Martinsville continues to be Hendrick Motorsports' old reliable

Alan Gustafson, crew chief for the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports team and driver Chase Elliott, received a phone call from team owner Rick Hendrick on Sunday morning ahead of Sunday's Cook Out 400 at Martinsville. 

He was packing his suitcase and didn't pick up the phone initially. 

"I didn’t answer, so I was like, 'Sh--, I better get on it,'" Gustafson said Sunday evening. "As soon as I got in the car, I called him right back."

Hendrick was calling to tell Gustafson that Sunday's race was a marathon, not a sprint. 

It was just the advice that Gustafson, the No. 9 team, and all of Hendrick Motorsports needed to hear. After all, before Sunday, HMS was winless through the first six races of the 2026 campaign as a whole — the first time that had happened since 2019. For NASCAR's winningest organization, such a drought probably felt more like 60 races than six.

But just like in 2019, when Elliott broke through and won in race 10 at Talladega, he won Sunday's race at Martinsville after a savvy strategy call from Gustafson got him up front, timely cautions helped him stay there and stellar driving allowed him to hold off a dominant Denny Hamlin in the closing laps to take the checkered flag.

It's fitting that Hendrick Motorsports, which, like all other Chevy teams in 2026, is adjusting to a new body style for the 2026 season, scored its first win of the season at Martinsville, the track the organization literally owes its existence to and has consistently dominated since it became one of NASCAR's superpowers. 

And while the team has always been fast at "The Paperclip," it's possible a Sunday morning phone call from the big boss in Hendrick himself helped propel one of his entries to victory lane. 

"He’s just a master," HMS Vice Chairman and Hall of Fame driver Jeff Gordon said of Hendrick Sunday evening. "He’s amazing. His experience level of being in business and how important the people are, he knows how to read a room, he knows how to read people, and he knows how to motivate them when they need it most."

"Sometimes that’s a kick in the butt. Sometimes that’s just support. He wants it bad. Nobody’s more competitive than he is."

Martinsville success a constant for Hendrick Motorsports

Elliott's victory is the seventh at Martinsville in the last 12 races at the half-mile Virginia short track. While the victory comes relatively late in the calendar for HMS, it's early for Elliott. The seventh race of the season is the earliest Elliott has ever claimed a victory before in any of his 11 Cup Series seasons. 

"Really cool," Elliott said. "And going into an off week, too, which get to enjoy for two weeks, not one. Kind of nice. It’s the little things, man. You kind of definitely learn to enjoy that stuff. Yeah, just nice to kind of get to end this first stretch of the season going into the off week with the win is really cool."

Elliott is now the highest HMS driver in the Cup Series standings in fourth, with William Byron, who finished fifth on Sunday, right behind in fifth. Kyle Larson is ninth in the standings after a ninth-place run at Martinsville on Sunday afternoon. 

Modern NASCAR is constantly evolving on the fly, but alongside death and taxes, it seems one of the certainties of life is Hendrick Motorsports running up front at Martinsville.