Rick Hendrick established himself as the most successful team owner in NASCAR’s history, but that did not come easy. It took decades of struggles, developments, and most importantly, experiments. Motorsports is dangerous, but there is a fine line that divides the danger from winning. The fastest driver wins, but it can come with dire consequences, and as one of Hendrick Motorsports’ crew chiefs revealed, the team still follows the tradition.

Hendrick Motorsports and its hunt for success

“If you’re going to get fired for going slow or you’re going to get fired for wrecking or blowing tires, you have to find the edge very carefully and be smart.” While Hendrick Motorsports does have some of the best minds in the sport working behind the scenes to make all races successful. But as William Byron’s crew chief, Rudy Fugle, revealed, it doesn’t come from sitting in a comfort zone.

“You have to make your car go fast because that’s my job. And also, my job is not to blow tires and finish badly because I wrecked. So you have to find that fine line.” Apart from finding this fine line, Fugle also claims that the teams cannot expect to be in the comfort zone to win races: “You can’t just play conservative. There are no conservative or fast race cars winning races regularly. It just doesn’t happen.”

Fugle’s comments reflect a performance-driven culture established by owner Rick Hendrick, who has a long history of demanding excellence.

Throughout its history, Rick Hendrick has proved how the strongest of moves can bring the team massive success. Whether it was him signing Jeff Gordon as a rookie all those decades ago or Kyle Larson more recently, these moves have always stuck with him.

This bold attitude of his is echoed throughout the garages. Hendrick Motorsports, apart from being one of the ‘Big 3’ on the Cup field, has also become a benchmark of competitive performance.

Fugle’s statement feels bold, but it has proven to be right multiple times throughout NASCAR’s history. In fact, it just happened at the Phoenix Raceway. Even though Goodyear had recommended higher tire pressure, some teams took the risk and went with a lower tire pressure.

The result? A pure tire chaos. Rubber blew left and right. But in the end, it was Ryan Blaney who clinched the race win through a major strategic move.

How did Ryan Blaney win amidst the tire chaos at Phoenix?

Ryan Blaney and his #12 crew seemed to be learning as the race progressed last Sunday at the Phoenix Raceway. The tire pressure, paired with the glazing of the Arizona heat and debris on the track, did not do any good to the tires. The flats kept coming throughout the race as the caution was thrown out.

But something interesting was noticed by Blaney’s crew in the middle of the race, which they then put to their use.

“I think it really benefited us to do two (tires) at the end because we saw how good a handful of those guys performed who did two earlier,” Blaney said. “So, it gave us some more confidence.”

Changing only two tires worked flawlessly for Blaney. His crew chief, Jonathan Hassler, also agreed with it: “It was pretty easy for us, kind of being behind, to choose to do two tires there. Our bed was kind of made, and fortunately, it all worked out.”

This strategy could’ve been risky, but as Rudy Fugle mentioned, you have to take a little risk to achieve the most in NASCAR, and Blaney’s crew just proved that at Phoenix. Even though Rick Hendrick might have the best crew working for all of his teams, sometimes it’s others who manage to outsmart him in events like these.