Richard Childress can empathize with at least some of the despair that fellow NASCAR team owner Rick Hendrick is going through.

Nearly four years ago, Dale Earnhardt was killed while driving for Childress in the Daytona 500.

"I looked at Dale as a brother, and I know what Rick and that whole team are going through today," Childress said Monday.

Just 24 hours earlier, a plane owned by Hendrick Motorsports crashed. All 10 people aboard were killed, including Hendrick's son, brother and twin nieces.

"What Rick's got to do now is rely on the people around him," Childress said. "He's going to find he has got a lot of support from his team, his family and the people in the garage."

Hendrick has spent 20 years as a NASCAR team owner and is one of the big players in the sport. Yet for all his success, he has never lost the wide smile and easy manner that make him welcome wherever he goes.

"Rick is one of those guys who is everybody's friend," said Terry Labonte, who has driven for Hendrick since 1994. "He can't walk 20 feet in the garage without someone wanting to shake his hand or have a conversation."

Now, Hendrick is grieving like never before.

The plane crashed in fog en route to a NASCAR race in Martinsville, Va. The dead included Hendrick's son, Ricky; brother John; and John's twin daughters, Jennifer and Kimberly.

Also killed were Joe Jackson, an executive with DuPont; Jeff Turner, general manager of Hendrick Motorsports; Randy Dorton, the team's chief engine builder; Scott Lathram, a pilot for NASCAR driver Tony Stewart; and pilots Richard Tracy and Elizabeth Morrison.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. said this latest tragedy hit the racing community "like a hammer to the chest."

Hendrick's team released a statement Monday on behalf of the family, thanking everyone for the "outpouring of support."

Hendrick is credited with starting the trend of multicar teams, and he employs Johnson, four-time NASCAR champion Jeff Gordon, two-time champion Labonte and Brian Vickers as his Nextel Cup drivers. The team won an unprecedented four consecutive Cup championships from 1995-98.

Jay Frye, general manager of MB2-MBV Motorsports, worked at the Hendrick shop in the early 1990s. His team now leases engines from Hendrick.

"Copying is the highest form of flattery you can give to anybody, and everything we do, we try to emulate what they do," he said. "Everything they do is extremely professional, extremely first-class, and the biggest thing about everything he does and they do is it's all about the people."

The loss of his son and brother closely follows the death of Hendrick's father, "Papa Joe" Hendrick, who died of lung cancer July 14. He was his son's mentor and constant companion.

"I can't tell you how much I miss him," Hendrick said recently. "He taught me so much of what I know about life and business."

His brother has remained an integral part of the team as president. Hendrick, however, made it clear his plans for the organization revolved around his son, who decided after an injury during a Busch Series race at Las Vegas to give up driving and concentrate on being a team owner.

"When he realized that he wasn't physically able to do this, he showed a lot of character by making a tough choice," Hendrick said at the time.

"It affects all of us in motorsports when good people with great talents are taken away from you," said driver John Andretti. "We are all family in this garage."