Episode 254: Rick Hendrick, Owner Hendrick Motorsports

The automobile is one of the most important inventions that revolutionize the modern world.

In America, the rich history of car culture runs deep.

Technology continues to shape the future of the industry.

Jason Stein is here to share the stories of people passionate about cars,

from industry leaders and innovators to car obsessed celebrities.

Buckle up as Jason takes you inside the boardroom, onto the track,

and around the bend on Cars and Culture on SiriusXM Business Radio.

We welcome you into episode 254 of Cars and Culture here on SiriusXM Business Channel 132.

I'm your host Jason Stein.

Great to have you along for the ride again this week.

Every so often, the industry produces a leader whose influence extends far beyond the business

they built. Someone whose name becomes synonymous not only with success, but with a way of doing

things, a way of leading, treating people, a way of building culture.

Rick Hendrick is one of those people.

His story begins where so many great American business stories start,

with a dream, a willingness to take risks, and extraordinary work ethic.

A young man from small town Virginia who loved cars, built his first race car at 14,

and believed that if he worked hard enough, he might one day own a dealership.

One dealership became 22 became ten, and over time,

those dealerships became Hendrick Automotive Group, one of the largest and most respected

automotive retail organizations in North America, with more than 135 franchises

and over $14 billion in annual revenue.

But numbers alone don't explain Rick Hendrick.

Because if you ask him about success, he won't start with market share, revenue,

or expansion plans. He'll start with people.

He'll tell you that culture creates results, that relationships matter more than transactions,

that great organizations are built one teammate, one customer, and one community at a time.

It's a philosophy that carried him through oil embargoes, recessions, financial crisis,

and a global pandemic. It's also the same philosophy that transformed a small racing

operation into Hendrick Motorsports, the winningest organization in NASCAR history,

with more than 300 Cup Series victories and a record collection of championships.

Today, 50 years after opening his first dealership, and more than 40 years after entering NASCAR,

Rick Hendrick remains as engaged as ever. He still reviews performance across every dealership.

He still talks with managers throughout the organization.

He still believes that adaptability, accountability, and caring for people are the

foundations for long-term success.

So what does Rick Hendrick see when he looks back on 50 years in retail?

What lessons has he learned about leadership, resilience, and culture?

And what does he believe comes next for the automotive business, motorsports,

and the people who make both possible?

From the Presidio Group's retail conference in Charlotte, my conversation with Rick Hendrick

is next on Cars and Culture.

Welcome, and thank you for having us.

Well, it's been great. The neatest thing about this, I've learned so much today listening to

the speakers, but I've seen so many old friends, that second generation dealers,

some guys that have been friends of mine for 50 years that I'd get advice from.

So it's been really a pleasure for me to see everyone.

And yesterday, last night, to have rides here at the track, it was a lot of fun.

Yeah, welcome. And it is incredible to have this event here on your 50th anniversary,

on the automotive side, 40 years of racing.

It's hard to put into words some of those things that are in the video.

As you reflect on that time, I know you've always been an audible caller.

You've said that. I know you have a plan, but you don't mind calling an audible.

You've done it many times as the industry has shifted, as racing has shifted.

You're still calling audibles?

Well, you have to call an audible every day.

I think the key to our success or longevity in the automobile business and the racing business

is connecting all the people and not thinking that you have to follow a plan

that's been presented years ago, but call an audible, be ready to change daily,

because our sport and our industry changes every single day.

And I see a lot of these folks out here. Roger Penske and I talk once a week.

Jeff has been an old friend of mine. I call him and we talk Sam Pack here.

Sam's the legend, the Ford dealer that I've called him one day because I was buying a Ford store.

And I told him, I said, Sam, tell me about this deal.

And I sent him the statement. He said, I wouldn't buy it. And sure enough, I didn't buy it.

And it, but I think I'm telling these stories. The old guys tell stories.

But, you know, the thing about our industry and the success or failure is people.

And it's the same in everything you do. Our motorsports operation.

We started with five people and now including the technology group.

We have 800 and we started with five people in the automobile side. Now it's 12,000.

And so I don't, sometimes I think it happened in a flash.

And I don't really know how we got here other than our faith, our families,

and a lot of hard work, but believing in each other and working together.

You've led through periods of great uncertainty, whether it was an oil embargo, speaking of

Sam remembers that. Yeah. 20% interest rates, financial crisis, COVID.

I mean, during COVID, you made a decision not to lay anybody off. You paid them.

And you told me once that you kind of did the calculus and asked your CFO, well,

sure enough, you kept everybody. You came out stronger because of it, didn't you?

Yeah. And he's here today. I said, how long, how long can we pay everybody?

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.

And to this day, when I walked through the dealership, I have teammates that say, thank you.

You saved my house. family. And he said we could do it for 90 days.

It didn't take about 45 and we were back on our feet. And keeping the team together,

we didn't have to kind of re-rack. We were ready to go.

It all ties back to something that you've believed throughout your career.

You've said we're in the people business. Yes. You said before you get customer satisfaction,

before anything else happens, it's all about people you've got employee satisfaction.

Where did that philosophy come from? Well, I grew up on a farm, as you said,

and you had to count on your neighbors. And so you couldn't do everything yourself.

So my mom and dad taught me that. And my wife, Linda, she helped work and

helped kids in an orphanage and at our wedding 53 years ago.

You know, the only folks there were these little girls that she had.

And so she's always been a giver and relying on people with something

that I learned in an early age and trying to keep people in the organization

when they hit 25 years to give them a Rolex. I thought that was a good idea way back.

But in today's world, people have a lot of people who hit 25 years.

I think you're giving out a lot of Rolex, are you?

Yeah, I have and it's with a pleasure. But no, I think we're in the people business.

I said it a million times, but people don't care about you if they don't think you care about them.

So we do 350 to 400, you know,

scholarships for our folks, our kids, and we have a disaster fund. We participate in that

named after my son. If a porter or someone falls on hard times and so we'll make house payments or

we will, you know, have a death in the family and our GMs vote on it and something that we

believe in taking care of our people. We pay for their insurance and that's something health

insurance, super expensive, but it makes a big difference in keeping people in place in 401k

matches, things like that. And it's paid big dividends over the 50 years.

You still go through every dealership, every department,

re-ranked performance. You're in every monthly meeting, right, ringing bells,

celebrating everything. I've heard about them.

Yeah, well, you need to come. We have a big party. Most months is fun, but some months is not. But

no, every month do we have conference calls and I sit on all of those calls. It takes three days.

I have the import division, domestics, and the high line division. And we go through every single

dealership. We're on a video conference. I'm talking to the general manager. All the marketing guys,

all of our management team is on the video also. And we rank everything from

new vehicle gross to customer pay to finance. We're very proud of our online reputation.

We're number one in the industry, regardless of private or public. And so we work hard to set

goals and maintain standards. And by me talking to every single GM and getting feedback, looking at

their numbers, it helps me to understand in real time what the business is like. And they get to

talk to me. And then we recap at the end of the day. And it's a process, but it's one that I've

practiced for almost 50 years. And that's something that's very important.

It seems to be working. What do you, you've listened today. You've been with us all day long.

You've heard what other people have said about the industry, but based on your

interaction with your teams on a regular basis, where's the industry today, according to Rick

Hendrick? Well, it's a great business. And I know everyone talked about it today. We made a decision

about three years ago to expand our service operation parts and service. Big ADI dealer,

probably 25% of all the accessories that GM sales comes through us from Maryland to Texas.

And so big parts business. And last month and most every month in the last 12 months,

our fixed has outgrossed our variable by a bunch, maybe 30%. And we have a big fixed operation.

And, and I think Jeff talked about, you know, 90%, 100%, 110% fixed coverage.

And as a, if you count even our new deals, we're in a high 90. So we have deals at

114, 120% fixed coverage. And that gets you through most, all of the downturns. And,

and I've seen everything there is in the business. But I think, again, just being able to concentrate

on AI, we've, I've learned a lot about AI. I'm an old dog. car dog. So having young,

young smart people around me that believe in the new things, our president, JB's here. JB

has got a group and that's all he focuses on is the new technology. And we did roll out AI through

all of our stores. And because we do work so close together, marketary vice presidents,

and our general managers and the management company, we can implement things in a hurry.

And that's because we stay connected in real time. But I think the future's bright. I mean,

there's some, I mean, these are the best dealers in the world sitting in this room. Again, like I

said, some second generation guys to guys that have been around a long time. And it's a people

business. And having the bed, having a great franchise, taking care of people. I believe in

the philosophy. If it gets to me, it's free. If I have a customer that gets to me, I'm going to buy

the car back, or I'm going to give them the service. And then I'm going to charge it to the dealership.

And you won't have to do that. But once or twice in the jungle telegraph hotel, everybody in 100

stores, you better not let the problem get to the boss. So no, I think the future's great. I love

the business. I get to do the two things in life. I love the most outside of my family racing and

the automobile business. My wife's here today, 53 years. And she I have to give her all the credit

because when I tell that story, well, so I'm at 23. I'm running a Honda toy Honda Mercedes BMW

store. She had a Mercedes. I drove a BMW had a brand new house. I got recruited by Chevrolet.

And in that back in 1976, Chevrolet was the deal. If you could get a Chevrolet franchise,

that was it. And so they offered me one in Benitzville, South Carolina. And it had no showroom.

Now this the rent was $1800 a month. You couldn't do a bathroom for that. But so anyway, we go down

there. And I was joking. I said, this is probably going to be in the middle of a bean field. And

sure enough, we get down to Benitzville, South Carolina. And here's a big Chevy sign in the

middle of a cornfield when the bean field. And I got cold feet. I said, no, I'm not doing this.

And she said, you know, you want to do it, we can start over. So you won't be satisfied. Let's do

it. So I give her credit for us being here today. So Wow, unbelievable. And I've got my daughter and

my grandson who's gonna he spends more time on his racetrack than anybody I know. He was out here

racing yesterday. Yeah, he was giving rides yesterday. So I'm real proud of my family and

family is the most important thing. So I'm glad they're here to see this. You were within you've

had a couple of close calls and you were within a pretty close call of not having the racing team

either until you won at Martinsville. Yeah, I was supposed to be partners with Kenny Rogers.

And Richard Petty was going to be the driver. And that's like an all star cast. And we're going to

have concerts in every city. And then at the last minute, Petty pulled out and and then Kenny

Rogers pulled out and I had nothing and went to Daytona. And so in the sixth race, I said, we got

to stop. I can't can't afford to go any further. And we went to the seventh race. And I was with my

wife in church when we won that race. And so the rest is history. So but it was very close

to not not making it. You kept everything, everything going. And now you got just a

not so infamous individual running your racing program. I mean, a very famous guy in Mr. Gordon.

Tell me about what he has done for your organization as vice chairman now and what he could do in the

future. Well, Jeff is a special guy. When he when he came into NASCAR, he revolutionized the sport.

He brought in more young drivers. He did Saturday night live. You know, he has tremendous talent

along with being a four time champion and third and all time list of wins. And so when he stepped

out of the car, we always had a plan that he would help me in the motorsports side. So

he's he spoke to you guys last night and then he flew to California to represent NASCAR last

night. So he's a great individual. The drivers respect him a lot. And he's just done a super job.

And by the way, you got to win last weekend too. So, you know, that doesn't hurt.

Went on Sunday, sell on Monday. What's what is winning on the racetrack? Even just your race

experience done in terms of how you operate on the automotive side? Maybe vice versa. Well,

I think a sharing of information. We have Henry cars dot com. All of our used cars are on that

site and every dealership can sell them. And so to have four race teams running out of the same

building, having to compete against each other, but you ask them to work together and share information

that's hard. And so to have deals in a city and one of the salesman and one of one of the dealerships

can sell a car that's in the other to for the dealership to give it to them. That's hard to

overcome the want to be able to keep all the growth in house. But we developed a system and I think

is showing people that you're stronger together, working together, all the smart people pulling

in the same direction. And I think if you went through the shop, we keep the guys keep the shop

immaculate. And I'm bringing the dealerships here to see how clean the race teams shops are.

And then we go inspect every dealership to make sure that it stays that way. And so

technicians is a hard thing to come by. And we take our best techs in the country and we pair

them with engine builders at motorsports and bring them together. And then we have a build off and

crowned a champion and we stream it all over the country. So our D our technicians in the stores

feel apart and they it motivates them to want to have high SC scores. And it also motivates people

that maybe aren't in racing that want to be in the dealerships. So it's a tool we use. So the two

teams work extremely close together. A lot of cross collaboration. Yeah, you also have such great

relationships across the industry. And you've got this little facility that's being built right now

that's only going to do the engines for the Formula One Cadillac team right here. Yeah, incredible.

How did that come about? Well, we have you know, we've been racing Chevrolet racing General Motors

since I've been in the sport and 1984. So I had plans to build expand my museum. And that facility

now houses the GM Tech Center. And it's got the only four wheel AV El Dino in North America.

And so it's a huge facility. And then so they decided to when they got into Formula One,

they need an engine facility. And this is a massive project that's on our campus. And it's

going to have 300 engineers in it. And if you take our technology group

and the GM folks, where we started with five people 40 years ago, there'll be 1000 engineers

on that campus by the end of the year. So it's just, it's amazing what's happened.

It's amazing what Cadillac's doing for two cars that are running across it around the world, right?

Well, they're finding out how tough it is right now. And so when former Sadie's left, that was a

question I was going to ask them, are you going to give the Cadillacs a break? Because

winning all the races? But no, it's, I'm so blessed to be able to enjoy the two things,

like I said, and to have the complex that is a mile from here and then now have this track.

And so we're enjoying the relationship between motorsports and the automobile business.

Well, and I was talking to some of your folks earlier this week. And I mean, this place is

booking up like crazy. You've already had, as I mentioned earlier, you've had Ferrari in here,

you've had McLaren has been in here. This is just an extension of what goes on across the road here

too. And all of your racing history in a beautiful venue with beautiful cars. So let's talk about

those cars for just a minute, and then we'll wrap it up. You have one heck of a collection. I mean,

some people say it's the largest collection of modern vehicles in America, perhaps the world.

I know you love them, and I know you don't sell a lot of them either, like Jay.

Tell me a little bit about that, that passion for everything that's new, including a couple of

them that just rolled off the truck this morning from Europe. Yeah, well, that one did come in

this morning. No, I always dreamed of having a Corvette, and I didn't think I'd ever have one.

And so I started my second year as a dealer, collecting 67 Corvettes. And now I have every

color they made in 67. And so I have like 130 some Corvettes, the first 55, first 56,

first 57, we just found the first 58. So no, I'm a car junkie. I love cars. And,

you know, whether it's Mercedes or BMWs or Ferraris or just muscle cars, I love them all.

Wonderful. You've said something before to me that stuck with me. You can be competitive,

you can be successful, and you can still treat people the right way. Is that the legacy that

you're most proud of? I think so. I think I know so. I've told my family,

actually, we had a family meeting two years ago, and I said, you know, this company's so good.

You know, I'd like to think I'm going to live 20 more years, but I would hate to see it break up,

because we've built so many people that have helped build us. And one brick at a time,

starting with nothing. And today, the way we feel about each other is a big family,

and I don't want to see it broken up. And so the family now decided we want to look at the next

50 years. We want to be private, and we don't want to break it up. And so that was a commitment

that Linda and Lynn and Marshall and Hendrick, we all made. And so it gives our people,

when I kicked that off two years ago, I saw 35-year-old guys and gals in the audience that

had this feeling of comfort that, hey, nothing's going to happen to this thing. We worked hard,

let's keep it going, and same with motorsports. And so we hopefully we're around for another 50 years.

What you built is remarkable, but more importantly, how you've built it, Mr. Hendrick,

through people, through trust, and through doing things the right way. What we'd like to do is to

give you a Recidio's Life Come Cheven War. Congratulations on all of your success. 50

years in auto, 40 years in racing. Thank you for hosting us this week. I appreciate the ability

to be in the business with you, folks. Thank you for a first class event. We appreciate you a lot.

Thank you. A big thanks to my guests today from the Recidio Group's Retail Conference.

My guest, Rick Hendrick. To see more Cars and Culture interviews, visit the Cars and Culture

YouTube channel. Subscribe, comment, check out hundreds of conversations with the creators,

collectors, and culture makers who are driving the industry forward. That's episode number 254

of Cars and Culture. I'm your host, Jason Stein. We'll see you down the road.

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Episode 254: Rick Hendrick, Owner Hendrick Motorsports

About this episode

Chevrolet

Benitzville, South Carolina

Martinsville

Richard Petty

Kenny Rogers

Daytona

NASCAR

Mr. Gordon

engine builders

high SC scores

cross collaboration

Formula One Cadillac team

General Motors

four wheel AV El Dino

Ferrari

McLaren

Chevrolet Corvette

muscle cars

Hendrick Motorsports

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