MEARS TO DRIVE 500TH HENDRICK CHASSIS: This weekend, Casey Mears, driver of the No. 5 CARQUEST/Kellogg’s Chevrolet, will pilot Hendrick Motorsports Chassis No. 500 when he suits up to run Sunday’s 600-mile NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
HOW IT STARTED: Chassis No. 500 is a milestone for Hendrick Motorsports, which started building its own cars in 1989. The team’s crew chiefs initially were resistant to the change, but ultimately saw the benefit of having cars constructed and repaired on site. Since then, the company has produced 500 car and truck frames, and its chassis have won on all three of NASCAR’s top levels—the Sprint Cup Series, Nationwide Series and Craftsman Truck Series.
GROWING PAINS: Hendrick Motorsports’ chassis were integrated slowly into its teams. With the help of General Motors, Hendrick became one of the first NASCAR operations to build its own chassis. By the end of 1993, all Hendrick crew chiefs were exclusively using Hendrick Motorsports chassis.
ON DISPLAY: Many of Hendrick Motorsports’ most famous chassis are on display at the team’s 15,000-square-foot museum in Concord, N.C. The facility re-opened to the public in early May after a four-month renovation. Admission to the museum is free of charge.
CHASSIS FACTS:Each chassis weighs 700 pounds before the body is put on. ... It takes about 180 hours of labor to build a Hendrick Motorsports chassis. ... There are about 150 feet of round tubing and 80 feet of rectangular tubing in the chassis.
CASEY MEARS, DRIVER, NO. 5 CARQUEST/KELLOGG’S CHEVROLET (ON RUNNING THE MILESTONE CHASSIS.): “This chassis is really important to Hendrick Motorsports, and it’s a big deal, especially for the chassis department. It’s definitely an honor to be the one who gets to drive it. The No. 5 was Rick’s (Hendrick’s) first car number, so I guess it’s fitting that this is the team that also gets to race Chassis No. 500. I’m proud every weekend to race for Hendrick Motorsports, but this weekend, to be a part of history with the team, is a big honor for me.”
ALAN GUSTAFSON, CREW CHIEF, NO. 5 CARQUEST/KELLOGG’S CHEVROLET (ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE 500TH CHASSIS.): “Obviously 500 cars is very significant. For any chassis shop to build that many cars is a major accomplishment. When I came here almost 10 years ago, we were in the low 100s. It’s amazing to me how many cars we’ve gone through, how they’ve evolved over the years. Now we’re in the Impala SS. Having the No. 5 have the 500th chassis is significant to us as a team, of course. We name all of our chassis with the car number first, so it will be Chassis No. 5-500, which is cool. Hopefully that’s a good omen with the numbers, and it will run well.”
GUSTAFSON (ON WORKING WITH THE 500TH CHASSIS.): “It’s neat. I know all of the effort that so many people have put in over the years to get to this point. The history of Hendrick Motorsports and what we’ve accomplished and the cars we’ve done it with. To get to the point that we’re at with the 500th car is incredible. What will make it really significant is winning races with it. When that 500th car starts winning races, that will be really cool. All of the hard work that’s been put into this—that’s what’s significant to me. That’s what it represents to me, is all the people who have worked for a long time to get to this point and what they’ve accomplished. I don’t put a lot of emphasis on this being a special chassis, as far as how we’ll approach the race, but we definitely all know that this is a significant car.”
GUSTAFSON (ON MEMORABLE CHASSIS FOR HIM.): “There have been a lot of good cars. There are definitely some that stand out in my head. Chassis 323 probably stands out the most to me. It was one of the first cars that I had built when I was here at Hendrick. It was a dedicated short track car that we did some different things to. The guys put a lot of work and effort into it, too. The car had its own personality. We tested the car a lot, and it never seemed to suit Kyle (Busch) during testing. When it would race, though, it always raced really, really well. We never ran bad with that car. Everywhere we raced that car it ran well. That was my favorite car. It’s real special to me.”
DOUG DUCHARDT, VICE PRESIDENT OF DEVELOPMENT (ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE 500TH CHASSIS.): “Chassis No. 500 symbolizes the strategic initiative that occurred in the early ‘90s for Hendrick Motorsports to build their own chassis, and at that time that was a new thing in NASCAR. And the fact that the company took control of that part of the car and the engineering and the manufacturing of the car I think helped lay the groundwork for success in the future. And the fact that we’ve built 500 race cars in that time frame says something about the longevity of our company, but also how much and how quickly we iterate and change and try to improve through the years.”
DUCHARDT (ON HOW HENDRICK’S CHASSIS INITIATIVE AFFECTED COMPETITORS.): “I think any race team looks at what they do and decides what they want to control, and I think it pushed other people to want to have that same control over their product. I think that drove a lot of teams to building their own chassis. You always have to look at what your competitors are doing and what they have to do to keep up. Building our own chassis kind of set a bench mark for other people to look at and decide how to approach their own teams.”
DUCHARDT (ON NOTABLE CHASSIS THROUGHOUT THE YEARS.): “Well there are a couple I know—one of Jeff’s (Gordon) first chassis, Blacker, won a lot of races. Blacker for sure was one, and then of course T-Rex was one. That was an exercise of trying to push the limits of the engineers’ minds—to try to get more performance out of the car. It was obviously successful with Jeff winning the all-star race that year and then the car being banned after that. But I think it showed that when you come up with unique ideas and can implement those you can gain an advantage on the track, and that’s basically the reason that we do what we do.”
| 
|