DPR Sports & Racing News

Ricky Hendrick

Joseph Riddick Hendrick IV

April 2, 1980 - October 24, 2004.

Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, was a NASCAR driver and owner affiliated with his father Rick Hendrick's Hendrick Motorsports team. He died on a team flight to the race at Martinsville Speedway in Martinsville, Virginia along with his uncle, 2 cousins and six others. Ricky's fiancée, Emily Maynard, was pregnant with his child at the time of his death. His daughter, Josephine Riddick "Ricki" Hendrick, was born June 29, 2005.

Hendrick began his driving career at the age of 15, running the Legends Summer Shootout Series at Charlotte Motor Speedway. He won his first pole position and race in 1998. He started driving in the Busch Series at age 19 in 1999. He started fifth at Myrtle Beach Speedway in the #24 DuPont car owned by Gordon/Evernham Motorsports, and finished 20th. He also ran a race at North Carolina Speedway later that year in the 24, but he wrecked and finished 37th. He ran eleven Busch races in 2000, posting three top-ten starts in addition to a fifth-place run at Nashville Speedway USA, his first race that year. He also made six starts in the Craftsman Truck Series, driving the #17 GMAC truck, finishing in the top-ten four times.

In 2001, Hendrick moved to the Truck Series full-time, grabbing a win at Kansas Speedway. He also had nineteen top-ten runs, finishing sixth in points, and was runner-up to Travis Kvapil for Rookie of the Year honors. He moved to the Busch Series to run the #5 car full-time in 2002, but suffered a broken shoulder at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. After missing six races, he returned, but retired at the end of the year, choosing to become a car owner.

As an owner, Ricky won the Busch Series Championship in 2003, after having chosen to put driver Brian Vickers in the seat of the #5 GMAC Chevrolet Monte Carlo (the ride that he had retired from the previous year). At the time of his death, he was the owner of the #25 Ditech.com Chevrolet Monte Carlo in the Nextel Cup Series with Vickers, and the owner of the #5 Lowes Chevrolet Monte Carlo in the Busch Series with driver Kyle Busch.