Hendrick Motorsports (HMS) steps into its 40th year of NASCAR operations in 2024. Over these last four decades, it has produced drivers who have been the bricks upon which stock car racing largely stands today. Of the many stars who catapulted the team’s cars to victory lanes and championships, eleven stand out having made it into the coveted NASCAR Hall of Fame.
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Waddell Wilson (Class of 2020) – The oldest among HMS’s Hall of Famers is the renowned engine builder and crew chief Waddell Wilson. Wilson worked with many Cup Series drivers, including HMS icons Darrell Waltrip and Benny Parsons over his long career. His engines accumulated a total of 109 wins under the command of the likes of Cale Yarborough and Bobby Allison. He spent four seasons as a crew chief with HMS.
Darrell Waltrip (Class of 2012) – Competing as a professional racer at the top tier between 1972 and 2000, Waltrip earned 3 championships and 84 wins. He is tied with fourth with Bobby Allison for all-time victories. He won the 1989 Daytona 500 driving Rick Hendrick’s Chevrolet. He drove four full-time seasons with HMS during which he also won the Most Popular Driver award twice.
Benny Parsons (Class of 2017) – Parsons drove one full-time season with HMS in 1987 as a replacement for Tim Richmond. He secured 9 top-10 finishes in his run for Hendrick. He was the 1973 Winston Cup Series champion and also a Daytona 500 winner (1975). The first driver to clock over 200 mph in qualifying, Parsons won 21 races in his career between 1964 and 1988.
Ray Evernham (Class of 2018) – Evernham led Jeff Gordon to three championships in four seasons (1995, 1997 and 1998). He helped the #24 HMS car to two Daytona 500 and Brickyard 400 victories. He rejoined the team back in 2014 as a consultant after a brief stint as an ESPN analyst and is now attempting to revive the lost IROC series.
Mark Martin (Class of 2017) – Martin drove under Jack Roush for the major part of his career, but he also spent 3 seasons with HMS between 2009 and 2011. Racing between 1981 and 2013, he won 40 races in the Cup Series but never managed to find himself a championship. 5 of his 40 wins came behind the #5 HMS car.
Terry Labonte (Class of 2016) – Labonte or the Iceman, as he was known, was associated with HMS for 12 seasons between 1994 and 2005. The second of his two championships came during this time (1996). He earned 12 wins for the team and was named one of NASCAR’s 50 greatest drivers in 1998. During his HoF induction, Rick Hendrick said, “He was just a big asset to our company, so it’s really, really neat to be able to watch him go into the Hall of Fame.”
Chad Knaus (Class of 2024) –The man behind the success of Jimmie Johnson. Knaus was the crew chief under whom Johnson dominated NASCAR for over a decade and gathered 7 Cup Series championships. He is currently employed with the team as the VP of competition. Knaus’s beginnings were under the HMS crew of Ray Evernham. By the time his stint in the crews ended, he had given his team 7 championships and 82 race wins.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Class of 2021) – Dale Jr. is best known for his time under Rick Hendrick, more than under his father’s Dale Earnhardt Inc. Perhaps the most popular driver NASCAR has ever seen, Junior won 26 races over his career. Driving the #88 car for Hendrick Motorsports, he won 9 races and 1 Daytona 500. His Xfinity Series team JR Motorsports is closely affiliated with Hendrick Motorsports.
Jimmie Johnson (Class of 2024) – The latest from the garages of HMS to be inducted into the Hall of Fame is perhaps the best driver that stock car racing has seen. Johnson played a huge part in building Rick Hendrick’s team. 7 of the 14 championships that HMS has in the Cup Series came as the result of Johnson’s skill behind the wheel. He found the victory lane in 82 races, including 2 Daytona 500s and 4 Coca-Cola 600s.
Jeff Gordon (Class of 2019) – Gordon, along with Jimmie Johnson, served as the closest aide of Rick Hendrick over the last three decades at HMS. He was spotted as a youngster by the team owner and brought to drive at HMS without even a sponsor. The gamble paid off when Gordon raced the #24 car to four championships (93 wins) in his time with the team. Hendrick has often mentioned that Gordon was like a son to him. He serves as the Vice Chairman of HMS today.
Rick Hendrick (Class of 2017) – Hendrick is the most successful team owner that NASCAR has witnessed. Laying the founding stone for HMS in 1984, he built the team into the gigantic force that it is today with over 300 wins in the Cup Series. 600 employees of Hendrick work in Concord, NC at the race shops of HMS. Over the last four decades, his team has won 18 championships across the three tiers of NASCAR.
As Hendrick Motorsports steps into its 40th season in stock car racing, several more stars are waiting to build the team’s legacy further and earn their entry to the Hall of Fame. At least for the foreseeable future, HMS will continue its domination of the Cup Series with the help of its stellar drivers and crew chiefs.
