CONCORD, N.C. – Every year, thousands of amateur athletes dream of continuing their career into the professional ranks.

At Hendrick Motorsports, that dream is given the chance to live on, albeit in a sport the athletes might not have considered: professional stock car racing.

Through the organization’s developmental program, it has a track record of working with collegiate athletes from across the country and positioning them onto pit crews at NASCAR’s most elite level, the Sprint Cup Series.

Wednesday afternoon on the Hendrick Motorsports campus in Concord, North Carolina, the organization held its very first Signing Day ceremony to celebrate the newest class of pit crew recruits.

“It’s really neat to be a part of the first Signing Day ever for Hendrick Motorsports for the pit development program,” Hendrick Motorsports President Marshall Carlson said. “It’s a tradition in other sports. If you look at what we tried to do over the last few years really elevating our whole athletic department and these athletes — bring them in and trying to get out to a wider range of recruits – the investments we’ve made in coaching, the facilities, it’s really fitting that we would start to do some of the traditional things that other sports do to celebrate the success that the coaches and the recruiting class are bringing to our company.”