Should Hendrick Motorsports Return to Xfinity in 2023?

Tom Luttermoser

Hendrick Motorsports has a long and storied history in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. In the at the time Busch Series they ran cars from 1984-1990 and then again from 2000-2007. They scored a championship in 2003 with Brian Vickers and 26 total wins. HMS then merged with JR Motorsports and the team's name changed completely over to Jr Motorsports. In 2009, Hendrick ran a single hendrickcars.com Chevrolet at the season opener at Daytona with Racing legend Tony Stewart behind the wheel, he even scored the win.  Hendrick had not run a car in the Series no matter the sponsor, Busch, Nationwide or Xfinity since. 

On June 2, 2022 HMS announced that they would field an in house Xfinity car for the first time in over a decade for several races for their Cup Series drivers Alex Bowman, Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott and William Byron. Larson ran 2 races finishing P2 at Road America and P5 at Darlington, Byron finished 25th at Watkins Glenn and Alex Bowman finished 2nd at the Indy Road Course. Chase Elliott failed to qualify for his race.

But since then, HMS has made the announcement on running a Part-time attempt into the 2023 season for Xfinity. With only full-time Cup Series drivers behind the wheel in each of the races they ran in 2022, I believe that is just 1 reason for the success the team had. The other reason was quite simple... It's the powerhouse team of HMS. that kind of performance is a huge reason to run the Series no matter the length of the schedule.

Now, Hendrick has 4 pretty solid drivers in their Cup program all of whom I really don't see leaving any time soon. Bowman is a maybe when it comes to leaving any time soon. Ally Financial is likely the only reason he is safe. So there is really no need for HMS to field an Xfinity team as a development stream. That's what JR Motorsports is for, BUT, Dale Jr himself wants to run Cup and he wants to do it sooner rather than later. 

This could one day leave Hendrick and eventually Gordon without a steady stream of replacement Chevrolet drivers. Re-starting a program for '23 could give the team a guarantee of those drivers, it could also give them opportunities for possibly a second car to help boost confidence in their Cup drivers as well.

With all of that being said, if I was privy to those meetings at HMS with any say so, I would lean to the yes. Yes I would get that program up and running even part time, but only if it were for development drivers if JRM was to lean toward growing themselves and not Hendrick. If JRM were to stick to Xfinity with maybe just 1 part-time or even full-time team in Cup, then I wouldn't feel the need to have that team. 

Now to the fan side. Over the last 6-8 years, fans seem to have begun hating the idea of full time Cup guys running the lower series (We all know why or who that may be). But with a majority of fans leaning into the Hendrick camp these days, I saw no real complaints from the fandom. 

​But I look at it this way, I can get why they fielded the 17 this season. I believe they know there is the possibility that JRM could no longer have their back for a driver pipeline. They may just know something we don't.