CONCORD, N.C. - In auto racing, there's not much bigger and better than winning back-to-back DAYTONA 500s, a feat Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron accomplished on Sunday.
But one thing that might qualify? Three straight DAYTONA 500s. And that's what a select group of teammates on the Concord, North Carolina-based campus, are celebrating this week.
The Hendrick Motorsports engine department built the motors that took both of Byron's cars to victory lane, but also the one that powered Ricky Stenhouse Jr. to a DAYTONA 500 victory in 2023. The engine shop has long forged an alliance with then-JTG Daugherty, now Hyak Motorsports, a single-car operation driven by Stenhouse Jr. in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Like Hendrick Motorsports entries, the Hendrick Motorsports engine shop now has 10 DAYTONA 500 victories - missing out on Geoff Bodine's win in 1986 and Darrell Waltrip's in 1989 but powering Stenhouse Jr. and Dale Jarrett (1993) to victory to go along with the organization's other eight wins.
"I have immense pride in our men and women in the engine shop," said Scott Maxim, director of powertrain for Hendrick Motorsports. "The strive to constantly improve, at the foundation of that is a passion and love for what we do and that fuels us and drives us to do better regardless of the outcome."
“I cannot be prouder of the accomplishments of our engine department under the direction of Scott Maxim. Winning the Daytona 500 is special but to win three in a row is just incredible," added Jeff Andrews, president and general manager of Hendrick Motorsports. "To make continual improvements in engine power and reliability year after year says a lot about the tools and technology but more importantly, it’s a direct reflection of the people, who are our most important asset. Their passion and pride show up year after year and that’s what it takes to stay on top in this sport.”
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It's certainly no easy challenge, especially in a race like the DAYTONA 500. First, whether it was the introduction of the restrictor plate in 1988 or the Gen-7 car in 2022, a vehicle designed to level the playing field in terms of equipment in the Cup Series garage, the allowed differences from engine-to-engine, car-to-car have continued to decrease. An entire offseason can be poured into finding just a single horsepower, a fraction of an inch or a tenth of a second that could mean all the difference as the closing laps tick away at Daytona International Speedway.
“When you think about all the work that goes into the engines every year and specifically the engine package that we race in Daytona and Talladega, it's something that you work on all winter long," Andrews said. "(Team owner Rick) Hendrick and Jeff Gordon afford us the investment in technology and our testing resources. We are looking for improvements in engine power that can be less than one horsepower. Given the tight box that we are in with the rules, gains in engine performance come in very small increments. Every detail matters and it's imperative we are able to quantify those improvements in terms of power and reliability.”
In the Gen-7 era, fuel mileage has also become an increasingly large factor when it comes to superspeedway racing. So, when it comes to the build of an engine for such races, it's a balancing act between speed and efficiency all while operating within the strictest of rule parameters with wiggle room at a minimum.
"We always work toward optimizing power and being the very best at what we can do there," Maxim explained. "Secondly, we're working toward the other areas for a race team that we can have a positive impact and that may be an engine's ability to withstand high or low temperatures, fuel economy may become of greater or lesser importance depending on what the rules and race formats are.
"The way these cars draft and the way the format of these races is, fuel mileage is of greater strategic significance than it has previously been."
And those are just a couple of the unique facets of racing at drafting tracks. When fuel mileage isn't a factor, drivers can stay in the throttle for laps at a time, putting an increased importance on longevity. Then, there's the weather. All three of NASCAR's drafting tracks - Daytona, Talladega Superspeedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway - are in locations where heat and humidity are often extreme and rapid temperature swings can occur in mere minutes. On Sunday, for instance, the temperature from the green flag to the checkered flag, after a couple of rain delays, had dropped around 25 degrees.
"We are always monitoring the weather on a per event, per day basis," Maxim explained. "Our calibration and engine management system is intelligent enough to make corrections for a lot of the environmental changes that can occur. We do have to deal with changes in air temperature and barometric pressure and humidity and all of those items will have an impact on the operation of the engine. The ignition time burn rate will be affected by (heat and humidity) as compared to dryer, cooler air, so adjustments will be made."
And those aren't the only dilemmas facing the folks in the engine shop. For instance, deciding how to celebrate different wins across different series, teams and drivers.
But when it comes to the building of engines, it's done blindly in the sense that there's no telling which car a certain engine may end up in until after its completed. That helps assure that the care put into every facet is the same across the board and when it comes to celebrating success, that's done equally as well.
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"We treat all of the teams we support with equal love and care and when our teams are fortunate enough or the collective effort results in a race win, we share in that the same as we would any one particular team," Maxim said. "I think for us, every process that an engine goes through is done on a per engine basis and not a per team basis and so, we stay focused on the engine because we don't know in most cases where it's going.
"Everything we do we have to do as though it could be in a critical situation that's of the greatest importance, be it for a race win or for points. If we treat every step and everything along the way that same way, it helps keep our process sharp."
And whatever that process is or evolves into, it's working and has been for quite some time. The LED numbers that glow on a sign in the shop, one that displays the engine department's overall win total as well as breakdowns in all three series, continue to climb and there's no sign of slowing down and no indication that anyone is ready to rest on laurels.
Maxim credits several things for the longevity, prowess and yet another in a long line of crown jewel wins.
"Everybody here is extremely proud of that accomplishment, and we always certainly appreciate the caliber of race teams and drivers that we support, and we get the privilege to put our engines in because it takes all of us collectively working together to put ourselves in a position for that success," Maxim said. "We're pretty fortunate because you can do a lot right for a long time and not get one DAYTONA 500 win and for us to have three in a row, we're incredibly appreciative and grateful for those opportunities."