Rick Hendrick buys first Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 in Oshawa

OSHAWA—Rick Hendrick knows fast cars. Since age 14, he has been racing something — drag cars, stock cars, pickup trucks, even drag boats.

He figured out fairly quickly that there was more success to be had with someone else steering the car, so he could steer the team. Since then, Hendrick Motorsports has gone on to be one of the most successful racing franchises in the entire sport, winning 13 NSACAR titles — 10 of them in what’s now called “Sprint Cup”, which is the Big Time..

Hendrick will run four teams in the 2012 season, which starts in three weeks. Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon finished 6-7-8 last year. Now that Kasey Kahne is replacing veteran Mark Martin, the team should be even stronger.

“I’m totally motivated,” Hendrick said this week, visiting the Oshawa plant of General Motors. “We were the champions for five years in a row, and when you fall short, you want to get back to the Number One spot to prove you deserved those five championships. I want to be the champion.”

Rick Hendrick also knows Chevrolets. He took over a struggling dealership in South Carolina in 1976, and turned it around in less than a year. Chevrolet was so impressed it offered Hendrick a major outlet in Charlotte, North Carolina, a couple of years later.

Finish reading the article here: Wheels.ca