Checkered Flag Flies at Half-Staff as NASCAR Mourns Crash Victims

Three thousand people gathered Thursday to grieve for one of NASCAR’s royal families, which lost four members and six trusted friends when a small plane crashed on the way to a race, killing everyone aboard.

In a sport punctuated by high-profile tragedies, Sunday’s loss may be felt most profoundly in the inner circle of the racing world, although the people killed were not celebrity drivers.

Instead, they made up the behind-the-scenes backbone of Hendrick Motorsports: its 24-year-old heir apparent, Ricky Hendrick; its revered engine guru, Randy Dorton; the company’s president, John Hendrick; his 22-year-old twin daughters; and five others.

Still reeling from the loss, the movable city of drivers and crews departed Thursday for the Atlanta Motor Speedway to prepare for this weekend’s race. But thousands of mourners poured into the Central Church of God honoring a family -- devoutly religious and a single generation removed from the farm -- whose dynasty expanded as Charlotte grew.

“These people are probably as loved as any family as I’ve ever known,” said Bob Stark, 44. “I look for a tremendous outpouring of love this weekend at the race in Atlanta.”

His wife, Pam, choked up at a mention of the company’s founder, Rick Hendrick, who lost his son, two nieces and brother. “He’s an angel on this Earth,” she said.

Although many of the company’s inner circle were aboard the plane, Rick Hendrick, 55, decided to stay home at the last minute.

Hendrick, who grew up on his father’s farm, made his fortune as a car salesman before branching into NASCAR, which was then a rough-hewn, low-budget weekend pastime.

He was the first owner to back multiple race cars and the first to secure support from a major corporate sponsor -- a deal that was struck when Joe Jackson of DuPont Co. visited him to try to sell him paint, said John Hodgson, a senior vice president at DuPont.

Hodgson said that deal was “the most important sponsorship decision DuPont has ever made.” Jackson, who made that deal, was among those killed. Over Rick Hendrick’s 20 years in the sport, NASCAR grew to become America’s second-largest sport in terms of television audience, surpassed only by the National Football League.

But fans and eulogists praised the Hendrick brothers for maintaining old-time values within their company. At their complex in Concord, they named a main street Papa Joe Hendrick Boulevard, after their father, and John Hendrick, Rick’s younger brother, was known for urging his employees to attend a weekly lunchtime Bible study.

As the family’s business expanded and the Hendricks grew wealthy, they remained devout, Phil Devine, a pastor and close friend, said in a eulogy.

Devine remembered walking through the woods on newly purchased property with his friend, both praying silently “that God would allow him to build a dealership on that property that would give glory to God.”

During the 1990s, Rick Hendrick’s auto dealership was named the largest in the country, and he became the model for a character in the Tom Cruise racing film, “Days of Thunder.”

But he suffered major setbacks in 1996 and 1997, when he was diagnosed with leukemia and indicted on federal charges of money laundering and bribery.

He served a year of house arrest, and was pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2000.

The crash occurred near Martinsville, Va. With the approach of every race, a fleet of 300 private planes shuttle owners and teams out of the Charlotte area, where NASCAR is based, to racetracks throughout the region, said Dan Troxler, 45, who served as the Hendricks’ pilot for four years.

“We basically operate a small airline,” Troxler said.

The Hendricks’ plane aborted a landing in thick fog and crashed into the side of Bull Mountain. In addition to Ricky and John Hendrick, the plane carried Kimberly and Jennifer Hendrick; Jackson, chief of Dupont Motorsports; Dorton, the team’s chief engine builder; Jeff Turner, the team’s general manager; and pilots Scott Lathram, Richard Tracy and Elizabeth Morrison.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash.

In recent years, a series of losses have hit the racing community -- Dale Earnhardt died in 2001, Adam Petty the year before -- and fans have responded with outpourings of grief and sympathy. The loss of the Hendricks’ plane may bring a more private reaction, Troxler said, but no less of one. “The embrace from the racing community will be large and strong,” Troxler said. “It will hold this family in its warmth.”

Outside the family racing complex in Concord, fans left checked flags and banks of flower arrangements, including an oval of chrysanthemums in black. Single long-stemmed roses were left on the hoods of race cars Ricky Hendrick had driven to victory.

“Where are they? They are with Jesus Christ. They’re not floating around somewhere,” Devine said in his eulogy. “They have crossed the finish line. They are in the winner’s circle.”