CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Hendrick Motorsports, NASCAR's winningest team, is chronicled in a new book to celebrate its 40th anniversary.
The book goes much further than just describing the team's hundreds of wins and record-setting championships. It gives the in-depth story of Rick Hendrick's rise in motorsports, his family's triumphs and tragedies, and HMS' development into a racing empire.
Hendrick Motorsports 40 Years is authored by Ben White, a longtime NASCAR journalist who wrote for NASCAR Illustrated for over 20 years. White was commissioned to write the book two decades after he wrote Hendrick's 20th anniversary title.
White said that even though he's the principal writer for the book, Quarto Publishing deserves a lot of praise for putting the book together.
"We all worked as a team and made sure it was the best it could possibly be," White said.
The book's design and organization are immediately eye-catching. All 40 chapters are well-defined and offer a different inside into HMS' history. The front cover alone is a trip through Hendrick Motorsports history, with a NASCAR car divided into 11 sections for different drivers in the team's history. The book opens with a description of who each section of the car represents.
From Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson to Jack Sprague and Jerry Nadeau, every Hendrick moment is covered in the book. The team has long sat atop NASCAR's wins list and the success only continues to grow.
"It's just phenomenal to me how much success [Hendrick] has had by just keeping that positive attitude and he shares that with everybody that's in his orbit," White said. "If you go over to Hendrick Motorsports and see what it began as and then what you see it as today, it just kind of takes your breath away... Everywhere you look there's a mark of success."
An often-told story in NASCAR circles details when Hendrick nearly had to shut the team down in 1984 before winning his first race as a car owner.
Hendrick's Cup Series team started racing in 1984 with Geoff Bodine. Even though he was in the top 10 of the points standings, the team's financial situation was bleak after the season's first six races without strong sponsorship. They put in one last effort at Martinsville Speedway and scored a win, the first for both Bodine and Hendrick. The team secured more sponsorship after the win and was able to stay in business.
That win was the first of an unprecedented 311 Cup Series victories as of the time this story is published. Hendrick drivers have won a record 14 Cup championships.
Hendrick hasn't just showcased his product on the Cup Series circuit. The book explores the team's efforts in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, IMSA, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and now even the Indianapolis 500 with Kyle Larson in collaboration with Arrow McLaren.
"It all began because one guy decided 'I'm a race fan,'" White said. "In the book, [Hendrick] says that he got Richard Petty's autograph at Martinsville when he was a kid. I think that's so cool because he's still a fan even with all the success that he has."
Hendrick has an afterword in the book that looks ahead to the next 40 years of Hendrick Motorsports. He writes that he thinks about the future often and is focused on positioning the team to be successful well beyond 2024 and says he has no plans to slow down. And in the world of auto racing, not slowing down is a good way to keep finishing in victory lane.
Hendrick Motorsports 40 Years is available for pre-order on the team's website. The book will be released on Oct. 22.
