Dale Earnhardt Jr. Interviews Rick Hendrick
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May 16, 2008
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Dale Jr.: My first question to you is, “How am I doing, boss?”
Rick Hendrick: Seriously, you’re doing great. Actually, you’re doing better than I anticipated this early in the season. I thought it’d take us time to get going, but you’ve run strong every week. If it wasn’t for the slippery track at California and the accident that occurred there, you’d probably be up there leading the points right now. We’re going to win some races, because we’re in the top five every week. If you told me before the season that by mid-May you would have already won a pole, won the Budweiser Shootout, won the Gatorade 150, and be third in points after 11 races, I’d be doing handstands out there.
Dale Jr.: Were you nervous when I introduced you as my new car owner last June?
Rick Hendrick: I was excited and nervous. I think the nervous part about that was how the world was going to accept it. That part I was nervous on.
Dale Jr.: There was a scene in the movie Days of Thunder where the two drivers were squabbling and fighting and wrecking each other, so Mr. France made them have dinner together. That supposedly was taken from a real occurrence between my dad and your driver, Geoff Bodine. First of all, is that true?
Rick Hendrick: Absolutely.
Dale Jr.: You gotta tell me the true story, so I can tell it.
Rick Hendrick: Dale Sr. and Bodine would get together on the race track, and they were wrecking each other. Well, actually, Geoff would try to wreck Dale, but was getting wrecked in return. So France invited us down to his office, so we went down for a meeting in his board room. It was me, Richard Childress, Bodine, and Dale Sr. We all sat down in that board room, and France said, “Boys, I’ve got all these videos, and we can sit here and look at these videos and decide who’s right and who’s wrong and who did what to who, but I’m just going to tell you, this deal is over.
You two monkeys ain’t messing up my show any more!” Then he looked at your dad and said, “You can go back and screw around on your farm and make a living.” And he looked to Richard, “I’m sure you can find something to do not in racing.” He turned to Bodine and said, “You can go back up north and run those modified cars.” And then he looked at me and said, “I guess you can just go back and sell cars. But this is over. If I see you guys getting close together on the race track, I’m going to black flag you both. I’m going to bring your cars in, put ‘em up on jack stands, and I’m going to look at them myself and figure why in the hell y’all got close to each other. And it will probably be the end of the race before I figure it out.” Then he said, “If you think I’m screwing with you, you’re sadly mistaken.
Now let’s go eat.” And your dad said, “Sorry, I got plans.” And France pointed, “There’s a phone over there so you change your plans. Richard, you and Rick get in the car with me. Dale, you and Bodine go ride together.” So they did, and we went to a restaurant. We laughed and talked, then went to the race track, and it was over.
Dale Jr.: What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned in life, or the best advice you’d give?
Rick Hendrick: My advice would be to pick something you really enjoy doing. If you love it, you’ll have no problem getting up in the morning and doing it every day, no matter what it is. Don’t let somebody tell you to be a doctor because your dad’s a doctor, or be a veterinarian because your mom is a veterinarian. If you pick something in life you love, you’ll put 110% effort in it, and you won’t mind getting up every day to do it.
