CONCORD, N.C. – Hendrick Motorsports only had to wait one week after tying Petty Enterprises as the winningest team in NASCAR Cup Series history before taking the record outright.
Thanks to Kyle Larson’s thrashing of the field in Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, team owner Rick Hendrick saw the culmination of his organization’s rise from fledgling underdog to the sport’s gold standard with its 269th Cup Series victory since being founded in 1984.
It pushed Hendrick Motorsports clear of the 268 wins owned by Petty Enterprises, which first claimed the wins record for a team in NASCAR’s premier division in 1960 at Orange County Speedway in Rougemont, N.C., and held the mark continuously for 61 years until Sunday night.
Larson led 327 of 400 laps in the sport’s longest race – held just a few miles down the road from the Hendrick Motorsports campus in Concord, N.C. – en route to the record-setting triumph.
As he soaked in the moment in the hours after the race, Hendrick smiled and marveled at what his once-small team has been able to become – a modern-era Goliath in American stock car racing.
“When we got to 200 wins, just thinking that we could get to 269 and beat Richard’s number … I never thought we’d get there,” Hendrick admitted. “Then, all of a sudden, the momentum started and we had a good run last year and this year and got close enough where now we’re sitting here.
“I want to say this about Richard: He’s a class act. He has done more for the sport than anybody I know of in the sport, and yet he’s still the same Richard to all the fans,” Hendrick added. “I have tremendous respect for the Petty family and what they’ve accomplished. It’s an honor to be where we are now.”
NASCAR Chairman and CEO Jim France – a part of the sport since Hendrick’s humble beginnings in the mid-1980s – issued a statement of congratulations on the team’s milestone shortly after the checkered flag waved Sunday night.
“I am proud to congratulate Rick Hendrick and all of Hendrick Motorsports on breaking the all-time wins record for a NASCAR Cup Series race team, long held by the legendary Petty Enterprises team,” France said. “With nearly 40 years of excellence, Hendrick Motorsports has set the gold standard for race team success.
“Rick Hendrick has already cemented his legacy as a NASCAR Hall of Famer and has now added another incredible accomplishment to an exemplary NASCAR career.”
Sunday’s win comes in a season where Hendrick brought back his iconic No. 5 – the same car number he used when he launched the team as All Star Racing in 1985 with driver Geoff Bodine – to the race track.
He’s also seeking a record-extending 14th Cup Series championship – but Sunday was all about a trophy.
As the laps wound down Sunday night and all four of his drivers were in contention at the front of the field, Hendrick noted that he wasn’t focused on seeing one of them visit victory lane over the others.
“I didn’t care who broke the record. I just wanted to win it,” Hendrick said. “Any one of them [could have], I pull for them all the same. It’s tough when they’re battling each other for the lead, but the objective in this race was to win it. Whoever could win it, that was great.
“The fact that the (No.) 5 was my first number and we decided to go back to it this year, it’s pretty neat that [the record-setting win] was with that car number,” he added. “But the (No.) 24 has got a lot of history with us, Chase’s number, Alex with having Jimmie [Johnson]’s (No.) 48 … I didn’t care who won it, just so long as one of them won it.”
What will Hendrick remember most about Sunday night’s historic victory?
“I’m going to remember that I really wanted to break the record at home. I really wanted to do it in Charlotte,” Hendrick noted. “When the race started and it looked like we were going to be really strong and all of them were running in the top five, I thought, ‘We’ve really got a shot tonight. I didn’t like seeing Kyle (Busch) up there, but I’ll remember that I started about a mile from here in a little tin building and never thought I’d win a NASCAR race.
“I didn’t think I belonged when I got to Daytona the first time and I looked at the Wood Brothers, Junior Johnson and Richard Petty. I thought, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here,” Hendrick recalled. “I think about all those things, and about breaking this record, because it’s huge for our company to win 269 races … and I just think how special it is to be sitting here talking about it.
“It’s a night we’ll never forget.”
As for the record, Hendrick isn’t even thinking about the mark itself being permanent in any way.
“Someone will probably break my record,” Hendrick acknowledged. “Records are made to be broken.”
This one, however, is likely to stand for a while – just as Petty Enterprises’ mark did for so many years.
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