Hendrick: Humble start to business, racing empires

Rick Hendrick had the need for speed at an early age. From the moment he began helping at his father's shop in Virginia as a young boy, Hendrick was all about all things mechanical.

A three-sport athlete who had the talent to play pro ball, Hendrick also drag raced. And after college, he parlayed his ability to buy and sell cars into a dealership empire. Along the way, he set world speed records for drag boat racing and a chance meeting with Dale Earnhardt's father-in-law sent him down the stock-car ownership path.

Hall of Fame bio

The founder and owner of Hendrick Motorsports, Rick Hendrick recently celebrated his 25th anniversary as a team owner. His organization is recognized as one of NASCAR's most successful, his teams having won eight Cup titles.

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From humble beginnings in 1984, when his shoestring operation nearly went under, to one of NASCAR's preeminent teams 25 years later -- as chronicled in the documentary, Together: The Rick Hendrick Story, Hendrick has witnessed first-hand the exponential growth of the sport.

• Hendrick opens up about 'Together'
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Q: How did you get into racing?

Hendrick: My dad raced when I was growing up in Virginia, on the farm. He had modified cars and I would go with him and work on the cars. I was a gear head in the '60s, did drag racing, raced boats, raced cars. I've raced about everything there is. It started at 7, 8 years old when he was working on the modified car that Ray Hendrick drove. It's just been kind of in my blood all my life.

Q: Weren't you on Ray Hendrick's pit crew back then?

Hendrick: Well, I was with my dad. I cleaned the shop and rode in the back of the truck and went to the track. I did some mechanical stuff around the shop but I started drag racing and moved away, went to school and started to try to make a living working on cars and got my first dealership and started racing boats again. I went to Robert Gee, who was Dale Earnhardt's father-in-law and Junior's granddaddy. He and I were from the same little town in Virginia. I knew Robert because he put a scoop on the hood of my car when I was about 15 years old. So when I got to Charlotte, he was in Charlotte, and I went to help him with his dirt car and we did the Busch car together that Earnhardt drove.

I've kind of been at the right place at the right time and started a team back in '84 with five people and no sponsor and almost quit. We ran four or five races and was out of money, then found a sponsor and won three races my first year. So that was kind of unheard of. But I had Harry Hyde and Geoff Bodine. Harry was an awful good crew chief and probably as sharp as anybody in that day, as far as putting a team together and knowing how to race.

Q: You were a very talented athlete growing up. Didn't you have a chance to play professional baseball?

Hendrick: Yeah, I lettered in all three sports in high school and had a .500 batting average my last year in baseball and had a chance to play with the Pirates' farm team in Raleigh. I elected to go to school, and a good thing I did. I'd be riding a bus somewhere in the Midwest right now, probably as a batting coach or something.

The racing's what got me into the automobile business, really. The ability and knowing how to work on cars. When I was in school, I had a choice. I could either tune up cars and do brake jobs at a service station or work at Hardee's, flipping hamburgers. I started buying and selling a few cars, and that led me into the car business and that gave me the ability to get back into the racing business. (Continued)