Hendrick Motorsports Team III

Why the #17? - The number 17 was chosen because that was Darrell Waltrip’s original number when he entered NASCAR back in the early 1970’s. He originally chose it because his childhood hero was David Pearson, who drove the #17 Ford Torino to three championships with Holman-Moody. When the team closed down following 1990 when Waltrip started his own team, he took the 17 number with him.

Why the #24? The number 24 was selected because it at the time, did not have a major history in the Cup Series with success, Hendrick, Gordon and Evernham wanted a number to start fresh off with. The original number of the team was supposed to be 46, however there was problems with licensing the number as Paramount Pictures, who made Days of Thunder owned the trademark to the number 46 at the time, even thought 46 did run with Hendrick for footage in races for the movie Days of Thunder. Though they did run the 46 again in 1993 with a DuPont scheme at Talladega with Buddy Baker.

Why the #9? - The number 9 was chosen for Chase Elliott to carry on the legacy of his father, Hall of Famer Bill Elliott. Originally Richard Petty Motorsports abandoned the number 9 after 2015 and left it for Chase to use it in 2016, however Hendrick was determined to keep the 24 number around after Jeff Gordon retired. The change happened after two years of running the 24. A long standing myth was that his grandfather George, chose the number 9 for Bill after Georgia Highway 9, the main road connecting Dawsonville and Dahlonega (Bill’s home area) to Atlanta. However in a 2017 article from the Elliott Racing Heritage actual revealed that the number 9 was chosen to honor Jody and Biddle Ridley, local drivers who were heroes to the Elliott’s (Jody would win a Cup race with Junie Donlavey in 1981 at Dover). Originally Jody chose the number 9 because it was one of the numbers of 98, the number of their childhood heroes Parnelli Jones. Jody picked the 98 while his brother Biddle would pick 9.