As the fan-favorite Daytona 500 inches closer and closer, Hendrick Motorsports gears up for their ninth win in the prestigious event. Dusting themselves off of last year’s misfortunes, Alex Bowman and Chase Elliott have surely pulled up their socks as they prepare themselves for a new season. Interestingly, none of the current HMS drivers have ever won the Daytona 500. But let’s take a look at the drivers who have in the past with the iconic team.
Advertisement
After having narrowly missed out on winning the 1996 Winston Cup championship, Jeff Gordon’s crew chief Ray Evernham felt that his team was too tensed to bring out their A-game in the upcoming season opener at the 2.5-mile, tri-oval track in Florida. Therefore, he decided to record the BTS of the team’s Daytona 500 project, which gave birth to the famous documentary “Refuse to Lose”. And it served its purpose. Not long after, Gordon won his first-ever Daytona 500 in 1997. Little did Evernham know that the winning momentum that his little film brought to the team would assist Gordon to win two more Daytona 500s in 1999 and 2005.
Gordon’s winning momentum was carried on by the 7X Cup champion Jimmie Johnson. In 2006, the Hall of Famer picked up his first victory at the famed racetrack. He held off a fast-charging Dale Earnhardt Jr. to grab the checkered flag. Thereafter, Johnson sailed to the victory lane once again in 2013.
The last victory at the 500 to have ever been brought home by a Hendrick Motorsports driver was way back in 2014 and that too, by the hands of none other than Dale Earnhardt Jr., driver of the #88 National Guard Chevy.
What does the 2024 Daytona 500 mean to Hendrick Motorsports?
Amidst the unparalleled joy of winning the 2014 Daytona 500, Junior clicked a selfie with the Harley J. Earl Trophy and posted it on his Twitter account, saying, “Tonight seemed like as good a night as any to join Twitter. How is everyone doing? #2XDaytona500Champ.” Sure, it was a day of celebration for everyone behind the HMS garage. But since then, it’s been a decade and the winningest team in NASCAR has never seen the face of victory in “The Superbowl of NASCAR “.
So what does this year’s Daytona 500 mean to the team?
Needless to say, every driver is hyped up for this race. Be it Elliott, Kyle Larson, Bowman, or William Byron, everyone wants to check that one box off their list. Elliott recalled his best finish of 2nd in 2021 and admitted that winning this year would be “a big one”.
Even Larson wants his first-ever win at the most important race of the season. Although he hasn’t been great at NASCAR’s superspeedways, especially on the plate tracks, the #5 speedster regarded the 500-mile race as the biggest and the most prestigious race of the year.
However, Larson might face some competition from his teammate, Alex Bowman. After all, Bowman has a record of six straight front-row starts at the Daytona 500. He was the pole sitter for the 2023 race and has also won the pole twice before in 2018 and 2021. “Daytona 500 qualifying means a lot to Mr. H and we do our best to help it,” said the number 48 driver. “Hopefully, we can do it again. Making it to the end of that race and winning would be really cool as well.”
Byron is exceptionally optimistic. His first Cup Series victory came at the 2020 summer race at the Daytona International Speedway. And capitalizing on the chemistry between his spotter and himself, Byron feels like his otherwise hit-or-miss performances at the superspeedways will this time turn into a full-fledged hit.
