The team traces its origins to 1986, when Tony Bettenhausen Jr. founded Bettenhausen Motorsports and served as both team owner and primary driver through 1991. After reducing his driving role, Bettenhausen employed a series of notable drivers, including Formula 1 veteran Stefan Johansson as the primary driver from 1993 to 1996, and future IndyCar stars Patrick Carpentier in 1997 and Helio Castroneves in 1998. In early 2000, Bettenhausen, his wife, and two business associates were killed in a plane crash while returning from a Florida vacation, abruptly ending the original team structure.
Keith Wiggins took over as co-owner and managing director, and the team was renamed Herdez Competition as Michel Jourdain Jr. joined as lead driver with backing from the Mexican food brand. Two difficult seasons followed before Mario Dominguez arrived in 2002. An opportunistic victory at Surfers Paradise in a rain-shortened race elevated the team's fortunes — Dominguez started last but benefited from pit strategy as others fell away, claiming the win without passing a single car on track.
The 2003 season proved the team's strongest under the Herdez banner. Dominguez and Roberto Moreno produced a 1-2 finish at Miami, and Dominguez finished fifth in the championship — a significant achievement for a team of this size. Ryan Hunter-Reay joined for 2004 and led all 250 laps at The Milwaukee Mile from pole position, demonstrating the team's continued competitiveness even as the Herdez sponsorship began to fade.
For 2005, without Herdez backing, Wiggins renamed the team HVM and was forced to rely on pay drivers Bjorn Wirdheim and Ronnie Bremer. Cedric the Entertainer became a co-owner late in 2005, adding a celebrity dimension, and Nelson Philippe won in Australia to give the team a respectable fourth-place championship finish.
In 2006, former Minardi Formula 1 team owner Paul Stoddart purchased an interest and the team raced as Minardi Team USA for the 2007 Champ Car season. Robert Doornbos delivered two wins — at Mont-Tremblant and San Jose — and finished third in the championship, claiming Rookie of the Year honours and Hard Charger. Following the merger of CART and IRL into a unified IndyCar Series in 2008, the team returned to the HVM Racing name.
Under the HVM banner in IndyCar, E. J. Viso was the primary driver in 2008 and 2009. Swiss driver Simona de Silvestro joined for 2010 through 2012, becoming one of five women racing in the IndyCar Series in 2010. After de Silvestro departed to KV Racing for 2013, HVM briefly aligned with Andretti Autosport to field Viso as a satellite entry, but the team was unable to secure consistent support. The team was officially listed as defunct in November 2015.
Across its various identities, the Bettenhausen/Herdez/HVM team spanned nearly three decades of American open-wheel racing, bridging the CART era through Champ Car and into the unified IndyCar Series. The Herdez Competition years in particular represented a competitive high point, with Mexican drivers and sponsorship bringing a rare international flavour to the CART paddock and producing memorable results including the 2003 Miami 1-2 finish.