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Hendrick Motorsports Plane Crash Kills 10
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By HANK KURZ Jr., AP Sports Writer
MARTINSVILLE, Va. - A Hendrick Motorsports plane crashed Sunday on its way to a NASCAR (news - web sites) race, killing all 10 people aboard, including the son, brother and two nieces of the owner of one of auto racing's most successful organizations.
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The Beech 200 took off from Concord, N.C., and crashed in the Bull Mountain area seven miles from Martinsville's Blue Ridge Regional Airport about 12:30 p.m., said Arlene Murray, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites).
The dead included the four relatives of Rick Hendrick, owner of Hendrick Motorsports, said Harry Litten, a spokesman for Moody Funeral Service, where the bodies were being taken. He said state police gave him a list of the people aboard the plane.
It was overcast when the plane went down, but the cause of the crash was not immediately known. NTSB (news - web sites) spokesman Keith Holloway said investigators were on their way to the site, which was in rough terrain, and would begin their investigation Monday.
It was "extremely foggy" in the area of the crash, said Dale Greeson, who lives about a mile from where the plane went down. He said he heard what sounded like a small plane circling overhead around the time of the crash, but did not hear the crash itself.
Hendrick owns the teams of Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Terry Labonte and Brian Vickers, who raced Sunday in the Subway 500 in the Nextel Cup Series at Martinsville Speedway.
NASCAR learned of the plane's disappearance during the race but withheld the news from the Hendrick drivers until afterward, NASCAR spokesman Jim Hunter said. The Hendrick drivers were then summoned to the NASCAR hauler, and Johnson, who won, was excused from Victory Lane.
NASCAR also had spoken with Rick Hendrick.
"We're working very closely with members of the Hendrick organization," Hunter said. "We're just saying extra prayers right now."
The Hendrick organization would have no comment Sunday night, NASCAR said.
"I was hoping I'd never hear this," Mark Martin, a driver for Roush Racing, told the Speed Network after the race. Martin's father, stepmother and half sister died in 1998 when a private plane his father was piloting crashed in Nevada.
"I just feel so bad it's unreal," said Martin, himself a pilot.
Driver Rusty Wallace, who is also a pilot, told reporters after the race: "Talladega and this place are the two most dangerous approaches on the circuit. I feel bad that this happened, maybe the states will fix something. ... We all feel like we have professional aviation groups, but obviously something went majorly wrong."
Hendrick had been on a season-long celebration of its 20th anniversary in NASCAR's top series. The organization has won five of the series' top titles, three truck series titles, and one Busch series crown.
The team has over 100 Cup series wins, making Hendrick just the second team owner in NASCAR's modern era to surpass that mark.
Citing the state police list, Litten said the people aboard the plane were:
Ricky Hendrick, Rick Hendrick's son and a retired NASCAR driver; John Hendrick, Rick Hendrick's brother and president of the organization; Kimberly and Jennifer Hendrick, John Hendrick's twin daughters; Joe Jackson; Jeff Turner; Randy Dorton, the team's chief engine builder; Scott Lathram, a pilot for NASCAR driver Tony Stewart; and pilots Dick Tracy and Liz Morrison.
Rick Hendrick recently began grooming Ricky Hendrick for a larger role with the company.
Ricky began his career driving a Busch car for his father, but retired in 2002 because of a shoulder injury caused by a racing accident. His father then made him the owner of the Busch car Vickers drove to the series championship last season, and that Kyle Busch currently drives.
Hendrick employs more than 400 workers at the Charlotte, N.C.-based Motorsports compound, which includes race shops and a 15,000-square-foot museum and team store.
Deputies barricaded the entrance to the Hendrick shop in Charlotte, allowing only team employees to enter the compound. Twenty or so people could be seen in the parking lot inside.
A small bouquet of flowers had been placed at the entrance gate.
___
Associated Press writers Jenna Fryer and Paul Nowell in Charlotte, N.C., and Larry O'Dell and Sue Lindsey in Richmond contributed to this report.
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