Hendrick Motorsports: The Four Horsemen of NASCAR Next-Gen

For Hendrick Motorsports, NASCAR Next-Gen is well underway.

The retirement of Jimmie Johnson during the off-season left the New York Yankees of the Cup Series without its figurative Derek Jeter, but the new guys have already started to write their own respective legacies.

Hendrick Motorsports led all but 12 laps and completed a 1-2-3-4 clean sweep of the Drydene 400 on Sunday at Dover International Speedway.

Alex Bowman
Kyle Larson
Chase Elliott
William Byron

That hasn’t been accomplished since Roush Fenway Racing in 2005 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Elliott, of course, is the reigning Cup Series champion and the discipline’s most popular driver. Larson is finally validating a long-expected promise of excellence since taking over the No. 5 car during the winter. Byron is a prodigy and doing nothing to shake that label. Bowman is the steady consistent presence who will soon be signed to a long-term extension.

They’re essentially the four horsemen of something or the other in the Cup Series.

For all the accolades and accomplishments of NASCAR’s most decorated team, Rick Hendrick has never had all four cars running at a championship level. It was the one thing Joe Gibbs Racing and Roush Racing has held over Hendrick over the past several decades.

For years, the old No. 25 car was considered something of a R&D car when piloted by the likes of Joe Nemechek, Ricky Craven, Wally Dallenbach and Jerry Nadeau.

It wasn’t intended to be, but the No. 25 was always outshined by the likes of Jeff Gordon, Terry Labonte and Johnson.

Dale Earnhardt Jr., for all the fanfare and hype, spent a handful of seasons driving what statistically looked like The Other Car.

A new engine alliance with Richard Childress Racing and a body style in the final year of the current generation car, combined with a roster of drivers all 28 years or younger, means Hendrick Motorsports is in its collective prime.

Bowman has two wins.
Larson won Las Vegas, is fifth in the standings and runs near the front virtually every week.
Byron has 11 consecutive top-10 finishes, second in the standings.
Elliott is the defending champion and seventh in the standings.

With a new racing platform set to debut next season, Hendrick knows its important to maintain consistency elsewhere across the organization and will soon sign his only free agent (Bowman) to an extension.

Seven-time champion crew chief Chad Knaus retired from the pit box and now oversees competition, joining an all-star front office of engineers that includes Ron Malec and Jeff Andrews. It shows in the results in the final season of the current car.

"When I look at the way they're working together, the respect the drivers have for each other but want to beat each other, that's what we pay em to do," Hendrick said. "We've never had the focus on four. Maybe we wanted to, maybe we tried to, but this is different.