_{*Quick Summary: The author writes about his time with Papa Joe Hendrick’s drag car named “Black Maria”.*}

In the beginning of my time at Hendrick Motorsports working for Papa Joe Hendrick, we rebuilt his old Chevy II play-toy drag car, named “Black Maria”. Back then in 1990’ish, we were tasked with building a whole new chassis and otherwise freshen up the car. I was truly overjoyed to be a small part of that effort then. It meant a lot to me to learn more about drag racing chassis and setups from some amazingly talented people. It also meant so much more to have time to bond with Papa Joe, and working on this car led to some stories from his life as a child, and later as an adult on the farm. I learned the names “Black Maria” (pronounced Mariah), and “Bull Of The Woods” were tobacco brands Pop and his family sold tobacco to years ago. Putting their names and company logos on the car was a tribute to those days gone by for him. As the years progressed, and after Pop’s death in 2004, just seeing this car from time to time took on extra emotional meaning for me. It symbolized a time when the man that became my hero, mentor, and friend, took the time and the chance to take me under his wing and give me an opportunity.

Some photos from that time:

Fast forward to today, now 20 years later. As Rick Hendrick was planning the first stages for the Hendrick Performance Group, one of the things he wanted to do was get Black Maria out of retirement and take it down the drag strip. While Pop built the car and would play with it from time to time, it had never been down the strip. It was strictly a parking lot racer. Being involved in the newly formed Hendrick Performance is exciting for me, but to be able to start my association with this new group by taking a trip down memory lane with Black Maria, was super emotional. As a mostly new team of people was working on the car now (from this group, only Danny Pledger and I worked on it in the early days), it gave us an opportunity to tell them some stories and reminisce about the years with Papa Joe. The guys got the car ready, and we took it to zMAX Dragway back in April. Once there, Rick informed us he was retiring the car after this run. He wanted to pay tribute to his dad in a way that only he could – by taking this car that had never been down a track, for a run down one of the most prestigious drag racing facilities in the world. While the car didn’t set any records and we didn’t expect it to, just to see it finally do what we built it to do was very special for me, and I’m very thankful for having the opportunity to be a part of it. That one was for you Pop!

Here are some photos from the zMAX run: