Joining the press corp of reporters on teleconference the other day was Rick Hendrick. The owner of Hendrick Motorsports and the No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet, and now four-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Champion, Jimmie Johnson.
Rick Hendrick and his organization made NASCAR history at the season finale at Homestead Miami Speedway. Jimmie Johnson clinched his fourth title in four years, something no other NASCAR driver has done in its history.
RICK HENDRICK: It was a great weekend. We’re very, very thankful to be able to close the deal.
Q. You’ve got these records under your belt, your team finished one, two, three in the points this year, (NBaP: First time a team has done that in NASCAR) you have a four-time consecutive champion. You’ve got two four-time champions under your belt. What goals do you have possibly that you could fulfill next?
RICK HENDRICK: My priority right now is Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s No. 88 team. We’re working on them to try to make that team stronger and get all four teams in the Chase.
Seeing the competition get stronger, like the Childress and Gibbs and the Penske cars that it’s going to be a dog fight.
But we’re very, very thankful of what we’ve gotten done. These guys kind of set their own goals. You know, I believe that as soon as they finish this one Chad was thinking about number five, and Jeff and Steve are thinking about beating those guys. The planning and the execution have already started.
Q. Speaking of Dale Earnhardt Jr., have you guys put your finger on what it is that you need to do to make him more competitive?
RICK HENDRICK: I’ve seen it happen with Jeff Gordon and Jimmie had a slump back around last year about the time we were in Vegas. You just go through these. We know we can make the team better, and it’s frustrating, and the driver begins to think that no matter what he does, that something’s going to happen, because we just had failures & wrecks.
So when he’s running good, something happened. And we just got to be better all the way around. I think when Dale sees that we’ve stepped up in a lot of areas, it will give him the confidence he needs. My priority – my primary focus here starting this week, starting Monday, really.
Q. Wanted to get an update on your niece and can you tell us what it was like spending the day at the hospital instead of being there with your team? How and what that day was like?
RICK HENDRICK: Yeah, well, you know I got the call on Friday and it was from her husband. I’m really close to her. She lost her dad and her two sisters in the crash. When he called me, I was concerned. As the day went on it became obvious that this was a critical situation.
I flew home Friday night. After Saturday it was just very grim. Sunday the transplant team had came in and they found a liver and were able to operate that day. Saturday she was too sick to even have it. Sunday she picked up just enough.
It was never a doubt in my mind where I needed to be and where I wanted to be. I couldn’t have enjoyed the race or the celebration. I needed to be there with my family.
So I’m really proud of what the team accomplished, and I want to thank everybody on the call and the outpouring of support from people all over the country. You know, it just goes to show how people feel about you and concerned and all of the competitors. So I thank everybody for that.
The good news is the liver’s working and she’s stable, and we’re going to have a really good Thanksgiving.
Q. When is she expected to get out?
RICK HENDRICK: Oh, it’s going to be a while. Her kidneys aren’t functioning yet. They should come around and the doctors are very optimistic, but she’s very, very sick. She’s not conscious yet, but she’s responding. We’re not completely out of the woods yet, but all of the signals are pointing to everything’s working.
Q. First question, can you just talk a little bit about having this kind of success on your 25th anniversary in the sport? And if you could weigh in a little bit on the increasing foreign influence in the sport between Toyota, Montoya’s success, and the possibility that was talked about foreign ownership in recent months.
RICK HENDRICK: I guess it happened so quick. When you win a championship and you start a new year, you never take for granted, I never do, that we’re ever going to win another one.
You can’t cash the check until the race is over. You know, you worry about something happening to Jimmie. It was a little bit of a comfort knowing it had had to be one of those three. But I just think we had a lot of racing left this year, but the guys work so hard and I’m so proud of them.
I think the fact that you’re seeing drivers like Montoya coming in and ownership maybe from other parts of the world, just speaks to how and what an outstanding or worldwide sport this is.
I got a call from Tom Cruise who is shooting a movie in Austria, I think, Sunday night, to ask about my niece and to congratulate me. He was watching it on some kind of – on satellite, I guess. So when you have people from all over the world following it and wanting to be a part of it. Drivers from Formula 1 and some of the best talent in the world coming into the sport, it just speaks for the way our sport is viewed by other people.
I think from the manufacturers that are coming in, I think it’s all good. I think it helps support other teams and it makes for a lot of competition.
Q. I want to ask you about Jeff Gordon really battling it out for Jimmie Johnson. That moment, I don’t know if you were able to see that, maybe not, but I’m sure you heard about it. Then to follow it up by asking you about your teams and how you’re able to keep all these guys and all these teams around. How much that makes a difference as you chased for this championship?
RICK HENDRICK: Jeff and Jimmie battle each other hard. It’s almost like two brothers wanting to beat each other. I see that with Kyle and Kurt, and how hard they race each other in a race.
But they do it in a clean way. It always scares me when I see two of our cars running each other that hard. But I like the fact that they want to beat each other and the competition is kind of internal here.
Q. I know how important team guys are to winning a championship. But what is it that has you able to keep these guys? What’s your secret?
RICK HENDRICK: That’s priority one for me. I think our people are the biggest asset. If you can keep it together and tweak it, it’s much better off than tearing it down and rebuilding it every year.
You know, what I’ve tried to do is promote tweaking rather than rebuilding.
You know, we can get your sponsors in place, your drivers and crew Chiefs in place. And you don’t have to worry about how is the chemistry going to work? I worked really hard in that area.
You know, it’s a situation where they want to be here. They got to believe in the place. They’ve got to believe in each other. That’s kind of a chemistry and kind of a mission statement. I think the communications between the guys is the best it’s ever been.
Q. From a businessman’s point of view, when you look at declining TV ratings and that’s kind of leading to their waning interest in some of the events. As a businessman, when you see that kind of a downward trend, how does one reverse that?
RICK HENDRICK: When I look at it here in these buildings sitting over here in the middle of the woods, I think, man, this is a single purpose building. It has 600,00 square feet of it. You know, you can’t sink half a ship. You want the sport to be healthy and vibrant and growing because, you know, it’s better for all of us. That’s why I like seeing different manufacturer’s come in and so forth.
I think NASCAR has made some good adjustments this year. I think the Chase was a good thing. I may not like it some years, but I think it’s a good thing. I think the double file restarts are going to help the fans and the excitement more than anything else. It’s just one of those things that you never know how it’s going to end up because when they have a caution with 10 or 20 laps to go, and you’ve got guys hungry up there and you’ve got all of the leaders bunched up together, you see them racing each other as hard as you saw down in Florida.
The fact that we’re getting ready to start a new year off, the economy’s better, I think that we are going to areas that we need to pick up on, and we will. I also think the rivalries are helping.
You don’t want to see guys out there wrecking each other, but rubbing and gouging a little bit and trash talking, I think that’s pretty good. I may be kind of by myself on that, but as long as it’s not one of my guys, I kind of enjoy it. Anyway, I think the sport – I think NASCAR has done some things this year that’s really helped.
So as a businessman, I always worry about the health of our sport. But I think we’re doing everything we can do to make it better. Hopefully it’s going to – we’re going to see it in the ratings and the attendance. At the good racetracks though I looked up in the stands at Bristol it was packed. You know, good crowd at Phoenix. The crowd looked good at Homestead.
You know, some of the tracks that were weak, were weak again. But I like the Saturday night racing. I think everybody’s working on how to make it better.
Q. But when you do look at the TV ratings and there is a decline there, is too much put into that? Or is that something that is a sign that should be looked at? How do you look at that?
RICK HENDRICK: I think me personally, and I’m no expert, but switching from FOX to ESPN to ABC to ESPN2, whatever, going from 1:00 o’clock to 4:00 o’clock to nights and so forth, I think standardizing the time is going to help. You know, it’s – I really don’t know what the answer is.
Hopefully, when we start the year off in Daytona, the things that have been done, like the double‑file restarts and all of that will help us make it more exciting. And the fact that we wiped the slate clean and we start new. You’ve got cars like Denny Hamlin and again, the Childress cars, and Kurt Busch running so well, that people are going to be tuning in and excited about what they’re going to see.
Q. I was curious if you were able to tell us anything about what happened to her (Rick’s niece)? We were told she needed an emergency transplant. You know, if something had occurred or if she had been ill. If you’re able to divulge any details, I’d appreciate that?
RICK HENDRICK: Sure. Actually I was talking to her doctors this morning. She had a pancreas that was inflamed. She had a virus, and she was taking Tylenol thinking her back was hurting. She had what they call a perfect storm, that all these things together just had her organs shutting down. From a person that was healthy enough to be in the car going to the ballgame to have a virus and trigger all of this. Then no food on your stomach and dehydrated and Tylenol is fairly toxic, I think.
From the standpoint of they thought she just needed fluids to all of a sudden her organs shutting down in a 29‑year‑old healthy person, it was just unbelievable. Just thankful we were here in Charlotte at Carolina Medical Center. And they have one of the best transplant teams and one of the best trauma units.
She was in one of their satellite operations, and they moved her when she, became critical Friday night and I flew home. And it just started unraveling right away. I mean it happens, and they say it happens. They never know what really caused it other than the virus, a bad virus, and what they would called attributed from a pancreas already inflamed. Not knowing that, and the liver started going south, it just went in a hurry.
Q. How do you think Jimmie’s run will be considered in the context of the sport’s history? How should it be judged what he’s accomplished in the last four years?
RICK HENDRICK: I don’t think people really start looking at where a driver ranks until he’s retired or down the road. I mean, I watch David Pearson, and I knew David Pearson was great. And I knew that Richard Petty was unbelievable. But you don’t really give them their time in the sun or you don’t acknowledge how great they were until after. Usually sometimes they retire or they quit winning.
I think when you look at Jimmie’s stats, I don’t think he’s through. I think he’s better this year than he was the year before. He just gets better all the time, he and Chad both.
Q. Enjoyed the great run that Jeff had. Did you ever think you’d get to live through another situation like you’re getting to do now with Jimmie? That a lot of people don’t get to do that, one time?
RICK HENDRICK: You’re exactly right. I thought that you’d just be fortunate enough to come and have one of those guys come across your lap here in your lifetime. If you had one Jeff Gordon or one Richard Petty type or David Pearson type guy, you’d be very thankful to have one.
Then to have another one almost duplicate, you know, the same thing. But the one thing I did learn back when we ran and we won four championships back together from ’95, ’96, ’97, ’98, don’t think because you won four in a row that you can win another one. It might be a dry spell.
So you’ve got to work awful hard to win one of these things. There are people that are motivated big time. I can see it in Denny’s eyes Sunday night. I could see it before Sunday night. I know Tony Stewart is capable, and he led the points all the way there to the end.
So you just look at all the guys that you know are going to come out swinging next year. But I’m so thankful, and I do not take for granted that I’ve had some of the best talent in the cars, in my career. You know, Tim Richmond, Jeff Bodine, Darrell Waltrip. I mean, when it’s all said and done, I can put a picture of all these guys up and look at it and say, man, I’ve been pretty darn lucky to have this kind of talent through here.
Q. We found out that Jimmie Johnson is locked up in a long‑term contract. He’s got Lowe’s on board for a few more years. What is the status of Chad Knaus?
RICK HENDRICK: We’ve talked about it. And are working on it. You know Chad and I are looking at other things to secure his future and investments. It’s kind of a foregone conclusion between us that he’s going to be here.
You know, we’ve got to get the paperwork done, but we still have a year and a half left. We try to get all our guys in place well ahead of when the contracts are up. I plan for him to retire here. I think that’s what he tells me he wants to do.
Q. I’m going to follow up on Chad a little bit. Can you talk about what on do you see for him in the future?
RICK HENDRICK: Yeah, Chad and I have talked about where he would like to be down the road. We’ve talked about it many, many times. But he is happy. He likes his role as a crew chief right now. You’d have to look at the success he and Jimmie have. He’s happy doing that.
But down the road when he’s tired of being a crew chief, he can make a big impact on the whole company. He’s already doing that. But for the foreseeable future, I’d say for the next five years, and if he gets tired in three, we’ll do something else. But he tells me that he wants to do this, and the number he gave me was another five years.
Q. Why is he able to sustain that intensity level the way he is where like Ray Evernham felt like he needed another challenge and had to move on?
RICK HENDRICK: You know, different people respond different ways. You know, you might have to ask him that, but he loves what he does. He enjoys being in the middle of the team. Now the way we work together, he’s got input into four teams not just one team.
Chad enjoys the box. He enjoys being the field general. He likes working with Jimmie. They are writing the record books. And he’s always looking at what is the next rung on the ladder that we have to accomplish to be one of the best of all time.
So I think Chad really would be bored doing anything else, and he spends about 20 hours a day, seven days a week planning for the future. He was talking to me by text Sunday night and he was already talking about 2010 and some things he wanted to do. Which I thought, man, you ought to go celebrate this one. But it amazed me how the guys are right back in here Monday morning, digging again. Getting ready for next year.
Q. Is there any update on the talks with Danica at all?
RICK HENDRICK: I know no new news for me.
