Tale of the 25
The Hendrick Motorsports #25 has been in the news with some frequency this
season. It has not, though, been for any particular success on the racetrack. In
April crew chief Tony Furr was released, and in mid-May driver Jerry Nadeau was
axed. Joe Nemechek has slid into the #25 seat for the rest of 2002.
It is still another twist in the tale of this race team, a team famous more
for one glorious season in the past than for more contemporary success. And yet
that glorious season in the past still resonates within the sport – and leads to
an overlooked pending anniversary. The Pocono 500 in June marks the 15th
anniversary of a driver’s miraculous comeback, a comeback that ended in victory,
and which flamed out almost as quickly as it came.
The comeback that June of 1987 marked the apex for the team numbered 25 out
of Hendrick Motorsports’ garage, a team that to that point had metamorphosed
into one of the most powerful ever seen.
It didn’t begin that way. Entering 1986 Hendrick Motorsports had not won
since November 1984, this after scoring three victories with driver Geoff Bodine
and crew chief Harry Hyde in the organization’s debut season. Tommy Johnson, a
crewman for the Hendrick team at the time, wrote in 1998, "We won three
races in 1984….but in the second season, Geoff changed…..Geoff manipulated
the power around to where he was the one who called the shots on the car, what
setup went under it, and then Harry and Geoff got to where they totally could
not get along." Bodine managed a high number of top fives in 1985, but the
lack of wins and the deterioration of his relationship with Hyde led to major
changes.
Among the changes was the fielding of a second team. Rick Hendrick had tried
to hire driver Tim Richmond for his first team in 1984, but Richmond was already
committed to Raymond Beadle’s Blue Max Racing team; he did, though, drive a
Sportsman Chevrolet for Hendrick in the mid-1980s and won at Charlotte with it.
When Hendrick formed his second team, Richmond was hired and Hendrick teamed him
with Harry Hyde – a tandem that had briefly begun in 1982 when Richmond drove a
handful of races for Mike Lovern. "Everybody said that wasn’t going to
work," Tommy Johnson wrote, "because as nonchalant as Tim was, the
flamboyant cat, the partier, they predicted he and Harry would not get
along."
The two men did get along, but initially their professional relationship was
not gelling. Richmond was late to a preseason sponsor meeting, but he turned on
his charm with officials of Folgers Coffee and managed to patch up any
ill-feelings. He crashed in a Daytona qualifier and finished 20th in the 500. He
managed a seventh at the Atlanta 500 and fifth at Darlington, but success was
difficult to come by, in large part because, wrote Tommy Johnson, "Two
people discussing strategy do not understand each other to start. They think
they do, but it takes people a period of time to reach an understanding."
Richmond would use terms like "hunting in the corners" to describe the
car’s handling, terms Harry Hyde could not understand; Richmond for his part
initially didn’t understand Hyde’s terminology.
The first big break came in a now-famous North Wilkesboro tire test; Richmond
drove 50 laps as he felt like it, and then he drove 50 laps as Hyde wanted him
to, and the vastly better tire wear and total elapsed times convinced Richmond
to trust Hyde’s approach.
The World 600 was the first on-track indication of what was to come –
Richmond, tenth in points at that time, timed second, led much of the race, and
finished second. He finished a car-banging second to Darrell Waltrip at
Riverside, and then "that understanding came about in June at Pocono."
Despite a lengthy mid-race rain delay that pushed the ending near 8 PM, the full
500 miles were run, and Richmond won handily, finishing under yellow after a
huge melee with four to go in Turn One wiped out the cars of Buddy Arrington,
Morgan Shepherd, and Harry Gant.
Richmond "had a feel for an automobile. He could point to a spot on the
racetrack and say to Harry, ‘This car is doing this – right here.’ He’d mark it
(and) would say, ‘you fix it for me where it won’t do that, and I’ll show you
improvement on the stopwatch.’ And he could do exactly that."
Rumors of squabbles between Richmond and Hyde came about because Richmond
would run short practices and park the car even when others were faster.
"Tim would say, ‘it don’t make no difference, we got it.’" Which would
tick off Harry Hyde even though Richmond usually knew what he was talking about.
"He had it, and he knew it," Tommy Johnson wrote.
After a 15th at Michigan, Richmond powered to victory in the Firecracker 400,
and then came his greatest win of all, the Summer 500 at Pocono. Fog delayed the
start for two hours and ultimately ended the race 50 laps short. Richmond
qualified fifth and motored to the lead early, fell back on an early yellow-flag
stop, marched back to the front, and with teammate Bodine was the strongest on
the track. He had competition from Harry Gant, Neil Bonnett, Darrell Waltrip,
and Richard Petty, and just before 300 miles a restart set up a hot battle for
the lead among Richmond, Petty, Waltrip, Bodine, and Bonnett. Bonnett led,
Bodine went for the lead, and Richmond went three wide before the Tunnel Turn as
Jim Sauter whacked the first turn wall. Richmond broke loose, sideswiped Bodine,
spun into Petty’s path, and both cars collided side to side. Richmond spun
through traffic and had to drive backwards to the pits, while Petty was
eliminated against the inside guardrail and was angered at Richmond: "I’m a
little disturbed now at some people who call themselves racecar drivers who
can’t drive no better than I can. Caution flag, and they crash, right? What are
they doin’ crashing on a caution flag?"
Richmond lost a lap, but fought hard to get it back, nailed it when Dale
Earnhardt crashed in the Tunnel Turn the second of three times that day, and got
four tires on the ensuing yellow with NASCAR announcing the race would end at
Lap 150. Richmond rocketed through the pack and passed Bodine for the lead on
the main straight entering the final lap. Bodine fought back down low off the
Tunnel Turn and Richmond stayed high in Three; off Three as Bodine got
squirrelly Ricky Rudd rocketed up the inside and the #25 and Bud Moore’s #15 hit
the checkered at all but the exact instant. The photo finish showed Richmond by
inches at most the winner. "Ricky and I looked at each other like ‘did you
win or did I win?’" Richmond said afterward.
The chemistry between Richmond and the crew was exceptional. "He’d take
us out to eat all the time," Tommy Johnson wrote. "We’d be working
feverishly at the shop, and at lunchtime Tim would come strolling in (with) a
big catering truck and unload food and set up tables." Richmond would pay
for the entire crew’s lunches while on the road.
Hyde got into the act by kidding Tim about his many girlfriends during races
– "When are you and Julie going to get married? Have you proposed
yet?" Richmond would say over the radio, "Now Harry, next race we go
to, we need to try so-and-so like we did on this car."
"He constantly was at the ragged edge," Tommy Johnson remembered.
"He’d go to it, but didn’t step over it." It was part of his sprint
car and Indy 500 upbringing, and he now had the right match up to make it very
successful. Richmond ran out of gas at Talladega but made up the distance, led
late, escaped a huge crash on the last lap, and finished second. He then was the
return of NASCAR to Watkins Glen, finished second at Michigan, sixth at Bristol,
and then won the Southern 500 – "I didn’t know Harry had never won
here," Richmond said afterward. Tim then won at Richmond Raceway and
overtook Darrell Waltrip for second in points, but a crash at Dover, spin at
Martinsville, blown engine at Charlotte, and problems at Rockingham wiped out
Richmond’s wildcard title bid. He finished fourth at Atlanta and won the season
finale at Riverside.
But after that Richmond went to the hospital. "Some people said he
seemed on drugs, but that’s hindsight," Tommy Johnson wrote. "We
didn’t think there was anything wrong." It turned out to be
life-threatening double pneumonia, and Richmond was so scared he got to where
he’d beg nurses to help him. When he finally overcame it, "he had the same
flamboyance, but he no longer had any strength."
Hendrick hired Benny Parsons, who’d been slated for a limited 1987 schedule
with the Jackson brothers, and renumbered the cars #35, keeping the #25 for
Richmond for an eventual comeback. Parsons won a Daytona qualifier and finished
second in the 500, then second again at Atlanta, but "Benny is too nice a
guy to be a racecar driver, I may have to feed him gunpowder," Hyde said.
Parsons posted six top five finishes, including another second at Riverside.
In March Richmond felt well enough to run a tire test at Darlington. But his
weakness was evident – he broke the track record, but only on a short run. In
May he ran The Winston in his old #25 and qualified second. The race went to
Dale Earnhardt after he pinched Geoff Bodine into Bill Elliott and side slammed
Elliott around the turns; Richmond finished third.
His real comeback came at Pocono in early June, in a race featuring two
Folgers Chevrolets, those of Benny Parsons and of Richmond. He timed third and
took the lead early on. His transmission acted up but he made up the gap again
and won going away. He had to take an extra lap to get tears out of his eyes.
The next week, at Riverside, Richmond won again, and told Tommy Johnson,
"You can’t tell me this is easy to do," then got out of the car with
his hat crooked and the bill folded up.
Richmond almost crashed in qualifying at Michigan, but finished the race
fourth. The comeback was complete……..
And then the downfall began. Richmond spun at Daytona, won the pole and led
briefly before falling out at Pocono, finished a mediocre 12th at Talladega, and
then at Watkins Glen he was found asleep in a motor coach as qualifying was
beginning. He managed to qualify, and got a break when rain forced a Monday
makeup. But the end was coming. At Michigan he was late to qualifying and had to
be picked up. "He was just not the same Tim Richmond that we knew,"
Tommy Johnson wrote. Richmond blew past halfway and after the Michigan race
resigned from the team, citing health concerns. Hendrick promptly hired Ken
Schrader, who’d been slated to drive Bud Moore’s Ford in 1988, for the #25 and
disbanded the #35 after ’87.
Richmond tried one more comeback but this was derailed in his squabble with
NASCAR over conflicting drug test results. Richmond ultimately would succumb to
AIDS in 1989. The #25, meanwhile, continued, but the success was not the same.
Schrader failed to qualify at Richmond, crashed early at Darlington, and despite
posting numerous top tens was not flirting with wins. A win finally came in a
rip-roaring ten-car shootout at Talladega, and Schrader wound up 1988 fifth in
points.
Harry Hyde, meanwhile, was "having a political struggle with the rest of
the Hendrick Motorsports team. Harry was supposed to be the crew chief and team
manager, but more of the people working there didn’t pay attention to him,
didn’t do what Harry wanted." As shop foreman, Tommy Johnson was giving
orders, "and people were ignoring us." Tiring of the struggle, Johnson
quit and went to the Stavola Brothers team, and after 1988 Hyde joined him.
With new crew chiefs Richard Broome and Dennis Conner, Schrader dominated the
1989 Daytona 500 but lost on fuel mileage, inherited the win at Charlotte in
October, and finished fifth in points again. The 1990 season held promise for
better, with just under a year of experience with Chevrolet’s new GM10 body, the
Lumina, but it turned out to be a frustrating year. Schrader won the pole for
the Daytona 500, but crashed in his qualifier and started last. He passed 40
cars but broke the engine. At Darlington Schrader was leading with the lapped
car of Ernie Irvan racing to get a lap back; Irvan broke loose, collected
Schrader, and a huge melee erupted. Schrader led some 40 laps at Talladega but
broke again; at Martinsville in the early autumn he was battling Ricky Rudd for
the lead and both slammed the inside wall. Overall he was no threat for a win
that season despite several top fives, and at the Southern 500 he crashed, then
deliberately slammed into Morgan Shepherd afterward; as a result Shepherd’s wife
Sonja punched him in the garage area.
The next win finally came in 1991 at Atlanta, where an absurd rule banning
tire changes under yellow made it impossible to race, and Schrader inherited the
win on a pit gamble. He then won at Dover, holding off Earnhardt, but that
proved to be it. He dominated Pocono in July but was eliminated in a massive
pileup off Three, and despite being more competitive than in 1990 he failed to
win again. In 1992 his season ended at Atlanta when he collected Dick Trickle
and both slammed the wall on the front stretch and a bigger melee erupted as a
result.
The 1993 season saw a return to competitive form, as he battled for the lead
through most of the Daytona 500 and ultimately finished eighth. He began winning
poles and finishing in the top five with frequency again, but at Daytona in July
he was disqualified for an illegal manifold and suspended for five races; the
suspension was reversed by the National Stock Car Racing Commission, to the embarrassment
of NASCAR and the anger of non-Chevrolet partisans. Schrader finished well in
1993 points but reached his peak in 1994, finishing fourth in points.
But in 1995 the bottom fell out again. Ken Howes was now the crew chief and
the team got off to a slow start; things seemed to get worse when, working on
the engine of his Craftsman Truck, the engine cut the end of Schrader’s thumb
off. At The Winston Jimmy Spencer slammed Schrader into the wall and Schrader
swatted back and in a fury parked the wrecked car. At the World 600 Schrader
rocketed to the front and led the most laps, but while leading in the final
quarter the engine died.
That proved pretty much the end of any victory hopes in 1995. Schrader did
win the pole at Pocono in June and finished third in the race, and at Pocono in
July he led on and off before blowing, but at Talladega Jeff Gordon’s cheap shot
put Schrader onto his roof and Schrader suffered a black eye in the resulting
tumble. At Atlanta in November he blew up and said, "That’s it, I’m glad
this season’s over."
For 1996 Hendrick let go engine builders Kenny Bingham and Ron Reavis from
the #25 team and assigned crew chief Ray Evernham to help get the #25
competitive again. Evernham coined a slogan, "Revive the 25," but it
was never a sincere or serious effort by Evernham. Schrader finished a fighting
third at the Daytona 500, but after that it was more mediocrity sprinkled with
good finishes and DNFs, and Schrader quit the #25. Hendrick tried to hire Ward
Burton, but Burton stuck it out with Bill Davis, so Hendrick hired Ricky Craven
for the #25 for 1997.
Craven finished third at the Daytona 500 and fifth at Rockingham, but after
14th at Richmond he T-boned Ted Musgrave at Atlanta and slammed the walls with
Robert Pressley at Darlington. At Texas he smashed the trioval wall and was
eliminated from the seat for two races. He managed to make up points with a
string of top-17s, but it wasn’t until New Hampshire in September that Craven
began showing a return to competitive form. He led much of the first half of the
race in a spirited duel with Bobby Hamilton, and ultimately wound up fifth. He
led late at Rockingham but lost to Hamilton at the end, and in the final two
races he needed an obscure Winston Cup-Winston West provisional rule that only
Rick Hendrick could have possibly gotten at Phoenix, and broke at Atlanta.
1998 began with a new crew chief in Tony Furr, but Craven’s concussions from
1997 made him all but useless as a driver, and after a fit-and-start season he
was released by Hendrick. Randy LaJoie drove the #25 for several races and
finished 4th at Martinsville, but at Charlotte he slammed into the wall with
Dale Earnhardt and in a bizarre postcrash interview kept speaking of Ted
Musgrave’s #16 as if Musgrave, a half-second back, was even relevent to the
crash; in any event LaJoie was let go when Craven came back, and after Craven’s
departure Wally Dallenbach Jr. drove the #25 until the end of 1999. Dallenbach
managed a pair of spectacular efforts at Talladega and several top tens in
mid-1999 but ultimately nothing came of it.
For 2000 Jerry Nadeau joined the team and brought sponsorship from
architect/real estate guru Michael Holigan. The team managed only five top ten
finishes, but ran noticably better than in 1998-9, and Nadeau stunned the sport
with victory at the Dixie 500. In 2001 the #25 acquired UAW and Delphi
sponsorship, and Nadeau posted ten top tens, including a second at Dover and
third at Atlanta, but at the Dixie 500 he ran out of gas while leading on the
last lap, and reportedly was close to being axed due to clashes with his crew –
a fate that finally befell him in mid-2002 after the release of crew chief Tony
Furr.
And so begins a new chapter in the #25’s history, as for the first time since
Benny Parsons joined the team it gets a driver with Winston Cup wins on his
resume. But whether the team’s perennial stepchild status will change remains to
be seen.