It’s hard to imagine how a race team could have a more bountiful year than Hendrick Motorsports did in 2007.
Many teams wanted to sign Junior; Hendrick drove away with the prize.
Investment in people and equipment pays off in everything from longevity to laps led.
Hendrick’s drivers dominated on the track, placing first and second in the seasonlong NASCAR Nextel (now Sprint) Cup points standings and winning half of the 36 points races. Jimmie Johnson won his second straight Cup title, while Jeff Gordon helped Hendrick complete the top-two sweep with his runner-up finish.
Over the course of the Nextel Cup and Busch (now Nationwide) Series seasons, Hendrick teams led 33 percent of the laps of races they entered. (Hendrick did not enter every Busch race.)
The organization’s nearly $40 million in prize money — all four of its drivers posted victories — was a record and set the bar even higher for the team that’s considered the standard in NASCAR, with a state-of-the-art 600,000-square-foot workplace and 550 employees.
“That’s an unbelievable year,” said Larry McReynolds, analyst for Fox Sports and Speed. “There are a lot of people at Hendrick Motorsports that made that possible — the drivers, crew chiefs and management staff — but at the end of the day, it traces back to Rick Hendrick. Rick has done a phenomenal job of not only creating resources and all the ingredients to do well, but enabled his people to work well together. That’s the only way operations can perform at that level.”
WHAT PEOPLE
ARE SAYING:
“No matter how big an operation you have, it’s all about the people. When you take that many people, teams, drivers, personalities and egos, and can have them pulling together, you’ve done a terrific job and that’s what Hendrick did in 2007.”
LARRY MCREYNOLDS
Analyst, Fox Sports, Speed
Hendrick’s accomplishments in 2007 didn’t end when the checkered flag dropped. In fact, the organization might have made as much news off the track with the signing of Dale Earnhardt Jr. as it did on the track.
Even though Hendrick had to discard one of the most promising talents in the sport, Kyle Busch, to create the vacancy for Earnhardt, this new powerhouse team drew the most money ever for a sponsorship in NASCAR, believed to be in the range of $30 million-plus a year between Amp and National Guard.
Earnhardt also is responsible for about a third of all licensed merchandise sales in the sport — even more this year — and that revenue typically is shared with the team and the sponsor.
It’s the culture of teamwork at Hendrick that has enabled Earnhardt to fit in so seamlessly.
“When the Hendrick teammates talk about each other, even with Rick pollinating his operation with Dale Earnhardt Jr., they always praise their teammates for doing well or winning a race,” McReynolds said. “It’s very rare for one of those teammates to win and the others not show up in victory lane to congratulate him.”
Earnhardt’s signing not only amplified Hendrick’s ability to lure the biggest stars to his operation, it highlighted his many longtime sponsor relationships. Of Hendrick’s more than 25 sponsor partners, their average tenure there is 14 years. Primary sponsors have been there an average of six years.
When Earnhardt was signed, Hendrick offered the sponsorship opportunity to two partners already on board — Pepsi (makers of Amp) and National Guard. Pepsi had its main brand on Jeff Gordon’s car and National Guard was a part-time primary sponsor on Casey Mears’ car.
“It was theirs to lose,” Hendrick said. “And they never did anything to lose it.”
