Rick Hendrick is still having a hard time believing his organization not only won in its 40th anniversary race on Sunday at Martinsville Speedway, but swept the top three spots.
“I was in shock; I was really was,” Hendrick said Monday afternoon. “I didn’t want to let myself believe that it could happen, and then we were running (with) all of them in the top eight and we were leading. I don’t know how many laps we led, but it was a bunch. I just could not believe.
“Then the caution came out and I thought, well, I hope one of them can win because I don’t know whether Denny is going to stay out or who’s going to take tires. You know how those green-white-checkers end up, especially at a track like that. But when it was all over, it was shock.”
William Byron led a race-high 88 laps and took the victory. Kyle Larson won the pole, the first stage, and led 86 laps before finishing second. Chase Elliott led 64 laps and finished third. Alex Bowman didn’t have as strong a day as his teammates at the top of the leaderboard, but put in a respectable performance and finished eighth.
[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1428]
It was the icing on the cake. Hendrick Motorsports took over the Virginia facility with different activations to acknowledge its anniversary and had, at Jeff Gordon’s last count, 1,500 people in attendance. The cheering section – in ruby red, just like the paint schemes – was off Turn 2.
“To think, you plan all this, you take all these people, you develop a special edition Camaro, you work with the track and they’re going to let Geoff Bodine and Jeff Gordon be the grand marshals and I’m going to drive the pace car,” Hendrick said. “You do all that to celebrate, but if you had one car with a shot to win, you’d be really happy. And man, it’s turns out we had multiple cars that would win the race.
“I’m still having a hard time believing it today. It was almost like divine intervention with just how in the world it all ended up like that on a day like that.”
Hendrick was not in attendance Sunday. The 74-year-old Hall of Fame team owner had knee replacement surgery just over a month ago. It will be another few weeks before he’s back to full function.
On Sunday afternoon, Hendrick watched the race with his wife, Linda, daughter Lynn, son-in-law Marshal Carlson and his grandchildren Henry and Kate. There were balloons and decorations for the special day. Marcus Smith, the CEO of Speedway Motorsports, even stopped by to watch the Cook Out 400 with Hendrick.
“We had a fun time,” Hendrick said. “My daughter brought balloons, and I’m not sure that was a good idea to celebrate before the race was over but we a nice group and a fun time.”
The race was decided in overtime with Byron and Elliott on the front row and Larson lined up third. Byron and Elliott raced each other hard the first lap of the restart before Byron got the advantage and drove away. Larson took second from Elliott on the final lap.
“I think was yelling a little bit like, ‘Oh, no, no, no,’” Hendrick said. “You got to let them race but, man, all I could see was them wrecking and maybe taking Larson with them and then, well, I couldn’t go over there today, but I’d be trying to settle everybody back down. I’m glad they played nice and raced each other clean.”
Those who were at Martinsville Speedway called Hendrick or put him on FaceTime from the middle of the celebration. It was a long and memorable Sunday night for all involved.
“When it was over, two minutes after it was over, my phone started lighting up,” Hendrick said. “I had 240-something text messages and I think 43 or so emails. So, I haven’t even gotten around to answering those yet.
“I’m having a hard time sleeping with my leg, so I got up about 2 this morning and started watching the race again; that was probably the dumbest thing I ever did. But I’ve got a lot of calls to make here in the next couple of days.”