Charlotte, N.C. ? Rick Hendrick was most nervous when his son was driving a race car.

With the threat of serious injury always a split-second away, the founder of one of NASCAR’s top racing teams found little joy in watching Ricky on the track.

At 21, the son became the youngest driver to win a truck series race with his 2001 victory at Kansas Speedway.

He had one top-five and three top-10 finishes in 38 Busch series starts.

None of it mattered to his father, who pleaded with Ricky to quit racing, promising lavish gifts in exchange. Eventually, the elder Hendrick got his way, although ultimately stepping from a race car into the boardroom didn’t save Ricky Hendrick.

He was one of 10 people killed Sunday when the Hendrick Motorsports plane crashed into a Virginia mountain en route to the Nextel Cup race at Martinsville Speedway. He was 24.

“It’s like a hammer to the chest. It takes the wind out of you,” driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. said.

Ricky Hendrick didn’t want to have fancy cars or to own his own automobile dealership. He wanted to be the next Jeff Gordon, to emulate the driver who pushed the Hendrick name into racing lore.

It wasn’t until a 2002 Busch series accident sidelined Ricky for two months with a shoulder injury that his father got his way.

When Ricky was ready to return to racing, Hendrick put his son through a series of grueling on-track tests.

When it was clear Ricky wasn’t the same, that he had lost his nerve to race cars at speeds nearing 200 mph, he retired at 22.

His father had never been happier.

“As a father, I’m not going to miss having to watch him race on Saturdays,” Rick Hendrick said of the October, 2002 retirement announcement. “I can’t tell you how proud I am of Ricky.

“When he realized that he wasn’t physically able to do this, he showed a lot of character by making a tough choice.”

With his blond hair and bright eyes, Ricky Hendrick was the spitting image of a young version of his father. And in two short years, he flashed signs of the business skills that his father used to form an automobile empire.

From the 60 car dealerships Hendrick owned, to the five Nextel Cup teams he fielded in NASCAR’s top series, Ricky was positioning himself to someday run it all.

“With his experience in so many areas of Hendrick Motorsports, from race cars to sponsorship, Ricky will be a valuable contributor to the future growth and success of our company,” the father said in December 2002.

That was when he announced his son would become owner of the No. 5 Chevrolet in which Ricky had made 38 career starts in the Busch series.

Ricky handpicked Brian Vickers, then 19, for the ride, and the duo became the youngest owner-driver combination in NASCAR. Age didn’t stand in their way, as Vickers drove the car to Hendrick Motorsports’ first Busch series title last year.

When Vickers moved up to the Nextel Cup series, Ricky took over ownership of his No. 25 team and led that team, as well. He moved Kyle Busch into the No. 5, and Busch is now second in the Busch series standings.

His eye for spotting talent was so obvious, his father made Ricky the primary scout for Hendrick’s driver development program. He recently signed drivers Blake Feese, Boston Reid and Kyle Krisiloff. Feese has already won two ARCA races, and Krisiloff has one ARCA victory.

Ricky also recently opened his own Performance Honda/Suzuki motorcycle dealership in suburban Charlotte, with Hendrick Motorsports drivers on hand to help make the opening a major event.

“I miss racing,” Ricky said last year. “But if you look at the whole picture and you see what Brian’s doing and what that team’s doing, I feel like it’s my child. It’s something that I put together and something that I started.”