CONCORD, N.C. – Hendrick Motorsports owner and Hendrick Automotive Group chairman Rick Hendrick has long said that people are the key to success in any business.
In a packed Team Center on the Hendrick Motorsports campus, that was as evident as ever.
The 14th annual Randy Dorton Hendrick Engine Builder Showdown came to an exciting conclusion Wednesday afternoon, as the top two teams squared off to assemble their respective 358-cubic-inch Chevrolet engines.
“This is a great event to me,” Hendrick said. “I get to watch the stars in the engine shop work and I get to watch the top technicians in our company work.”
The annual event teams 12 Hendrick Certified Master Technicians from Hendrick Automotive Group with 12 Hendrick Motorsports engine department team members. This year, NBC analyst Steve Letarte served as emcee.
“I wanted to thank Mr. Hendrick,” Letarte said. “To join Motorsports and Automotive Group together for this event, I think, is spectacular.”
The showdown is a chance for team members from both sides of the company to come together for a common goal. And the participants are the best of the best.
FOR A PHOTO GALLERY FROM THE EVENT, CLICK HERE.
The Hendrick Motorsports employees build some of the most powerful engines in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series on a weekly basis. And the Hendrick Automotive Group competitors passed a yearly, one-of-a-kind Automotive Service Excellence exam, and also had the year's best customer service scores.
Of Hendrick Automotive Group's approximately 1,900 service technicians, 300 are Hendrick Certified Master Technicians.
And only 12 made the showdown.
“It’s a real tribute to everybody in here to work together – we’re a big family,” Hendrick said. “Thank you for what you do.”
The winning team of Danny Emerick and Ben Proctor assembled the 358-cubic-inch Chevrolet engine —similar to the fuel-injected engines that race every weekend in the Sprint Cup -- in just 26 minutes and 36 seconds. That came after being paired together only two days earlier.
“The first thing I said was, ‘Do you want to win?’” Emerick smiled, recalling the pairing. “He said yes, so we became friends.”
Emerick works in the Hendrick Motorsports engine department – he served as the engine tuner during four of Jimmie Johnson’s Sprint Cup championship runs -- while Proctor is a Hendrick Certified Master Technician from Rick Hendrick Chevrolet in Duluth, Georgia.
“The nerves were a little stronger (than anticipated),” Proctor acknowledged after winning the event.
The competition spans two days. Each team has a qualifying build as the field is narrowed until two teams reach the final. The winners were determined by posting the quickest time with the least number of errors.
Emerick and Proctor accomplished that goal, and were honored with trophies to commemorate the achievement.
“This is almost a choreography -- you can see these guys work back and forth with the different parts and pieces,” Hendrick Motorsports Director of Engine Operations Jeff Andrews said. “We’re certainly very proud of this competition and what it’s become and the camaraderie that it builds.”