Long before Rick Hendrick owned race teams, dealerships, or championship trophies, he was learning lessons on his family’s tobacco farm. Growing up in a community where neighbours depended on one another to get through the difficult times, he learned one thing: nobody succeeds alone. That belief stayed with him throughout his life, and in 2020 when it was put to the ultimate test.
Businesses throughout America had gone into survival mode and more than 20 million jobs vanished in April alone. Companies were scrambling to cut costs and preserve cash. But at a time when dealerships shuttered and uncertainty spread across the racing industry, Rick Hendrick made a different call, one rooted in that long-held belief.
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“Actually, it was a Friday night and I went home and Linda and I were talking and it happened first in California. They shut down California first and I said, ‘I just cannot think of laying people off. I’m going to pay them as long as I can.’ So, we paid everybody 80% and we kept everybody together. Didn’t lay anybody off,” Rick Hendrick recently revealed on the Cars and Culture with Jason Stein interview.
It was not an easy decision. In 2020, Hendrick Automotive Group generated approximately $10 billion in revenue, sold 219,000 vehicles, and serviced 2.4 million cars and trucks across 95 dealership locations in 13 states, employing over 10,000 people. So, even for a billionaire, carrying that kind of payroll through months of uncertainty came with real risk.
“I had some sleepless nights, I won’t lie,” Hendrick admitted via Forbes. “But we kept our people working and had one of our best years ever.”
However, what stands out is that Hendrick has never presented it as generosity or charity. To him, it was trust. A belief that if he stayed loyal to the people, they would do the same for him. And he wasn’t wrong. Now, years later, he says employees still stop him while walking through dealerships to talk about those times.
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“And to this day, when I walk through the dealership, I have uh, you know, teammates that say, ‘Thank you. You saved my house. You saved my family.’”
Hendrick then pointed to how that mindset was shaped early in his life. “I grew up on a farm, and you had to count on your neighbors. And so, you couldn’t uh do everything yourself. So, my mom and dad taught me that.”
His wife, Linda, reinforced that belief. Hendrick frequently discusses how Linda tried to assist children in orphanages well before their financial circumstances improved. He even revealed that many of the guests at their wedding decades ago were the kids under her care. That perspective became part of how they built everything.
Rick Hendrick created traditions designed to reward people who stayed. One of the earliest examples was giving Rolex watches to employees who reached 25 years with the company. The culture that emerged from that mindset is visible across Hendrick Motorsports.
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Chad Knaus joined Hendrick Motorsports in 1993 as a young tire changer under crew chief Ray Evernham. More than three decades later, he serves as Vice President of Competition, overseeing all four Cup Series entries, crew chiefs, engineering, fabrication, and assembly for the entire organisation. He and Jeff Andrews, between them, had over 50 years of combined experience at Hendrick Motorsports when they were elevated into senior leadership in 2020.
Then, Jeff Gordon first drove for Hendrick Motorsports in the final race of the 1992 season. He became an equity partner in October 1999, retired from full-time driving in 2015, and formally assumed the role of vice chairman and co-owner, Hendrick’s second-in-command.
“In many ways, it’s my home and the people here are my family,” Gordon said at the time. And the tradition is being carried forward by drivers like Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott in the modern era.
And when employees still walk up years later and say, “You saved my family,” Rick Hendrick’s view becomes easier to understand: people don’t stay because of trophies or paychecks alone. They stay because they remember who stayed with them first.
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The same culture keeps sponsors for decades
The Hendrick culture effect doesn’t stop with employees; it runs straight through to sponsor relationships.
When Axalta signed as the primary sponsor of Jeff Gordon’s No. 24 Chevrolet in November 1992, it was still under its original DuPont branding. And the company has remained a Hendrick Motorsports partner every single season since. By 2020, when the extension through 2027 was announced, the partnership was in its 28th full season.
And Hendrick’s summary said it all: “They took a chance on us nearly three decades ago, and it’s been an incredible relationship ever since.”
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That deal has now outlasted multiple corporate rebrands, yet the car number, the relationship, and the commitment never wavered. In 2013, when the rebrand happened, Axalta’s own executives confirmed it held “the longest current sponsor-driver-team relationship in NASCAR.” It has only extended further since.
Then there is NAPA, which signed on as Chase Elliott’s primary sponsor in 2014, for his historic Xfinity Series championship season in which he became NASCAR’s youngest-ever national series champion. They followed him to the Cup Series in 2016, expanded to 26 races in 2018, renewed in 2020, and renewed again in 2022, continuing a 26-race majority sponsorship arrangement confirmed by Rick Hendrick and Jeff Gordon on stage at the NAPA EXPO in Las Vegas.
“None of this is possible without NAPA,” Elliott has said, publicly, on more than one occasion.
UniFirst, too, the workwear and uniform supplier, is now in its 11th year of partnership with Hendrick Motorsports in 2026, and its fifth as a primary sponsor of the No. 9 car.
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Clearly, the system Hendrick built has done wonders.
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The post “You Saved My Family”- Billionaire Rick Hendrick Comes Clean on Emotional Sacrifice Behind Most Loyal Workforce in Motorsports History appeared first on EssentiallySports. Add EssentiallySports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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