Rick Hendrick has always had a knack for making headlines.

He beat cancer, which helped him stay out of prison after pleading guilty to federal mail fraud. He has guided his NASCAR team to six titles and through the tragedy of a plane crash that killed four members of his family and six friends.

His latest splash came Wednesday, when the biggest name in the sport — Dale Earnhardt Jr. — said it had become apparent that of all the owners in NASCAR, Rick Hendrick was “the man I wanted to drive for.”

“Rick’s life experiences have also made him more of what he is,” said Jimmie Johnson, the defending Nextel Cup champion and one of the four drivers in the Hendrick Motorsports garage. “He’s fought through leukemia. He’s had financial challenges. He financed everything to get his first auto dealership, and had success through it.”

Yet Hendrick’s penchant for finding the spotlight doesn’t always match the easygoing nature of the 57-year-old car dealer, who grew up on a tobacco farm and by all accounts remains true to his down-home roots.

“When you get in these situations when you feel it’s all about the money, the job, it’s nothing about wanting to see someone succeed, then I think it just doesn’t have the same meaning to it,” Hendrick said.

Hendrick’s success at the track has sometimes overshadowed his often difficult life away from racing. He was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia in 1996, had a bone marrow transplant and underwent chemotherapy for nearly 1,100 days. The disease went into remission in 1999.

While fighting it, Hendrick pleaded guilty to mail fraud involving the payment of $20,000 to an executive at Honda. Though he was fined $250,000, he stayed out of prison because of the disease and later was pardoned by President Clinton. Three years ago, Hendrick lost his son, brother, two nieces and six others when their small plane crashed in fog while on the way to a race in Martinsville, Va.

“There’s a tremendous void, every time I walk into the track and I look at the cars, and I’ve got the picture in the office of the cars that (son Ricky) drove,” Hendrick said. “Sometimes, I think, ’Am I torturing myself? Should I not have it around me? Does it make it harder?”’

But Johnson and the other drivers at Hendrick Motorsports, including four-time NASCAR champion Jeff Gordon, praise his commitment to their sport. They said Hendrick has a folksy charm and a genuine interest in their success that goes beyond the financial spoils that come with the checkered flag.

“He’s a caring person, a loving person. He’s also a stern businessman that’s made a successful empire for himself,” Johnson said. “But he’s got a heart, and it’s a pleasure working for him.”

That apparently wasn’t lost on Earnhardt. The ties between their families extend through multiple generations — from fielding a car for Dale Earnhardt Sr. in 1983, to playfully convincing Junior, a teenager at the time, to sign an informal contract on a napkin.

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“We were joking around, but he’s a pretty smart businessman,” Earnhardt said. “I figured that even if it was a joke, I’d better sign it, because it might come in handy one day.”

Hendrick, who started with a single Chevrolet dealership in South Carolina, now has an empire of more than 60 outlets from North Carolina to California. He started his NASCAR shop in 1984, with Geoff Bodine as his first driver.

He won three races that first year, and even before signing Earnhardt, his Hendrick Motorsports team had grown to become the dominant team in NASCAR. His cars have won a total 159 races — including 10 of 14 this year — on the way to those six titles.

“I’m hoping it ain’t that hard to get me to victory lane,” Earnhardt said.