NASCAR legend reveals Hendrick Motorsports' secret weapon

Nobody expected this - a disastrous start to the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs for the mighty Hendrick Motorsports machine.

The behemoth, which has claimed 317 Cup Series race wins plus 14 drivers’ and owners’ championships, sputtered to a massively underwhelming set of results at Darlington on Sunday.

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None of the team’s drivers finished better than 17th position as Chase Briscoe began the postseason with a dominant victory in the Cook Out Southern 500.

The spotlight is very much on Hendrick as the playoff circus heads to Gateway this weekend, and one man who does not expect the funk to continue is NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Jr.

He spent a decade driving the No. 88 car for Hendrick, right up to his retirement in 2017. He knows what it is like to carry the pressure of racing for a dominant team. And above all he knows why that team succeeds time and again.

This week, on the back of that disaster in Darlington, he went deep on the influence wielded by team owner Rick Hendrick - and the part it plays in all of those years of success.

Dale Jr on the Rick Hendrick factor

“Hendrick Motorsports struggled - Elliott 17th, Larson 19th, Byron 21st, Bowman 31st. I don’t expect to see that happen next week,” Earnhardt Jr said on his Dirty Mo Media podcast.

“You know why? Rick Hendrick has a unique ability to call everybody in on the carpet and ask for things to get better, and they always get better.

“Nobody stays on top forever, and even the best teams will have really really rough days, but I’ve been in that room after a race like that and Rick will say what he has to say and it’ll influence you to want to go out there and make sure that you’re not the weak link.

“He’s probably gonna say the first words in the meeting and he’s probably gonna say the last words in the meeting and at some point he’s gonna tell everybody to figure it out. He’ll challenge everybody to make a gain.

Finding that little extra

“When you think there’s nothing else to find, there’s not another 2 or 5 percent to learn, they go and get it.”

While Hendrick is a huge motivational influence on his team, Earnhardt Jr says the inquests he presides over are not fueled by rage. Instead they send a simple yet strong message.

“He doesn’t get loud, he doesn’t raise his voice at all, but it is a very serious ‘I’m disappointed and I’m not here to be a loser or a failure - that’s not what we’re about’. And it’s pretty impactful.”

NASCAR Playoff standings

Following that postseason curtain raiser, here are the playoff standings as we head to Gateway this weekend. Larson and Byron are still comfortably positioned for Hendrick but Elliott is close to the cutline bubble and Bowman is absolutely in danger of failing to make the Round of 12:

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