Hendrick Motorsports has met the moment through overwhelming adversity and withering tragedy for four decades, and Jon Edwards was an unheralded rock of support during many devastating times.
The team‘s director of communications, whose death was announced last Thursday, joined Hendrick in 1994 just before Jeff Gordon began his run of four championships in seven seasons. Edwards was the point person on the No. 24 Chevrolet, but he also was hugely instrumental in helping guide Hendrick through the depths of the 2004 plane crash that killed 10 people.
He did it with unwavering professionalism, dignified class and with a free-spirited, friendly but enigmatic style that made Edwards one of the most well-liked behind-the-scenes players in NASCAR.
“He was the best,” Gordon said.
And he worked for the best.
Hendrick Motorsports is the most successful team in NASCAR history. Its massive triumphs are inextricably intertwined with deep tribulations. They equally define the narrative arc that traces a record 14 championships and 315 Cup victories.
So when Kyle Larson, who won the 2021 title with Edwards as his PR rep, dominated to win Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway, it might have been viewed with an expected element of routine. That it was just like all the other times that the team indefatigably has risen to the occasion.
Except it didn‘t feel that way for the man who knew Edwards like a brother.
“I can’t speak for everybody on the team, but for me walking in today, it was different,” Gordon said. “Yeah, it was tough. I think that we’ve gone through a lot as an organization over 40 years. When you have experience with those things, you realize, ‘What would that person want?‘ and try to fulfill that.
“Jon would want us to be here racing and would want us to … I don’t even think he would want us to honor him. He would want us to not say his name at all. He wants to go under the radar and be this kind of unsung hero, I guess. There’s no way to do it any other way for a great like him. Sometimes it’s therapeutic, but it’s also not really an option, either. You just try to learn from it and grow from it and bond together as an organization and a team together, and I think that’s what Jon is going to do in this case for us.”
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Edwards would have liked that his final act was about bringing people together because it‘s what he did on the daily both personally and professionally.
A St. Petersburg Times reporter who covered a plethora of professional and college teams once said Gordon was “the most accessible superstar in sports,” and that was a major credit to Edwards, who didn‘t discriminate while granting countless interview requests to small-town newspapers and national media outlets.
He played nearly as large of a role as Gordon did in the four-time champion becoming a darling of Madison Avenue in the late 1990s.
“What I loved about working with Jon is that he would call me out or put an emphasis on things that were priorities,” Gordon said. “Sometimes you get caught up in going week to week that you not always are wanting to put some of the opportunities that come your way first. Jon was always great of just presenting it in a way of, ‘Hey, I think this is a great opportunity, and if we don’t do it today, maybe you can do it tomorrow or another time, but you need to do it.’ When he said that, then you’re, like, ‘Absolutely.‘ If he believed in it, then I believed in it.”
Edwards also was a convincing ringleader away from the track. The longtime resident of Charlotte once was known as “The Mayor of Taco Tuesday Trivia” for a large group of 20- and 30-something NASCAR industry and media types who met weekly at an Uptown watering hole. Edwards always arrived first to hold a large table for several hours while imbibing copious amounts of Guinness and $1 chicken and beef tacos.
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His zest for having fun was contagious as the commissioner of fantasy football leagues — both with the NFL and the English Premier League (the long-suffering Arsenal fan loved to trade barbs about his beloved Gunners, who ranked alongside the North Carolina Tar Heels as his favorites).
He loved betting on virtually all sports, once randomly turning an ESPN.com promotion called “Streak for The Cash” into a full-fledged betting operation that included multiple Cup drivers. He usually carried a huge wad of cash to peel off large bills to weekly winners.
“He loved to consume and consume life,” Gordon said with a laugh. “I’ve really enjoyed this week talking to some folks that I haven’t talked to in many years. Jon just had friends from all different walks of life and loved all forms of motorsports. Just hearing some of those stories and things I didn’t know or hadn’t heard.”
There was a benevolent hedonism to Edwards‘ incessant worldly travels, which took him to Spa for F1 and London for EPL games (or sometimes Aruba just for fun). Though particular about planning his own trips, he often invited many to go with him — and there would be no judgment if they couldn‘t go or if they chose to deviate from a meticulous itinerary designed by a master of logistics.
As Spire Motorsports co-owner Jeff Dickerson noted in an eloquent social media post: “He treated everyone like they were the most important part of his day. It didn‘t matter what the issue was or who you were, you were treated like gold.”
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But Edwards could be fastidious about shepherding Gordon‘s schedule. If a reporter tried to surpass the allotted time, it usually was a firm no.
All would be forgotten several hours later and a few IPAs deep at Edwards‘ favorite brewery in whatever town the NASCAR circus was visiting that week. (If forced to pick, Edwards might be partial to Dogfish Head Brewing in Delaware, though he also enjoyed a wide variety of Belgian and German beers — sometimes the more exotic the better).
In a sport filled with cantankerous personalities, he counted virtually everyone in NASCAR as a friend, but he also was intensely private. NASCAR‘s International Man of Mystery also had a mischievous side.
“He would always come up to me before every race, ‘Hey, Cliff, when we dominate later, we’re going to do this, this and this after the race,‘ ” crew chief Cliff Daniels said. “I’m a big, ‘Don’t jinx it,‘ guy. I’m always like, ‘Jon, no, you can’t say, ‘When we win.’ But every Sunday, ‘Yeah, when we kick their ass today, Cliff, we’re going to do this later.‘ I enjoyed that interaction before every race because he knew that it was fun to say but also that it would kind of twist me a little.”
So thus it was fitting that Larson led 411 of 500 laps at Bristol, and Edwards‘ devilish confidence would be proved right again.
As Larson eloquently said Friday, Edwards wouldn‘t want anyone to be sad about his passing. He was always a happy person — but that also doesn‘t make this a happy ending for Hendrick Motorsports.
Because amid all the checkered flags, there‘s never any ending for this team that can‘t be kept down.
Hendrick will keep on conquering the despair. But as Edwards‘ loss showed, it never gets any easier.
Nate Ryan has written about NASCAR since 1996 while working at the San Bernardino Sun, Richmond Times-Dispatch, USA TODAY and for the past 10 years at NBC Sports Digital. He is a contributor to the “Hauler Talk” show on the NASCAR Podcast Network. He also has covered various other motorsports, including the IndyCar and IMSA series.
