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Hendrick Motorsports has long been one of the best places, if not the best place for a NASCAR Cup Series driver to race at. Much of this is due to the powers that be at the team holding incredible foresight that Rick Hendrick and the people he has put around him have. With drivers like Chase Elliott, Alex Bowman, William Byron, and Kyle Larson the Hendrick team somehow built up a sustainable and mostly elite force of young drivers. This is how Hendrick Motorsports made the perfect NASCAR rebuild.
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33 comments
Jeff Gordon and Chad Knaus might have made the organization better than Rick Hendrick ever had
Ehhhhh, come back when they’ve got 12 championships
They succeeded in the rebuild of their race team. Now, their next mission is to help rebuild Chase’s leg.
Josh Berry finishing top 10 in his 2nd race, safe to say, Hendricks is like the Yankees of Nascar.
@Jonathon Poloskitechnically it’s his 4th cup start, but agreed
The mission after that will be rebuilding Jeff Gordon as a cyborg and bringing back the 90’s
HMS went from 3 championship favorites and a guy who barley makes the playoffs. To 2 guys barley making the playoffs than back to 3 guys contending week in week out. In the matter of 3 years that is really impressive
I’m just asking when they had 3 championship last unless your talking about the one year with dale jimmy and gordon in 2014
@Colby Ricketts 2015 and the first half of 2016
2015 jimmie won 5 times and had 20 something top 10s
Gordon made it to the final 4
Jr was a restart away from winning dega which with his win at ISM would have gotten him to Miami
2016 jimmie won it
Chase was really good
Jr before he was hurt was in the top 10 in points i believe
they have all 4 competing for wins on good days
I would dream for a rebuild to happen to SHR or Roush again
I don’t think it’s the drivers at SHR something is up with the whole team
Roush is starting to look decent again, and i expect 2 wins from then this year, but I’m worried about SHR
All 6 of William Byron’s Wins came at 6 Different Tracks with 6 Different Paint Schemes
@American Walmarts I think one of them was the raptor car?
@Xavier Juno Raptor car at Martinsville and Liberty car at Atlanta
I remember back in 2017-2019, they were struggling to get wins because of Jimmie Johnson aging, and the new Chevrolet Camaro being introduced. At the time, I was begging for at least a couple wins during the 2018 season, and they did with Chase Elliott getting his first 3 wins of his career.
2019, they would improve a bit with 4, Chase Elliott 3, and Alex Bowman with 1.
2020 they would get back on the map a bit with 7 wins. Chase Elliott’s 5 wins and a championship, and Bowman and youngster William Byron getting 1 win each.
But 2021 is when HMS really stepped up with 17 wins, over twice the amount they got from the season prior. With newcomer Kyle Larson going lights out with 10 astonishing wins and a championship, Alex Bowman with a break-out year knabbing 4 wins, Chase Elliott with 2, and Byron with 1, and let’s not forget that historic 1-2-3-4 sweep at Dover that season.
Now in the recent couple years that HMS has been developing with the young drivers, the only direction I see for them is up. As an HMS fan, I’m loving what I’m seeing
You have to love how the drivers are locked in for the long hall
@Starcomfanboy oh yeah agreed.
Ever since I started watching nascar as kid with my parents I also did cheered for HMS especially since Jimmie Johnson Johnson and Jeff Gordon were my favorite drivers growing up (and still are Jimmie being my favorite at #1 then #2 now being Elliott and Gordon moving down to #3 on my all-time favorite drivers). HMS rebuild it was perfectly timed with Gordon retiring in 15 and Chase coming to fill one spot with three veterans to help mentor, then there’s Jr and Kahne retiring due to injuries and health issues…now three seats are filled with young talent. With Jimmie having slump in his lasting days at HMS before leaving he was still helping mentor Elliott, Bowman, and Byron…then the last seat to be filled came to Larson. Already two championship in the beginning of the 5 years of the beginning rebuild and with Gordon and Chad Kanus higher ranks at HMS under Rick they so far have pulled a very successful rebuild…I’m excited for the future of this team since Elliott, Larson, Bowman and Byron will be there for the long run and hopefully more championships from my driver Chase and as well the rest from HMS.
Kind of interesting that most of HMS’s golden four lineup from the early 2010’s was essentially taken out by health/medical complications before age even became the biggest factor.
Hendrick’s rebuild is amazing and considering that they have found 4 drivers who have followed four different paths to where they are now. Larson is a generational talent who can wheel anything that resembles a car better than just about anyone. Chase is literally a chip off the old block in regards to his father and was groomed the right way as son to a nascar legend. Byron worked his way to the top by climbing the nascar ladder as it was intended even though he came from sim racing as a kid. Bowman is honestly the odd man of the four. A true diamond in the rough who busted his behind along with being in the right place at the right time to seize his opportunity to shine.
As a Byron fan, these back to back wins are great but I need to see him get through the hot summer months and be consistently up front in the top 10. Once I see him do that, he’s a sure fire final 4 driver
I remember from 2017-2019 HMS was struggling, they weren’t running well, and it’s driver roster was getting old. You could’ve attributed this to the new camaros that chevrolet rolled out during 2018. During this time people questioned if HMS would ever be competitive again. Along with that you had new talent coming into the mix with Chase Elliott, William Byron, and Alex Bowman. With 3 young drivers on the roster HMS looked poised for a team resurgence. And they got that with their 4th piece of the puzzle: Kyle Larson. Now with 4 solid drivers and Hendrick running back up front, the sky is the limit for this team.
I think Jr. is also a factor in the rebuild. Look at how many guys come thru JRM who make it to the Cup level.
Absolutely. JRM is very well run. I know Jr. has said he wants a Cup team.
When talking about Byron, u have to remember he was part of JRM before he went to KB in the truck series. He was already being groomed to come to Hendrick before he was old enough to run in Nascar.
When they made Knaus VP of Competition I didn’t expect anything less. Dude is God-Tier. Jimmie Johnson is the luckiest driver in NASCAR history.
2:06 that footage never gets old I was at the race that day screaming “c’mon fkr!!!!” for the last 2 laps like a madman. My friend who was there with me didn’t know what to think.
It is really cool to see Hendrick go from Championship contenders to dropping down towards the midfield then rebuilding back up, I think that JGR is where HMS was in 2017, and I will be watching them closely.
Just imagine if Ray never left and moved up and Chad eventually moved up as well. My gawd the rest of the field is tremendously lucky.
It’s crazy knowing that back in 2018, they were struggling. Fast forward 5 years later, they’re dominating and winning again. I think when all the Chevy teams decided to come together on the engine program, they got back the speed they lost.
You mentioned Bowman with 4 straight top 10s so far, he also currently leads the regular season points over Harvick now