Master crew chief and innovator Ray Evernham gets overdue NASCAR Hall of Fame enshrinement

During the height of their dominance, Jeff Gordon and crew chief Ray Evernham seemed like an unbeatable combination. Regardless of the circumstances, they would find a way to win, with a four-year run that included three championships and a winning percentage of 31.

Gordon, who retired from full-time racing following the 2015 season, will unquestionably earn immediate NASCAR Hall of Fame enshrinement when he becomes eligible later this year. If there is such a thing as slam-dunk inductee it is Gordon, whose 93 Cup Series wins ranks third all-time.

For reasons, however, that remain unclear, Evernham was not a first-ballot Hall of Fame inductee — in fact, he didn’t make the ballot until 2015. This despite leading Gordon to 47 wins and three titles, laying the foundation at Hendrick Motorsports that would propel the organization to a NASCAR-record 11 championships, and introducing concepts considered revolutionary that have now become standard.

But on Friday night in Charlotte, N.C., Evernham will get his just due, having been voted in last May as a member of the Class of 2018. The man who many consider one of NASCAR’s all-time great crew chiefs will get inducted into the Hall of Fame, along with former drivers Red Byron and Ron Hornaday Jr., championship engine builder and car owner Robert Yates, and broadcaster Ken Squier.

A former modified driver from New Jersey, Evernham would eventually make his way down south in the late 1980s embarking on a career path that didn’t involve turning the wheel. Although success would initially prove fleeting, his ability to set up a car wasn’t lost on Gordon, who, when he signed with Hendrick for the 1993 season, insisted Evernham be named his crew chief. Some teams trying to court Gordon considered that a deal breaker. Hendrick had no such reservations; a sage decision that the team is still reaping the benefits from today.

“It was special all the time,” Evernham said. “I knew how special Jeff Gordon was. I knew that Hendrick Motorsports had the resources. From the day that I walked in there and realized what we had to work with, that it was going to be good. I don’t think I ever imagined the roll we were going to get on in the ‘90s, but I certainly knew we had everything we needed to win races.”

Bringing a mindset more in line with an NFL head coach then the typical crew chief, Evernham transformed Hendrick from an organization that before his arrival had never won a championship into NASCAR’s preeminent team. Gordon and Evernham would win their first title in 1995, finished runner-up the following season, then win back-to-back championships in 1997-98.

And similar to a great NFL head coach, Evernham cultivated a pipe of talented engineers and mechanics who would one day became future race-winning crew chiefs. Chad Knaus, who’s led Jimmie Johnson to seven championships, Steve Letarte, who won the 2014 Daytona 500 with Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Tony Gibson, who won the 2017 Daytona 500 with Kurt Busch, were among those who honed their craft working under Evernham.

“Whether I should try to think that I deserve to be even mentioned in a Lombardi style or not, that’s kind of who I patterned after,” Evernham said. “Tough on people, drive them hard, but cared about them. You’ve got to be able to have that compassion along with determination. That part I enjoyed. I loved working down on the floor with the guys. I loved being at the racetrack.”

Among the biggest transformations Evernham instilled was how pit stops were conducted. Seeing pit road as an opportune way to gain positions, Evernham began targeting high-caliber athletes from other sports who would be trained to change tires and fuel the car in a rapid fashion. They would replace guys whose day-to-day duties involved working on the car but were regularly thrown onto the over-the-wall gang merely to fill a need.

From that specialization came the famed “Rainbow Warriors,” a group that frequently got Gordon off pit road first to the point other team had little recourse but to mirror Evernham’s methods. Nowadays pit crews are filled with former college football players and the job is fulltime with extensive training throughout the week.

“The biggest thing I thought of back then is how can I expect a guy to work the way we’re working in the shop, at that time 14, 16 hours a day, then be able to pit the car on Sundays, be fresh, be focused?” Evernham said. “Let’s train some people that have skills and abilities and time to do that. That could be faster and we could really gain something.”

An offer from Dodge to helm the manufacturer’s NASCAR reentry prompted Evernham to leave Hendrick toward the end of the 1999 season. Gordon would go on to win his fourth and last championship two years later, but he never enjoyed the same level of sustained success he had with Evernham during their seven years together.

Evernham’s tenure as a car owner also didn’t come close to matching his years with Gordon, though there certainly were moments. Bill Elliott would win the Brickyard 400 in 2002, then-second-year driver Kasey Kahne won a series-best six times in 2006, and Jeremy Mayfield earned a playoff berth in consecutive seasons. And like his time at Hendrick, Evernham molded a host of future race-winning crew chiefs — Mike Ford, Kenny Francis, Keith Rodden, Slugger Labbe, and, most notably, Rodney Childers, who captured the 2014 championship with Kevin Harvick.

“It was a tough decision to look at where I really wanted to go, what I thought I could do,” Evernham said of deciding to leave Hendrick. “It’s that Evel Knievel in all of us knowing that if I don’t make that jump, I’m going to bust my butt, but I still really want to do it.”

Evernham sold his team in 2007, and after dabbling in various ventures would later return to Hendrick as a consultant, a position he still holds. He goes into the Hall of Fame as just the third chief crew to get the nod.

“I just really want to be known as a good mechanic that loved racing,” Evernham said. “I’d like to be known as a hardworking, innovative crew chief that cared about the sport. I’d like to tell you I’d like to be known as a driver, but I didn’t have the talent for that. I was OK as a car owner, OK at TV, but I felt like as a crew chief, that was my niche.

“The fact I brought more of a team perspective, a professional sports team perspective to NASCAR, from the crew chief and the team side, I’m proud of that.”