever happen but no it's it's uh it's just like any professional sport there's a pathway but not many people get to make it to the top yeah you and I have Italian and I was just I Googled you and I basically came up that your birthday is July 12th that's right I'm July 16th we're yeah that's right yes I mean do you believe in that kind of stuff okay yes sir so we're both cancers yeah that's why we're such good friends so uh we're going to come back and we'll talk about your connection to Bay Hackle Sports okay uh and we'll wrap it up on the Delano little show right after this welcome back to the Delano little show here with Rick Hendrick NASCAR owner and was you you've been involved in the community for a long time with a lot of different sports you're a sports fan right you're looking to try to bring the Charlotte Hornets here to town and you did it with cyber Hackle who was kind of part of that and we're here with bayhacklesports.com so he was the forefather of all this and you were friends with him so I was he was the anchor that helped get this thing that the NBA to Charlotte he was a good friend he uh I met him when I first got to Charlotte before the Hornets and he was always just a super nice and kind to me and we'd be at events so uh yeah we we went to Phoenix I guess it was to to try to get to get the franchise and some guys from another set I think it was Minnesota or somewhere said the only franchise you guys are going to get it or the arches of a McDonald's in Charlotte and that pissed us off yeah so uh no he he was a good friend got the Hornets here I mean what a what a lift it gave the city you know go to those all the games were sold out yes you know we everybody was a fan it's a cool time merchandise was all over the place and it was fun time got to get them winning again level again so um what would you say people tried to kill NASCAR for years NASCAR is never going to make it obviously wrong where do you see the future of NASCAR well I think the future is really bright we're doing a lot of different things we're going to race in the streets of Chicago which I never thought we'd have a street race and the venues this year are selling out Phoenix Daytona and uh you know so a lot of growth the new car a lot of new fans a lot of young fans which are really glad to see and uh you know it's evolving I think we'll probably run some type of electric component probably a hybrid in the next couple of years so uh you know it it got a tremendous fan base and it's growing so a lot of good things are happening in the sport and so I'm looking looking forward to a bright future Mr H thank you so much thank you buddy always good appreciate that you as well and uh Rick and you're going the Delano little show hope to see you again soon take care [Music] foreign

Channel: Bahakel Sports

Views: 18,641

Keywords:

Id: CCgJrA5swUo

Length: 21min 34sec (1294 seconds)

Published: Fri May 26 2023