2016 Daytona 500: Where does the winning car go?
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Seeking the perfect gift for a tasteful gentleman of the world, one that conveys the proper appreciation and congratulations for winning four Sprint Cup championships and 93 races in 23 years, Rick Hendrick instead settled upon three.
There was a commemorative ring. An exquisite watch. And the No. 24 Chevrolet that Gordon used in his final race at Homestead-Miami Speedway in November, restored meticulously but authentic still. But Hendrick didn’t stop there. He had country musician and Gordon friend Brad Paisley present it during the team Christmas party.
“Rick asked (the) team to restore it but not clean it up, not change a single part,” Hendrick President Marshall Carlson said. “Literally, the car has the rubber marks on it, has the inspection sticker on it of ‘Homestead, 2015.’”
Gordon was the exception in receiving an exceptional retirement gift.
Drivers and the machines that create motor sports moments often are sent their separate ways after being memorialized in media and memory. Some suddenly historic cars go into a team owner’s collection; some, if valuable enough, go to collectors through private sale or the auction circuit; and some are cannibalized or sold to weekend enthusiasts as outlets for their racing fantasies.
“You have a bond with those cars that nobody can really understand,” 2012 Verizon IndyCar Series champion Ryan Hunter-Reay said. “You shared moments, your best career moments and some of your best moments in life in the cockpit of those cars.”
One of those cockpits nearly was lost when Andretti Autosport announced last month that it would auction Dallara DW12 chassis No. 057, which Hunter-Reay used to win the 2014 Indianapolis 500.
The team promised to deliver it fully restored to the winner after it was removed from service, likely after the 2018 season. But the car went unsold at the $600,000-$750,000 price sought by auctioneer Gooding & Company.
Why didn’t Hunter-Reay snatch it up? Race car drivers can earn lucrative livings depending on success or popularity, but few have the combination of means and willingness to pay such sums.
“There’s no benchmark or way to really put a price on a car, and they’re going to want more than it’s probably worth,” Sprint Cup driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. “And the drivers just aren’t willing to pay that.”
Unattainable mementos
Desire is a ruthless but effective method of assigning monetary value to a cherished race car, leading some drivers to use circuitous routes of procurement, such as enlisting the assistance of a third party as an intermediary.
“It’s all a bit of a chess match, because when someone knows you want something,” driver Danica Patrick said, “they want you to pay for it.”
This spring in New Orleans, IndyCar driver Sebastien Bourdais was briefly reunited for a test drive with one of the cars he used to win four consecutive Champ Car World Series titles. A teammate was sponsored for the New Orleans weekend by a collector, who incidentally also owned the car in which Tony Kanaan won the 2013 Indianapolis 500.
Thus, barring the benevolence of an owner such as Hendrick, historic race cars that don’t land in museums are garnered by the wealthy as investments, becoming unattainable mementos for the drivers who made them valuable.
“I didn’t expect to get that car,” Gordon said. “Sure, I wanted it. That was such a significant moment and experience for me. While I was hoping that was going to be a championship-winning car also, I look at that car and it really encapsulates my whole career, the way I see it, and in that moment at Homestead.”
Gordon also has an old NASCAR road course model he planned to use to entertain friends but never got around to using. He owns the pace car used in the inaugural Brickyard 400 in 1994 and attempted unsuccessfully to acquire the Corvette Z06 he used to lead the field to green in last year’s Indianapolis 500.
Hendrick, who hoards pieces of team memorabilia, grins at the prospect of one day seeing that final Gordon No. 24 return home.
“I think I’ll get it back to put it in the museum anyway,” Hendrick said. “He’s got nowhere to store it, so I can store it for him.”
Gordon laughed at the premise but then admitted: “He’s right. I’m very proud of that car and what it represents. I don’t want that car sitting in a warehouse. I want that car on display. If Rick or the Hall of Fame wants that car, I’m going to own (it), but they can certainly display it.”
Cars in storage
Earnhardt would cherish such an option. A scholar of the sport, he attaches memories and emotions to race cars. But the detachment from the organization that fielded cars for him at the beginning of his career has made regaining memorable machines little more than a wish.
The white and red No. 8 Chevrolet in which Earnhardt won his first Daytona 500 in 2004 remains in the building housing the remnants of now-defunct Dale Earnhardt Inc., the team founded by his late father and namesake. Earnhardt Jr. left DEI — still run by his stepmother, Teresa — and has raced for Hendrick Motorsports since 2008. His business team hasn’t asked for the storied cars, under the assumption the request will be denied.
“I don’t have any race cars of my own that I raced,” Earnhardt said. “There’s several at DEI. The car I raced in Japan against my father, one of my Late Models is there that I got my first win in in 1994. That car is sitting over there. The 500 winner. There’s a few cars over there that I imagine are still there. There was an AC Delco championship Busch Series car there from ’98 or ’99.”
Collecting slowly, surely
Patrick hasn’t felt the pangs of nostalgia yet, but her father, T.J., has encouraged and assisted her in beginning a modest collection.
She has acquired a backup car to the No. 16 Rahal Letterman Panoz she used to become the first woman to lead the Indianapolis 500 in 2005. She obtained the ARCA car she used in her first stock car race at Daytona International Speedway in 2010. And she has a favored Hot Wheels design Sprint Cup car from 2012. She anticipates securing her final car with long-time sponsor GoDaddy once it is removed from the Stewart-Haas Racing fleet.
The real prize, however, is proving difficult.
“The Motegi car,” she said, referring to the Honda in which she earned her only IndyCar win, in 2008. “I’ve been trying to get that one for a long time.”
But it’s among what Andretti Autosport spokesperson Ryann Rigsby deemed the team’s “historic cars,” including those of Indianapolis 500 winners (Dario Franchitti, 2007 and Dan Wheldon, 2005) and a car team owner Michael Andretti used in his last start in the race in 2007. It’s not for sale, at least at a price Patrick said she is willing to pay.
“We’ll eventually get it … I think,” she said.
Some aren’t sentimental
Mario Andretti always was too consumed by the lure of the next car, the next plateau, the next milestone, to be sentimental.
“I so much looked forward to the next car,” Andretti said. “I never really, for specific reasons, never tried to fall in love with them, because I figured I would always be looking back.”
Andretti still doesn’t pine for those old cars as keepsakes. But they certainly could have been good investments.
“I tell you, I missed the boat on that one,” he said. “I could have had, say, the Ferrari that I won my first Formula 1 race in. In fact, I refused it. … I could have had my world championship. … I never bothered. The only car that I had is the Lola that I drove in my very last race, in Laguna Seca in 1994.
“But I was so busy in my own mind driving and so forth that that never entered my mind, which was somewhat short-sighted the way I see it now.”
Or maybe a lot easier on the emotions.
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