Tony Stewart’s team members grateful to Hendrick Motorsports after rain floods NWS pit lane

As the rain turned into a huge downpour at North Wilkesboro Speedway, flooding the pit lane, Tony Stewart's racecars were left unattended. This was because none of the Stewart Haas Racing (SHR) cars have qualified for the All-Star race, and would only touch the track on Sunday.

But the rain was pouring down heavily and the cars had to be moved from where they were and no crew members from SHR were present.

It was at that point that Hendrick Motorsports (HMS) lent a helping hand and moved the racecars out of the pit lane flooded with rainwater.

And it was because of this gesture by HMS that Noah Gragson and Rodney Childers took to their X platforms separately and thanked Rick Hendrick's team.

"Thank you to both nascar and the Hendrick teams for helping us out today. Much appreciated" Gragson wrote.

"A big thanks to @DanielsCliff and the HMS guys for backing up all of the SHR cars so they wouldn’t be in the pond. 🤦🏻‍♂️," Childers wrote.

Childers additionally claimed that he found it "unreal" to see the comments under his post.

He mentioned how open cars weren't allowed "to do anything today" and were not even allowed to load their cars the night before.

Tony Stewart turned down Rick Hendrick's offer back in 1996

Tony Stewart made his NASCAR Cup Series debut as a full-timer in the 1999 season for Joe Gibbs Racing behind the wheel of the #20 car. However, earlier this year, he revealed that his Cup debut could've been with the current most successful NASCAR team, Hendrick Motorsports.

Speaking on the Hot Rod Pod, Stewart recalled how back in 1996, as he was juggling between running his first season with Indy Racing League and the Busch Series, he got hurt. And while he was recovering, he got calls from Mr. H.

"I got calls from Rick Hendrick to drive the #25 Cup car, and I also got a call from Barry Green from team Cool Green to run the Indy car in the Indy Car series, and I turned both of those down," Stewart revealed. [6:25]

He reasoned it by saying that he felt he wasn't ready for that at that stage of his career, and his theory was that one works their whole life to "climb that ladder" which is one step at a time instead of jumping steps. Stewart claimed that when one reaches that last step, he has to be ready to take that step, which he wasn't at that time.

Stewart decided to stay in the Busch Series for one-extra season and then took that step to the Cup with Joe Gibbs Racing, a team with which he stayed until 2008 and won two Cup Series championships with.