He stops to shake hands, chat with colleagues and check on his race team.
He makes it all look so easy, too.
Maybe it is, especially with his collection of talent.
After winning three consecutive Sprint Cup championships and eight of the last 14, NASCAR's premier program enters the Daytona 500 with maybe the deepest team in the sport's five decades.
Mark Martin, a 50-year-old workout fanatic who's considered the best driver to never win a title, joins four-time champion Jeff Gordon, three-time defending champ Jimmie Johnson and fan favorite Dale Earnhardt Jr. this season -- giving Hendrick Motorsports a lineup so stacked it might make the New York Yankees jealous.
"I never would have thought that we would ever have a lineup like this or any team would ever have a lineup like this," said Alan Gustafson, Martin's crew chief. "The stars aligned, the opportunities were there, and Mr. Hendrick's reputation and respect, how he treats people and runs his businesses and organizations, made it all possible.
"I don't think anyone else could ever compile that kind of talent and keep everyone happy in their own shoes. It's a huge compliment to Mr. Hendrick, and he deserves ever bit of it."
Few would disagree.
Hendrick, 59, grew up around racing, building cars with his father and the locals of Palmer Springs, Va. His mother didn't want him on the racetrack, though, so he instead got into speedboat racing, where he won three national titles and set a world record at 222.2 mph.
But cars were his first love, and in 1976, he bought a struggling Chevrolet dealership in South Carolina. General Motors promised that if he turned it around, they'd reward him with another dealership. He delivered and took charge of one in Charlotte, NASCAR's hub.
Hendrick started All-Star Racing in 1984 -- it would be much a much more appropriate name these days -- in a 5,000-square foot building that had just enough room for his five full-time employees. He thought he had a chance to field a team for Richard Petty, but the deal fell through just before the Daytona 500. Hendrick had no driver, no sponsor and not much time to find another one.
He ended up going with Geoff Bodine. They got to Daytona, finished eighth and added top-10 finishes in the next two events. Money was running tight, though, and Hendrick didn't think he'd make it much longer without a sponsor. Workers persuaded him to press on, and Bodine won at Martinsville.
Hendrick was offered full sponsorship in Victory Lane, a deal that jump-started a career that won more than 200 races and 13 championships in three different series.
"It's keeping people on the same page and letting them take pride in the company," Hendrick said. "I tell them all the time, 'It's your company. You built it. It's up to us to keep it together and make it work.'
"People buy into that because it's true. The key to our success has been that I don't take our people for granted and I put a heavy, heavy emphasis of taking care of them. I have a philosophy that if people don't think you care about them, they sure as hell aren't going to care about you."
Hendrick's first Cup championship came with Gordon in 1995, the start of a run rarely seen in professional sports. Maybe the NBA's Boston Celtics (1957-69) or Chicago Bulls (1991-98), the NHL's Montreal Canadians (1956-60), the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers (1974-79) or the Yankees (1947-62) would be fair comparisons.
There have been other NASCAR runs, with Petty, Junior Johnson and Richard Childress boasting similar success in the Cup series. But those came long before the growth spurt during which NASCAR blossomed into an ultra-competitive sport with unmatched parity.
"I don't know across the board any more talented guys who are capable of winning," Hendrick said. "I'm real excited. I can tell you we've never had this kind of balance in my crowd. I don't know where we'll end up, but we'd never had -- across the board, to the teams, to the drivers -- this kind of talent."
It starts with Johnson, who overcame a slow start last season to match Cale Yarborough as the only drivers in NASCAR history to win three straight Cup titles.
Gordon was winless for the first time in his career in 2008, thanks mostly to some bad luck, but still made the Chase for the championship. Hendrick guaranteed he would win a race this season. Earnhardt came onboard last season, replacing Kyle Busch, and giving Hendrick three of the sport's biggest stars.
Martin could make the team even better after coming out of partial retirement in hopes of making a run at the championship that has eluded him for the last 26 years.
"You have to climb some hills before you can stand at the top of the mountain," said Martin, who has 35 career victories. "I got hills to climb. Obviously, it would be incredible if we could just make the Chase, because then we have a chance."
And who better to help make that a realistic possibility than Hendrick?
"They've figured out how to win in every different situation that they've been put in and I think they're the best out there," Roush Fenway Racing driver Matt Kenseth said. "As a competitor, you always want to see the best team win, even if that's not you."
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