This isn’t ordinary from Hendrick Motorsports but in fairness, Corey Day is no ordinary prospect.
The last time Rick Hendrick signed off on a multi-year development project of any kind was Chase Elliott in 2011. This was five years before the eventual 2020 champion even reached the Cup Series.
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Prior to that, the only other recent examples of such endeavors were Landon Cassill in 2007 and Ricky Hendrick, who tragically died in 2004.
In short, Hendrick agreeing to a long-term development project speaks to the level of conviction Jeff Gordon and Jeff Andrews have in Day, the 20-year-old Sprint Car prodigy.
“First, I would say, we did try that once,” said Gordon of an in-house development program, “and I think everyone knows we failed miserably when we did it with multiple drivers, and I don’t think we gave them a fair shot.
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“I’m not sure we went through all the correct best practices when it came to finding the right drivers out of that group and making it a full-blown effort.”
The difference this time around is Hendrick Motorsports has already established an O’Reilly Series program born from a desire to have fun with a more traditional Stock Car platform due to the radical stylistic changes inherent to the NextGen.
Gordon and Andrews also have connections to Day that made the pairing a natural fit as well. Gordon raced against Day’s father, Ronnie, when they were regulars in the World of Outlaws and All-Star Circuit of Champions. Andrews’ brother Craig is well-known in the California Sprint Car scene and was an early advocate for Day. Their father, Bob Andrews, built engines for Ronnie too.
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So, while it’s broadly assumed that Kyle Larson was the impetus for his bosses discovering Day, the 2021 champion’s push was just the final nudge that convinced the Chevrolet flagship towards a development package.
As Larson tells it, he had been impressed with Day since his first USAC National Midget Championship win at Circle City in 2021 but it was Gordon that approached him with the idea first. This conversation took place after Day won the prestigious Gold Cup Race of Champions in 2023 at Silver Dollar Speedway.
Larson co-owns the Chico, California racetrack with Brad Sweet and Colby Copeland.
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“The next day was the Cup race at Kansas, and he always stops by all of our cars and he brought it up,” said Larson. “It was like, ‘hey man, did you see that Corey Day kid won?’ I told him ‘yeah, he’s so good; someone should pick him up’ (and) Jeff said ‘it might as well be us.’
Larson said he sent Gordon a lengthy text message the following day essentially wondering how serious that exchange was. The Hall of Famer said he meant it. Gordon and Andrews needed to sell Rick Hendrick on the idea first but the benefits far outweighed the costs when evaluating the potential.
“The key to us was his age, and not just talent,” Gordon said. “You see the talent but if a driver has been in a certain series for too long, it doesn’t work. It’s all about getting a driver very early on, recognizing the talent and then using their impressionability to teach them something completely different.
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“I think that’s been the risk but it’s also been the exciting part for us.”
Hendrick believed in the talent but Andrews said they needed to sell ‘Mr. H’ on the person behind the steering wheel.
“I think that’s an overlooked aspect of it,” Andrews said. “It’s not just ‘what you have done behind the wheel’ but we want to know your parents and how they introduced you to racing. We want to know how you were taught to treat other competitors and people, and the overall person you are. Where do you take that passion and apply it?”
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Look no further than Hendrick’s support of Rajah Caruth for that philosophy in application.
“So we know Corey’s family, and they’re good people, so it made taking the risks easier because we knew how seriously he was going to take it,” Andrew said of Day. “He has a steep learning curve but again, it’s not just about the talent but the mental foundation to make it work as well.
“I think it’s important to point out that this was a lot of the conversation Jeff and I had but also what we needed to take to Mr. Hendrick too.”
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For Day himself, he feels both pride and responsibility towards honoring the trust placed in him. He never imagined a NASCAR career because his family didn’t have that kind of money in a pay-to-play environment.
He was largely content to be a Sprint Car racer like his father before him — and was becoming a championship contender in High Limit Racing right before Hendrick Motorsports made its offer.
“When I first got this deal, I wasn’t aware of how rare it is for Hendrick Motorsports to do something like this,” Day said. “Now I do and it’s really, really cool to know I’m that guy.”
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For all the praise, there has also been no shortage of hurdles along the way. Day was plucked from Sprint Cars and dropped into a full-time championship-caliber ride at the second-highest level of the discipline.
Prior to this year, the extent of his pavement experience was two Late Model Stock races, six in ARCA, six in TransAm2, 13 in Trucks and 11 in the O’Reilly Series car.
Christopher Bell emerged from a similar background but spent full seasons in each of those levels before driving a Cup Series car. Larson was similarly dropped right into the O’Reilly Series but he and Bell also owe their development to a version of the sport that saw extensive testing and numerous practice sessions each week.
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Day gets 20 minutes per race weekend for tracks he had never raced until this year.
Gordon anticipated some of the early season adversity, which included several solo spins and crashes that drew the ire of his competitors.
“I honestly expected it,” Gordon said.
Gordon famously crashed a lot of Rick Hendrick’s cars during his rookie Cup Series campaign in 1993. Those around back then wondered if Hendrick made a mistake in hiring Gordon.
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“I was way worse,” Gordon said with a laugh.
Gordon and Andrews expected some challenges but the journey was the entire point. They wanted to challenge the capacity of his race craft and mental fortitude.
“It’s not that we thought we would have deal with it every week but we knew there would be more lows than highs at first,” Andrews said. “We expected to see more top 10s in the second half, and then top 5s, before challenging for wins by the end of the year.
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“What’s happened is the opposite, honestly. We had some struggles the first three or four races, but he started to figure out some things, won a couple of races and we believe he is ahead of the curve.
“What we saw at Texas and Pocono, those are very similar issues, and that’s the sort of thing that we have to nurture and nature with him but we are pleased with where he’s at.”
Day has also been very stoic in the face of outside criticism. His peers have been harsh at times, especially following the incidents at Daytona, Atlanta and Texas but he never lashed out publicly and addressed them within the four walls at Hendrick Motorsports.
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“The only thing we’ve had to do,” said Gordon, “is send him over to JR Motorsports to talk to the guys he got into earlier this season. That was new to him. When you’re racing Sprint Cars, it’s just you, and part of the progression is him interacting with his teammates or the guys at JRM because we have a relationship with them.”
That’s been a two-way street, because as Day learned to make amends with the likes of Justin Allgaier, those with experience have been willing to share more to make him better.
Day admits he somewhat resents social media in NASCAR because of how reactive it is.
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“Earlier in the year, those were just mistakes I made from never being in those positions before,” Day said. “It’s not like I took anyone out intentionally but it just looks like I did. Those were things that were going to get better with seat time, and they did.
“I knew Mr. Hendrick knew that. Jeff Andrews and Jeff Gordon knew that. Social media didn’t seem to think that and I’ve had to learn how to deal with those situations better. I’ve never had a camera put in front of me before, where I was expected to apologize. If you take someone out in a Sprint Car, they really, really deserved it and there was no backlash about it. You just keep racing.
“So, the off-the-track stuff here is just different. I’ve had to learn to navigate it. I’ve had to learn a degree of humility and just deal with conflict in a different way that anything else I’ve done before.”
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Day tries to handle things internally without asking for much help, and Larson can relate because he says that was him a decade ago.
“We don’t talk about the NASCAR stuff a lot,” Larson said. “We’re just two dirt racing fans. That’s how I came up in NASCAR too. Maybe it’s the dirt racing culture, where you just feel like you need to figure it out on your own, because we have quick practices and the racing happens so fast and you don’t have data or any of that stuff.
“We’re kind of just trained to not as any questions, which I understand, because I was the same way. He doesn’t ask any questions and I didn’t have anyone that I called every week either.”
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“We just go out there and figure it out.”
Through it all, Day has wins at Talladega and Dover, sits fifth in the standings and is starting to know exactly what he wants out of a Stock Car over the course of a race and season. When asked to grade himself, Day gave two answers.
“At the beginning of the year, I just wanted to win a race, and now I have two halfway through the year,” Day said. “When you look at it that way, we’re an A+ and we’re exceeding expectations.
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“But then, I think of the mistakes I’ve made at Texas and Pocono, the terrible race at Chicagoland, and not finishing the race at Atlanta, that’s taking the score down to a B-. This sport ebbs and flows. … I’m sure there are some people that believe I am exceeding expectations and some probably think I suck and would give me a worse grade.”
He landed on B+.
What will Gordon and Andrews need to see to decide he’s ready for the Cup Series?
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“You just have to either make sure they have the race craft down and the understanding of the nuances of the tracks and aero … and the up and downs of a long season,” Gordon said. “You want to see the comfort with all the track types.
“So then there’s the question of ‘do we just throw them in’ and when do you do that? I don’t think there’s a consensus answer on when you do that with a young driver because they’re never going to be ready until they just do it.
“But you do risk putting them in the car too soon as well.”
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Andrews agreed but tailored the answer to Day specifically.
“I mean, you see so many guys that are really successful at the Truck or O’Reilly level and the car is just so different,” Andrews said. “The races are longer. The pace is faster. The tires are wider. There are so many differences and there is still a lot of development in his race craft for him to improve upon, whether it’s restarts or Lap One.
“If he was sitting here, I would tell him the same thing. … Man, we’ve won two races but we also have two races where we destroyed the car on the first lap and that’s what we want to see less of. We want to see consistency. It takes time. It takes spending four or five days and then coming back to your team with what you’ve learned.
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“But he understands that.”
With the news that Alex Bowman will retire after the 2027 season, potentially opening up the No. 48 car, Day says he isn’t fixated on that as an outcome. He’s just working on the things Gordon and Andrews tell him to address.
“I’m not really thinking about it that way,” Day said. “I am really grateful for where I am at and I am way further along than I ever thought I would get the chance to be. It would be very foolish of me to think I’m going to have that quick of a path.
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“I am really just focused on this year. The way I see it, if I keep improving, there’s no reason I can’t have a chance to compete for the championship by the end of the year. I’m more focused on that than what the future holds for me.”
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