Kyle Larson delivers win No. 500 for Hendrick Motorsports engine shop | 40 wins in 40 days

Editor’s note: This is the 21st in a 40-part series highlighting 40 of the greatest wins in the history of Hendrick Motorsports to finish its 40th anniversary season. A new installment will be released each day from Nov. 22, 2024 through New Year’s Eve. Votes were taken from Hendrick Motorsports employees as well as representatives of the NASCAR Hall of Fame and Racing Insights with all unanimous selections being ushered in automatically. The remaining wins were deliberated and decided upon by a small panel.

CONCORD, N.C. - When it comes to the Hendrick Motorsports engine shop, everything is painstakingly and precisely measured and counted, down to tenths-of-thousandths of inches in some cases. 

Best believe that win it comes to race victories, well, they're logged as well. 

So, in the days and weeks leading up to the 2023 Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, all of the hardworking men and women that have powered 40 years' worth of Hendrick Motorsports success knew exactly where they stood. 

And that was one victory away from a major milestone: 500. 

“There was such a great lead up to it. We became very good counting race wins prior to it,” Scott Maxim, director of powertrain and Hendrick Motorsports employee since 1996 admitted. “It provided a great sense of pride. You look back upon the years and our history as an engine department, back to (original lead engine builder) Randy Dorton and Jeff Andrews, all of our leaders and all of our teammates through the years that have continued through each and every one of them.”

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Not that anyone in the engine shop actually had to count. Not with a massive, digital sign hanging bearing the Hendrick Motorsports logo, a Chevrolet bowtie and displaying the number of overall wins, Cup Series wins, Xfinity Series wins and CRAFTSMAN Truck Series wins. And obviously, those figures have grown even since 2023, now standing at 527 overall and 369 in the Cup Series. 

Currently, aside from Hendrick Motorsports' own entries, the department provides engines for Spire Motorsports and Hyak Motorsports in the Cup Series, JR Motorsports and DGM Racing in the Xfinity Series. Formerly, engines were also supplied for Darrell Waltrip’s Cup Series operation, Chip Ganassi Racing, Stewart-Haas Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing – when the latter two raced Chevrolets.

In fact, Hendrick Motorsports' 400th engine win was provided by Kyle Larson in an Xfinity Series car while driving for Chip Ganassi at Daytona International Speedway in 2018. Fast forward five years later, and Larson was set to make his 12th Cup Series start at Darlington in the No. 5 HendrickCars.com entry. 

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And as badly as the folks in the engine shop were clamoring for No. 500, nobody wanted to pick up win No. 1 at, "The Track Too Tough to Tame," worse than Larson. Except for maybe, No. 5 crew chief Cliff Daniels. 

“Darlington just brings about a lot of misses for my career and for Kyle,” Daniels said. “Kyle at Darlington in his career has led so many laps (1,048) and to date has only won once at Darlington, which is crazy to me. Then, for me in my Cup Career with Tony Stewart and Jimmie Johnson, led a lot of laps and ran up front a lot with both of those guys and never came home with a win."

“So, for our team, Darlington was always this place of, ‘Can we get it done?’ I’m sure Kyle felt that way too. I remember before Darlington that year, Kyle and I went to lunch and talked about what our approach was going to be. We were going to be there at the end and make sure we hit our marks during the day and put ourselves in contention and if we could do that, we’d probably have a shot."

Speed has never been short for the No. 5 team but entering Darlington in the fall of '23, the team wasn't exactly on a hot streak as far as finishes are considered. In the eight races prior, Larson had finished 19th or worse five times with just three top 10s. 

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Still, to Daniels' point, Larson had long been a force at the 1.336-mile, egg-shaped oval and despite an 18th-place qualifying effort, it was quickly apparent that would be the case again as he surged all the way up to third place by the end of stage one. He finished stage two in second, picking up 17 valuable points along the way. 

But while Larson piloted a rocket early in the race, the day nearly came undone when he hung the car in neutral and slid into the wall. Larson would say afterward that he felt like the toe link was bent and that the performance of the car was affected. 

Yet, the No. 5 car remained a fixture in the top five until some fortune came the team's way late. Kevin Harvick, running in second place at the time, slowed down to hit pit road with 58 laps to go. Just ahead, leader Tyler Reddick attempted a late move to match, but his late stop caused the lapped car of Ryan Newman, who was running just behind, to spin. That brought the caution out. 

Harvick wasn't on pit road before the caution flag waved and was then penalized for completing his stop anyway. Larson entered pit road under the yellow in second and the No. 5 team came up with a quick stop to give him the lead for the first time. 

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And that would be the last lead change of the race, despite a couple more restarts. Daniel Suarez and Alex Bowman tangled shortly after Newman's incident but Larson was able to get a good jump with 40 laps to go to maintain the lead. 

After that restart, a crash between Kyle Busch, Todd Gilliland, Denny Hamlin, Michael McDowell and Christopher Bell brought out a last yellow. Several of drivers pitted under the caution break but most at the front stayed out to maintain track position. 

A final restart came with 32 laps to go and though Reddick mounted several challenges to the lead, Larson was able to hang on for the crown jewel win. The victory locked Larson into the Round of 12 as the event was the first race in the playoffs. He'd go on to finish the season second in the points standings. 

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“I remember the last handful of laps he was pinned up against the wall running hard, we had Tyler Redding chasing us down and to be able to bring it home, it was a big deal,” Daniels said.

And Daniels knew it was a big deal for several people that weren't even at the race track that evening. 

“You sit back and look at all the success of the Hendrick engine shops from the early days on. You think of Randy Dorton and all the people that have come through there and knowing how big of a deal it was to them made it even more special,” Daniels said. “I had my own little world going on of how special that win was to me and Kyle had his own little world going on because of the misses we’d both had.” 

A champagne bottle from victory lane that night now sits on a table in Maxim's office, just below a photo of himself, team owner Rick Hendrick, vice chairman Jeff Gordon and president and general manager Jeff Andrews all standing around the engine that propelled Larson to victory that night. 

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It's a fitting image - the company's brass, a former driver that provided 93 of the team's Cup Series win and Maxim, representing so many behind the scenes that have heavily factored into all of the success acquired by NASCAR's most decorated team. 

The Southern 500 has long been an event of endurance, both on the driver's behalf as well as the equipment. And like Larson, the motor powering the No. 5 car made it to the line. In fact, out of 481 combined races last year, Maxim said the team's engines held up in 480 of them. 

And while 99.79% is nothing to sneeze at, the folks on top of the hill on the Concord, North Carolina campus will keep striving for perfection. And it's that drive, from the top of the organization to the bottom, that will keep that glowing sign in the engine department continuing to change. 

“It was a fitting place of history, a fitting venue of history to reach that 500th win and it also provided for me a point of reference that we had been so blessed and privileged as an engine department to be able to put together our engines in cars with the caliber of teams and talent of teams and drivers that we have,” Maxim said. “I look back all of those teams and drivers and just thank them all.”