"If you don’t do it you’ll regret it”: $1B worth Rick Hendrick reveals how his wife Linda persuade him to sell ‘brand new’ house for a start over

Rick Hendrick has shared the story of a risky move his wife Linda told him to take in pursuit of reaching greater heights. His wife persuaded him to sell their brand-new house in Virginia to start a new dealership in South Carolina.

Hendrick is a 75-year-old American businessman who owns the Hendrick Motorsports NASCAR team. Today, the team owner is worth $1 billion (as per Celebrity Net Worth) from running a NASCAR team and car dealerships under the Hendrick Automotive Group.

In the latest episode of Business of Motorsports, Rick Hendrick sat down with host Kelley Earnhardt Miller, Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s sister, and recalled how his wife told him to sell his assets to purchase a Chevrolet dealership. Some of the assets happened to be a brand-new Virginia house, a BMW, and a Mercedes.

"We got in the car and rode down to Bennettsville and I was joking, I said, 'Now, when we get there, this Chevrolet side will probably be in a cornfield.' Well, it wasn't a cornfield. It was a beanfield... and no showroom, and I was like, 'Man, this is too much of a change,'" Hendrick shared. [2:32]

His wife Linda then persuaded him to leave everything behind to start anew in Bennettsville, South Carolina.

"Linda said, 'Hey, if you don't do it, you'll regret it, and if it doesn't work, we'll start over.' So [we] sold the house, sold the cars, all we had when we moved to Bennettsville was a bean bag and we bought a $28,000 house in Bennettsville, and back against the wall, and it was nowhere to go but up," Hendrick told the podcast. [3:05]

While General Motors, Chevrolet's parent company, expected Hendrick to sell 200 cars annually, the businessman sold a thousand units in the first year.

"If I had taken a mediocre deal, it wouldn't have looked so good than taking something totally broken and fixing it," he added. [5:08]

In the world of NASCAR, Rick Hendrick has also reached the top step of the ladder. Hendrick Motorsports is the winningest team in the sport's history, amassing 14 championships and 312 race wins in the Cup Series.

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Rick Hendrick shares lessons learned from Kelley Earnhardt Miller

While Rick Hendrick is undeniably a master of his craft, the businessman has admitted to learning a lot from his employees. One of them was Kelley Earnhardt Miller, who taught him how to negotiate during a meeting with Dale Jr.'s sponsor.

On the same podcast episode, Hendrick told Earnhardt-Miller:

"You know, Kelley, you learned something from everyone. You taught me something in negotiations when we were sitting down."

The NASCAR team owner continued:

"We had a National Guard and Pepsi fighting over the car and we split it [...] Kelly said, 'Well, there's a couple things. We want to design the car. And number two, you're not going to share in the royalties.' And they sat back and said, 'Well, we can't do that because we need the royalties to help support the deal.' And Kelly just closed her book and said, 'Well, that's not going to happen.'"

Rick Hendrick concluded that Earnhardt-Miller was right for standing her ground during the meeting, which gave him a lesson about negotiations.

"I thought, oh, my goodness, let's take a break. 'And I went out and said, Kelly, we need to negotiate a little bit.' And as it worked out, you were right. You held strong. And so I learned a lot about your negotiating skills back in that day."

This happened during Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s move from Dale Earnhardt, Inc. (DEI) to Hendrick Motorsports for the 2008 season. Kelley Earnhardt-Miller was her brother's manager and sought to seal the best sponsorship deals.

Dale Jr. last drove the No. 88 Chevrolet for Rick Hendrick's team in 2017. However, the two continue to partner in NASCAR, particularly as co-owners of JR Motorsports in the Xfinity Series.