{"id":49772,"date":"2025-02-18T22:40:27","date_gmt":"2025-02-19T04:40:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=49772"},"modified":"2025-02-20T10:46:43","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T16:46:43","slug":"rick-hendrick-nascar-cup-racing-in-good-hands-with-new-generation-of-owners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/18\/rick-hendrick-nascar-cup-racing-in-good-hands-with-new-generation-of-owners\/","title":{"rendered":"Rick Hendrick: NASCAR Cup racing in good hands with new generation of owners"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

Rick Hendrick doesn\u2019t view Jimmie Johnson as a turncoat\u2014far from it.<\/p>\n

After all, Johnson claimed seven NASCAR Cup Series championships\u2014including a record five in a row\u2014while driving the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet from 2001 through 2020.<\/p>\n

\"\"

(Photo by Chris Graythen\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Johnson also contributed 83 victories to Hendrick\u2019s record 313, two of them DAYTONA 500 wins.<\/p>\n

When William Byron took the checkered flag in the Great American Race on Sunday night\u2014winning the event for the second straight year\u2014Hendrick had his 10th triumph as an owner in NASCAR\u2019s most prestigious race, breaking a tie with Petty Enterprises for most all-time.<\/p>\n

Behind Byron and runner-up Tyler Reddick, Johnson finished third after recovering from a problem-plagued pit stop on his final trip to pit road.<\/p>\n

Johnson wasn\u2019t driving a Hendrick car, and he wasn\u2019t driving a Chevrolet. After the two-year detour into the IndyCar Series, Johnson took the plunge into Cup ownership with LEGACY MOTOR CLUB. Last year, the organization switched from Chevrolets to Toyota.<\/p>\n

After two years of struggles, Legacy found a beacon of hope in Sunday\u2019s race, with Johnson\u2019s third and John Hunter Nemechek\u2019s fifth-place run.<\/p>\n

Hendrick doesn\u2019t begrudge Johnson in his breath of success\u2014quite the opposite. When Johnson was contemplating buying into a NASCAR team, Hendrick was his sounding board.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m super impressed with Jimmie,\u201d Hendrick said Monday morning after the Champion\u2019s Breakfast at the DAYTONA 500 Club. \u201cHe came to me and told me what he was working on before he ever went into the deal over there with those guys (Richard Petty and Maury Gallagher).<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I know Jimmie Johnson well enough that, when he puts his mind to it, he\u2019s going to work his butt off. And he\u2019s done an exceptional job\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Hendrick thinks Johnson\u2019s efforts at Legacy are poised for long-term success.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s gone about it the right way,\u201d Hendrick said. \u201cHe built it a brick at a time. You try to get your base right, and you can grow it. Jimmie\u2019s a leader, and his work ethic is so good. He will be a force in the sport because he will surround himself with good people.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he\u2019s articulate. He will be able to bring in good sponsors. I\u2019m real proud of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson wasn\u2019t the only fledging owner who impressed Hendrick during Speedweeks at Daytona. To say that Dale Earnhardt Jr. was fully invested in JR Motorsports\u2019 first attempt at a Cup Series race is a massive understatement.<\/p>\n

In Thursday night\u2019s Duel at Daytona, Justin Allgaier raced his way into the DAYTONA 500 field in the No. 40 JR Motorsports Chevrolet and rallied to finish ninth in the organization\u2019s debut.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so proud of Dale,\u201d Hendrick said. \u201cHe got that car in the race. He wasn\u2019t that happy when he won the 500, and to get that car in the race, I\u2019ve never seen anything to beat it. But he and Kelley (Earnhardt-Miller) worked their butts off.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the future of the sport, you look at Jimmie, you look at Jeff (Dickerson of Spire Motorsports), you look at Dale, you look at Brad (Keselowski of RFK Racing), and you look at those kinds of guys who are sticking their necks out to build something\u2014that\u2019s good for the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

JR Motorsports doesn\u2019t have any current races scheduled in the Cup Series, but Hendrick believes the success at Daytona may prove to be a catalyst for the organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this is going to fuel them to want to do it,\u201d Hendrick said. \u201c\u2026I\u2019ve never seen him this excited. I think this will lead to something.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

William Byron, driver of the #24 Axalta Chevrolet takes the checkered flag to win the NASCAR Cup Series Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway on February 16, 2025 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo by Sean Gardner\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

A matter of inches<\/b><\/p>\n

William Byron\u2019s winning No. 24 Chevrolet returned to Victory Lane on Monday morning for ceremonies honoring the 2025 champion.<\/p>\n

With one notable exception, the car was pristine in appearance, a testament to Byron\u2019s ability to keep his Camaro clean throughout the race.<\/p>\n

The exception was a horizontal scrape directly behind the rear wheel well. The car acquired that scar not while evading the crashing cars of Cole Custer and Denny Hamlin on the decisive final lap, but in the wreck that saw Chistopher Bell\u2019s spinning car launch the Ford of Ryan Preece into the air.<\/p>\n

It was Bell\u2019s Toyota that inflicted the slight damage to Byron\u2019s Chevrolet.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking at the car, where Christopher Bell… where I clipped his car, if that hits me six inches in front of the tire, I\u2019m probably in that crash, hooked into the wall,\u201d Byron said on Monday morning. <\/p>\n

Instead, Byron escaped the close call and eventually found himself in Victory Lane as the fifth driver to win back-to-back DAYTONA 500s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Rick Hendrick doesn\u2019t view Jimmie Johnson as a turncoat\u2014far from it. After all, Johnson claimed seven NASCAR Cup Series championships\u2014including a record five in a row\u2014while driving the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet from 2001 through 2020. Johnson also contributed 83 victories to Hendrick\u2019s record 313, two of them […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":49775,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[16,302],"class_list":["post-49772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-nascar","tag-rick-hendrick"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/GettyImages-1699450936-150x150-1.jpg?fit=150%2C150","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-cWM","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49772"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49777,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49772\/revisions\/49777"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}