Hendrick was born in Warrenton, North Carolina and raised on his family's farm in South Hill, Virginia, attending Park View High School. He showed mechanical aptitude from childhood; at age 14, with the help of his father Joseph Riddick Hendrick Jr., he rebuilt a 1931 Chevrolet. He attended the University of Alabama. At 16 he won the Virginia division of the Chrysler-Plymouth Troubleshooting Contest. He opened a small used-car lot with Mike Leith before becoming general sales manager of an established dealership at age 23. In 1976 he purchased a franchise in Bennettsville, South Carolina, becoming the youngest Chevrolet dealer in the United States at the time. The success there seeded the Hendrick Automotive Group, which grew to more than 100 franchises across 13 states and annual revenues exceeding $3.5 billion by 2009.
Hendrick's introduction to competitive motorsport came through drag racing from age 14 and later through a drag boat racing team that won three consecutive championships and set a world speed record of 222.2 mph. He then fielded an entry in NASCAR's Model Sportsman Series before founding All-Star Racing — later renamed Hendrick Motorsports — in 1984. Starting with five employees and 5,000 square feet of workspace, the team fielded a single Winston Cup entry for Geoff Bodine, finishing all 30 races and placing ninth in the final standings with three victories.
Hendrick Motorsports has grown into one of the defining forces in NASCAR. As of 2024 the team had accumulated 304 NASCAR Cup Series race victories, making Hendrick the winningest team owner in the sport's history. The team's championship total stood at nineteen across NASCAR's national touring series: fifteen Cup Series titles, three Camping World Truck Series championships (all won by Jack Sprague), and one Xfinity Series title (Brian Vickers in 2003).
The Cup Series championships were distributed across four drivers. Jimmie Johnson won seven titles driving for Hendrick, Jeff Gordon won four, Kyle Larson won two, and Chase Elliott and Terry Labonte each won one. Hendrick is one of only three team owners in NASCAR history to have won championships in all three of NASCAR's top national series, alongside Richard Childress and Jack Roush.
He drove in competitive events himself on occasion, recording NASCAR Winston Cup Series starts in the 1987 and 1988 seasons, with results of 33rd and 15th respectively. In the late 1980s Hendrick also operated an IMSA GTP Corvette programme.
He co-owns JR Motorsports with Dale Earnhardt Jr., the Xfinity Series outfit that won the 2003 championship with Brian Vickers.
Hendrick is the father of the late Ricky Hendrick, a NASCAR driver who died in a plane crash in October 2004 alongside other members of the Hendrick family and Hendrick Motorsports personnel. In October 2011, Rick Hendrick and his wife Linda survived a plane accident in Key West, Florida, with Hendrick sustaining three broken ribs and a fractured clavicle.
In 1997 Hendrick pleaded guilty to mail fraud charges stemming from alleged payments to American Honda Motor Company executives in the 1980s to secure larger vehicle allocations during a period of high demand. He was sentenced to a $250,000 fine, 12 months of home confinement, and three years of probation; he received a full pardon from President Bill Clinton in December 2000. Hendrick began the Hendrick Marrow Program in 1997, a non-profit organisation working with the National Marrow Donor Program to support patients requiring bone marrow transplants.
Hendrick was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2017 and into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2020.