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What Drives Ray Evernham? The search for new challenges brought him to Dodge
By Mark Bechtel Issue date: Special Collector's Issue/Winston Cup 2000
It's not easy keeping Ray Evernham away from the track. With only a year to assemble Dodge's Winston Cup operation -- from scratch, no less -- you would think he'd have enough to keep him busy, even on weekends. But in February he began doing a little TV commentary work for ESPN and ABC, which meant making a few trips to the track. Then, after convincing Bill Elliott in March to drive for Evernham Motorsports next year, he became an adviser to Awesome Bill's current Ford operation. Then, after signing Casey Atwood in May to be his second driver in 2001, he decided that Atwood should run in three Cup events this year and that he himself should be the 20-year-old's crew chief for those races. Come November, Evernham had spent roughly half of the 36 race weekends at the track. The 43-year-old Evernham has always been a busy man, from his anonymous days as an IROC mechanic to his celebrated eight-year stint as Jeff Gordon's crew chief. But in the past year, he has been more maniacal than ever. In October 1999 he was tapped by Dodge to oversee the car manufacturer's return to Winston Cup racing after a 16-year absence. When he took the job, he didn't even have a decent place from which to work. Though he had a shop in Concord, N.C., several of the Busch cars he co-owned with Jeff Gordon were still housed there. He spent those first couple of months leasing office space, converting his old shop into an engine shop and offices, hiring help and thinking about whom he wanted to drive for him. It wasn't always a pleasure. "What hasn't been fun," he says, "is the administrative side, things like accounting and travel and sponsor contracts." At the same time, he was working with Dodge engineers in Auburn Hills, Mich., to build a race car that would be ready to roll in less than 500 days. At first, he had little time left to go to the track, and that pseudo-exile was tough to handle. "I missed the track a lot," says Evernham. "I'm at my best when I'm at the racetrack, that's where my strength is. That said, I don't want that to be my only strength for the rest of my life." There's no denying his genius on race day. His ability to soothe the frayed nerves of his driver was like a dose of Zoloft taken aurally. On more than one occasion with Gordon, whose clean-cut, boyish good looks belie a more temperamental and stubborn nature than most people realize, Evernham seemingly willed his driver to victory with a few calm words of advice over the radio. His meticulous attention to detail is legendary. An example: By 7:30 a.m. the day after a race, each crew member was expected to file a lengthy report and come up with a list of 15 things that could have been done better. With his reputation, it was only a matter of time before somebody tried to pry him away from Hendrick Motorsports. "Everybody in the world's got a better widget," Evernham says, "and when you're on one of the top teams, they want to take you away." That somebody was Dodge, which had already become a marketing force in the northern part of the U.S. with its NHL sponsorship. By adding motor sports, at an estimated cost of $100 million, the carmaker hoped to develop a stronger national presence. Dodge also wanted to reenter motor sports in a manner that would raise a few eyebrows. It began talks with the Petty family about coming on board (which they did in February 2000), but Dodge was hungry for something even bigger. "If you're going to come back to the sport after a long layoff, go big," says Jim Julow, Dodge's vice president of marketing. "That's why we went out and chased Ray Evernham." Dodge offered Evernham not only the chance to own his own team but also to oversee the carmaker's entire fledgling operation. Even so, landing Evernham was not easy. Though Dodge had been pestering him for about a year, Evernham initially seemed inclined to stay with Gordon at Hendrick. Team owner Rick Hendrick was battling leukemia, and in his absence Evernham had more or less been given authority to run the show. In fact, a deal was on the table that would have made Evernham chief operating officer of Hendrick's operation. But then Evernham got to thinking that even with a more impressive job title, he would never escape Gordon's shadow. "You're 42 years old, and you've been presented with the greatest opportunity you're going to have in racing to prove that you can do something," says Evernham. "I just kept thinking about where I was headed, what I had accomplished, and when I'm gone from this earth what I'd like to be remembered for. If I could build Dodge and be successful at it, then I'd prove I am a good racer." Considering that Evernham won 47 races and three Winston Cups as Gordon's crew chief, those sound like the words of an insecure man. But Evernham knows what goes through the minds of NASCAR naysayers: Gordon's not so great, he's just got a good crew chief. No, wait, Evernham's not so great either. Hell, I'd win too if I had Rick Hendrick's money. Building something from nothing, though, would quiet the critics. "That's what motivated me the most," says Evernham, "that this would be the ultimate challenge." Evernham had planned to remain with Gordon until the end of the '99 season, but he decided otherwise in late September when the media got wind of the pending move to Dodge. At the time, Evernham was sore at the press for reporting the Dodge deal. In hindsight he's grateful: If his hand hadn't been forced so early, it would've been awfully tough getting a car built in time for 2001. "When you're on the top team in the sport and you start over again, you tend to misjudge time," he says. "The people I worked with were so good, and we had our routine. Just trying to build that back up has been difficult." The support he has received from Dodge has made things a bit easier. For starters, the carmaker already had a presence in the Craftsman Truck Series, so they weren't complete NASCAR naifs. Dodge has also made available to Evernham any gizmo it uses to build and test street cars -- and there are plenty of gizmos, ranging from wind tunnels to scale models to computers that can render designs in stunning detail. "I work in a building with 12,000 people," says Tim Culbertson, the Dodge Winston Cup program manager, from the company's five-million-square-foot world headquarters in Auburn Hills. "Every one of those 12,000 is available if we ask properly and politely, and maybe throw in a ball cap." Dodge's commitment didn't go unnoticed. In addition to the Pettys and Evernham, three more teams hopped onto the Dodge bandwagon, meaning there will be more Dodges than Pontiacs on the track next year. All along Dodge has favored what it calls a "one-team approach," in which the five teams work together six days a week and race against each other on the seventh. Sharing is common in Winston Cup garages, but not to the extent it is at Dodge's. Each team is connected to Auburn Hills by T1 lines, allowing them to quickly access and share data with Dodge engineers and with each other. Evernham got two show cars built by January and the Intrepid turned its first laps at Homestead-Miami Speedway on May 2. In November, a little more than year after Dodge lured Evernham from Gordon, NASCAR approved the carmaker's new engine. "The teams asked for three things in the engine design -- lots of power, durability and a low-cost operation," says Culbertson. "With this engine, we've given them that." Even as Evernham develops his new operation, his relationship with Gordon remains a fascinating subject around garages, especially in light of number 24's struggles in 2000. The two men had little in common, and Evernham acknowledges that they probably would not have been close friends if they hadn't worked together. But there was still strong mutual admiration. "When I met Jeff he was 18 years old, and I was his mentor and kind of big brother," says Evernham. "He's 28, 29 years old now, and it's a much different situation. He needed to be more in control. I think my move was better for Jeff, so he could grow as a person, and it was better for me, so I could grow as a person. We couldn't be big brother-little brother forever." He's not entirely sure, however, just what his role will be in the new season. He definitely won't be a crew chief, though he hopes he can develop a few. "I'm going to go wherever I'm needed," he says. "I hope that I can merely be an adviser and that some of the young guys I'm bringing along, like [Elliott's car chief] Mike Ford and [Gordon's former Busch crew chief] Patrick Donahue, will really take the bull by the horns." It is exhilarating to be running the whole show, but strange, too, Evernham realizes. Growing up, the Red Bank, N.J., native was convinced he'd be the driver, not the boss. "I never wanted to do anything but race," he says. "I wasn't a kid that wanted to be a fireman, astronaut or anything like that." Then, after pausing for a second, the man who always seems to have something new in mind says, "I shouldn't say astronaut. I'd like to be an astronaut now." Issue date: Special Collector's Issue/Winston Cup 2000
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