Rick Hendrick Made One Huge Decision Back in 2017 That Laid the Foundation for the Team’s NASCAR Domination Currently

Hendrick Motorsports is statistically the winningest team in NASCAR. The racing outfit has earned that accolade not only with the help of star driving talent over the years, such as Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Larson, but also with Rick Hendrick, the team owner who set the organization’s vision for the future.

After their win during the 2025 AdventHealth 400 last weekend, Cliff Daniels, crew chief of Kyle Larson’s #5 team, shared his view that success at HMS has never been limited to just one team. It raises the question: how does an organization such as HMS achieve dominance in the sport with all four of its drivers?

Ever since HMS began fielding four full-time teams on track, Hendrick has been a cohesive unit that has worked with a team goal in mind first. They have gone against the driver-centric approach many deem necessary in top-level motorsports.

With powerhouse teams such as Joe Gibbs Racing also running four-car operations in the sport, it has to be noted that JGR has had only two drivers who’ve showcased speed — Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell — during the 2025 season.

Given the way all four of Rick Hendrick’s drivers are performing leading up to the 2025 All-Star weekend, momentum seems to be on HMS’ side, not only for the #5 crew but the other three teams as well. Historically, four cars of the same team finishing in the top five, while achievable, has been rare in the organization’s record books.

So why now? And the bigger question is how? Daniels thinks it goes back to a key decision Rick Hendrick made all the way back in 2017.

“To me, it all goes back to I think it was 2017, Mr. Hendrick demanded that we weren’t going to have the building split with two teams in different buildings and put us all together,” said the #5 crew chief during the post-race press conference after Larson’s win in Kansas last Sunday.

Sharing is caring at Hendrick Motorsports

“There’s no hidden notes. There’s no secret notebook. Everything is shared really out in the open with our engineering corps, with the crew chief group. All of our meetings are together. We do everything as a combination of the four teams,” he added, further driving the point home.

However, Daniels also acknowledged that an idea in theory is not always executed to the best degree in practice. He was hopeful of the same being achieved by all four HMS teams more often.

“That’s just Mr. Hendrick’s vision of how he wanted the company to be led, and I think he saw that, that the communication, the teamwork, all the cliche things but they’re so important to live out, if that came into fruition, you’d see what you see today, where yeah, I would argue we could run one through four,” he rounded off.

More often than not, one of the four cars at HMS, particularly Alex Bowman‘s, has struggled for results in the recent past. However, with the #48 team also being on song currently, it seems a top four finish sweep for Rick Hendrick is not far away this season.