Hendrick Motorsports
Hendrick Motorsports is one of the biggest teams in the NASCAR and boasts of drivers like Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. who recently made the move from Dale Earnhardt Inc. The team in owned by Rick Hendrick and with Jeff Gordon also owning a portion.
It is one of the premier organizations in racing having won seven Cup Series Championships, three Craftsmen Truck Series titles and one Nationwide Series Crown among others. The company employs more than 500 people in its 15,000 square foot store for various functions including managing the team’s website, marketing, public relations, the museum and store, licensing, merchandising, show cars etc.
All the cars of the company are created start-to-finish at the company’s 250,000 square foot complex in Concord in North Carolina and more than 700 engines are built and re-built each year. Some of these are leased out to other NASCAR teams.
The most popular cars in the team are the #5 car, # 17, # 24, #44, # 48, #25 and # 88. The team won six of their first nine races in 2007 and have shown considerable success in the test runs at the Daytona International Speedway this season.
There have been certain doubts however that the dominance of HMS over NASCAR is a bad thing which could slowly lead to the fan base of NASCAR disappearing. The team manufactures the best engines and also seems to win the most number of races. The fans now want an even playing field and this has become evident from recent events including when Jeff Gordon won his 77th NASCAR race and instead of celebrating the moment, fans hurled beer cans, toilet paper and almost anything at his #24 Chevrolet instead.
However the team at the top of the NASCAR tables seems unperturbed by it all.
Filed under: Teams
