Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

What was Rick Hendrick’s motive behind building his NASCAR team, Hendrick Motorsports?

Originally posted on FirstSportz | By Justin P Joy | Last updated 12/31/23

Hendrick Motorsports is the greatest NASCAR team in the sport’s 75-year history. They have won 14 Cup titles, three Truck Series titles, and an Xfinity Series title. Their massive victory count includes 301 Cup race wins, 26 Xfinity and Truck wins, and seven ARCA Mendes Series wins from 1984 races in which they have competed in the national division.

Rick Hendrick , the Hall of Fame team owner, has fielded cars for some of the most legendary names of the sport. Jimmie Johnson won his record seven titles driving for the team, while Jeff Gordan’s four impressive triumphs came at HMS. Modern-day stars such as Dale Earnhardt Jr, Kyle Busch , Kyle Larson, and Chase Elliott have driven for the team and have won multiple races and titles.

While NASCAR can be a lucrative business when you own one of the top teams that can consistently fight for the wins, making money via NASCAR wasn’t his motive. He used his $300 million team to expand his Automobile dealership business using partnership deals with his teams’ sponsors and people around the sport.

I never intended to make money, I just intended not to lose my butt…They let RJ Reynolds do the marketing for them [NASCAR]. But the teams didn’t market. So, we used some of the things I did in the automobile business. Working with people and sponsors and B2B opportunities… Hendrick said via Cars and Culture with Jason Stein two years ago.

The Next-Gen era has been disappointing for Rick Hendrick

NASCAR introduced the Next-Gen cars to the Cup series in 2022, and the teams have used the car in the last two seasons. All four HMS drivers, Larson, Elliott, Willaim Byron, and Alex Bowman, have won races in the two seasons, and three of them have made it to the Championship-4. But they haven’t been able to score the all-important win title in the finale.

HMS drivers won the titles in 2020 and 2021. Going into the Next-Gen debut season, they were expected to showcase similar dominance. Their charge was led by 2020 Cup champion Elliott, who won the regular season title but lost in the finale to Team Penske Racing’s Joey Logano.

In 2023, they had two drivers in the finale, Kyle Larson and Willaims Byron. But once again, it was a Team Penske driver that broke Hendrick’s heart. He impressively won the title while both Hedrick cars finished the race behind him.