How Ray Evernham Changed NASCAR Forever

Summary

Herm & Schrader Podcast – "How Ray Evernham Changed NASCAR Forever"

Dirty Mo Media | October 2, 2025
Hosts: Kenny Wallace & Ken Schrader
Guest: Ray Evernham (NASCAR Hall of Famer, legendary Crew Chief)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Kenny Wallace sits down with NASCAR Hall of Fame crew chief Ray Evernham to unpack how Evernham’s relentless innovation, organizational expertise, and partnership with Jeff Gordon rewrote the playbook for modern NASCAR. The conversation spans Ray’s early days in New Jersey, the fateful transition from driver to crew chief after a head injury, his pioneering approach to team building, and the rise of Hendrick Motorsports as a dynasty. Packed with behind-the-scenes stories, technical deep dives, and memorable moments, the episode explores not only how Evernham changed racing, but how his impact still reverberates throughout motorsports today.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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Ray's Racing Roots and Turning Points

• Growing Up on the Jersey Shore
  • Ray recalls starting out as an asphalt modified driver in Hazlett, New Jersey, racing against legends like Richie Evans and Jerry Cook.
    • "I'm from the Jersey shore, not the Jersey Shore you see on TV. The real Jersey Shore." — Ray [03:19]
• Career-Altering Injury
  • In 1991, a serious wreck at Flemington left Ray with a brain stem injury, forcing the end of his driving career.
    • “For the first time in my life, I was the weak link...I was holding the car and the team back, and I just said, you know, guys, I'm done.” — Ray [09:24]
• Opportunity Knocks with Jeff Gordon
  • Recommended by Andy Petrie, Ray first worked with a young Jeff Gordon in the Busch Grand National days, leading to a partnership that would change NASCAR.

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The IROC & Penske Influence: Learning to Organize to Win

• Inside the Penske Culture
  • Ray credits Jay Signore (IOCR) and Roger Penske with teaching him rigorous team organization, man-hour tracking, and preparation, which later informed every championship team he built.
    • "That organizational stuff Jay Signore taught me allowed us to do our job more efficiently...leaving more time to figure out how to make the car faster." — Ray [11:21]
    • “Inside the Penske organization...it is a winning culture. It's a continuous improvement culture. And it's military.” — Ray [13:30]
• Practical Wisdom on Winning
  • Advice from Penske: "The unfair advantage simply just means outworking your competition to find a way to win." — Ray quoting Penske [13:10]

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Transition to NASCAR: Trials, Clashes, and Community

• Brush with Alan Kulwicki
  • Ray’s stint at Alan Kulwicki’s team was short-lived—personality clashes culminating (literally) in throwing tools.
    • "By the third or fourth day, we were literally throwing stuff at one another in the shop." — Ray [18:16]
    • “I quit. You’re fired. Whatever...I stormed out the gate.” — Ray [19:30]
• Unsung Helpers & The Power of Racing Community
  • Ray shares gratitude for the often unsung supporters (like the Barkdahl family), and reflects on the racing community’s impact on his journey.
    • “The only thing we can say to those people is thank you. You didn’t waste your time on me, you didn’t waste your money.” — Ray [21:44]

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Re-Engineering the Game: Baby Ruth Car & Chassis Innovation

• Transforming the Baby Ruth Ford
  • Hired by Ford/Bill Davis Racing, Ray revolutionized the front-end geometry on Jeff Gordon’s Busch car, immediately boosting performance.
    • “I checked the front ends...they had never checked any of that...I built a whole center link, welded up holes, put taper in there...we go to Rockingham and sit on the pole.” — Ray [27:12]
  • Kenny: “You put a real long A-frame on that thing with a lot of spacers...this sticks in my head.” [28:36]
• Early Experimentation With Spring Setups
  • Ray shares early stories of out-of-the-box setups (massive rear spring changes) that paved the way for daring future innovations.
    • “I’m gonna go up 100 pounds on the rear springs...and we go down there and win the race.” — Ray [30:35]

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The Hendrick Years: Building a Dynasty With Jeff Gordon

• Genesis of the #24 Team
  • After their Busch success, Gordon was approached by multiple Cup teams, but insisted on Ray as his crew chief—a condition only Rick Hendrick honored.
    • “Jeff’s got an offer...but he told them ‘I want to bring Ray’...The other car owners said ‘no,’ but Rick said ‘you’re going to be the crew chief...Take it or leave it.’” — Ray [34:25, 43:22]
• Culture Shift and Engineering Revolution
  • At Hendrick, Ray implemented stringent standards (“plus or minus zero” not “an eighth”) and pushed for dedicated pit crews and unleashing engineers.
    • “No more 350/400 in the rear...No more plus or minus an eighth. We’re gonna make it plus or minus zero.” — Ray [45:58]
    • “By ‘95, ‘96, our Hendrick cars were so far ahead of everybody else…” — Ray [46:55]
• Pioneering the Modern Pit Crew
  • Ray was the first to recruit fresh athletes as dedicated pit crew specialists, reducing four-tire stop times from 20+ seconds to under 15.
    • “We sometimes used eight or nine men. You could only have seven over the wall, but they did not have to be the same seven at that time.” — Ray [67:06]
    • “You knocked five damn seconds...The Wood Brothers are the legends, but you...changed the game.” — Kenny [68:55-69:09]

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Mantras, Leadership, and Team Psychology

• ‘Refuse to Lose’—and Other Motivational Slogans
  • The “Refuse to Lose” mantra was co-opted (with permission) from UMass basketball’s John Calipari and set the tone for team culture.
    • “You couldn’t go in the bathroom and stand in front of the urinal without having to read something motivational.” — Ray [57:40]
  • Ray pulled from Pat Riley’s book “The Winner Within,” creating a wall of goals: Upstart → Contender → Winner → Champion → Dynasty.
    • "I still have that checklist here...from nobody to upstart, upstart to contender...champion to dynasty." — Ray [59:34]
• True Teamwork With Jeff Gordon
  • The success of the Gordon/Evernham duo was built on trust, communication, and mutual respect.
    • "He would say to me, 'I feel like this when I'm turning the wheel...'" — Ray [39:37]
    • "Your job is to fix what [the driver] is saying is wrong... Until you can drive that car faster than that guy, don't tell him how to drive it." — Ray [40:47]

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Technical Mastery in Action: The T-Rex Car

• The Urban Legend Explained
  • At the 1997 All-Star Race (“The Winston”), the radical “T-Rex” chassis (conceptualized with Rex Stump) was so dominant NASCAR told them never to bring it back.
    • “The chassis was so different…with the floor pan raised, underbody aerodynamics. Man, that thing just…it was like sucked to the ground.” — Ray [78:46]
    • “[Bill France Sr.] said, ‘Tell your boss that car is illegal.’ I said, ‘No...it fits all the rules.’ He goes, ‘It won’t tomorrow.’” — Ray [77:55]
  • Ray’s famously unorthodox spring setup—equal front and rear springs, a massive anti-roll bar—unlocked untapped speed.
    • “I kind of choose [the setup] out of my head. Going back to my modified days and thinking about all that split spring stuff—and it just took off.” — Ray [79:33, 81:05]
• Revolutionizing Suspension Setup
  • The innovation wasn’t just technical, but mental—a willingness to question the gospel of previous setups and use chassis rigidity to allow radical new approaches.
    • “Now, there it is...I hope all you racers heard that; that was for my son-in-law Brody.” — Kenny [82:48]

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Evernham’s Legacy: Beyond Hendrick, Into the Modern Era

• Launching Evernham Motorsports and the Dodge Return
  • Leaving Hendrick, Ray took on the enormous challenge of creating a top-flight NASCAR team from scratch for Daimler Chrysler and Dodge.
    • “You always have that question: can I do this without the support of them?...We won in our first year, ended up winning at the Brickyard.” — Ray [84:35]
  • Evernham candidly admits the massive scale and management demands didn’t fulfill him like building and wrenching on cars did.
    • “I wanted to be down on the floor working on them damn race cars.” — Ray [84:35]
• Enduring Appeal for Organizational Expertise
  • To this day, Ray is called on to start up organizations, run special racing projects (like the Heritage Invitational), and consult on racing TV (e.g., SRX, Americana TV).

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NASCAR's Business and Future: Reflection and Real Talk

• On Cup Charters and the Business of NASCAR
  • Kenny and Ray riff on the paradox: “If NASCAR’s failing, why do charters cost $40 million?”
• Ray’s Prescription for the Sport
  • Asserts NASCAR can and will thrive as a business, but calls for more driver personality, more driver/crew chief control, and opportunity for “kids who want to race anywhere, anytime.”
    • “I’d like to see more of the personality like yours, like your brother’s, like Dale Earnhardt...I want to know who they are behind the scenes.” — Ray [99:45]
    • “I also feel like I would like to see the drivers and crew chiefs have more ability to adjust the car to suit the way they want to drive it…NASCAR as a business is still going to continue to grow...” — Ray [97:57, 99:45]
    • “Huge Kyle Larson fan for that reason…those guys that will race anywhere, anytime, just because they want to race.” — Ray [100:36]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I felt like for the first time in my life, I was the weak link…I'm done. I'm moving to North Carolina.” — Ray [09:24]
• “The unfair advantage means outworking your competition to win.” — Ray [13:10]
• “We refuse to lose.” — Ray [56:17]
• “I just love working on race cars.” — Ray [84:35]
• “If we can't win here, we can't win anywhere, because everything you could possibly ever need is there.” — Ray on Hendrick [36:00]
• “Why would you spend $40 million if you can't make money? That's just common sense, right?” — Ray [97:57]

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Timeline of Essential Segments

| Timestamp | Segment / Key Discussion | |-------------|--------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:21 | Kenny introduces Ray; reminiscences about their history | | 04:26 | Ray describes racing history, career-changing injury | | 11:21 | Organizational lessons from Penske/Signore/IOCR | | 18:14 | Brief tenure (and clash) with Alan Kulwicki | | 27:12 | Fixing the Baby Ruth Ford's suspension – first signs of genius| | 34:25 | Rick Hendrick hires Ray after Jeff Gordon insists | | 45:58 | Overhauling Hendrick operations, pushing for engineering | | 57:40 | Motivational mantras and building team culture | | 65:38 | Reinventing the pit crew – athlete specialists | | 71:09 | The T-Rex car story – myth, reality, legacy | | 84:35 | Leaving Hendrick, starting Evernham Motorsports (Dodge) | | 91:27 | Ongoing projects: Americana TV, SRX, IROC/Heritage | | 97:49 | Honest perspective on NASCAR business, future of the sport |

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Tone & Final Reflections

The conversation is warm, funny, and forthright—Kenny Wallace’s effusive midwestern charm coaxing out raw honesty and countless war stories from Ray. The mutual respect is palpable, and the storytelling is as much about humble gratitude as it is about technical mastery and ambition. The episode is a love letter to racing, to friendship, and to the relentless itch to improve.

Kenny’s closing tribute:

“Life is a journey and we forget sometimes we forget these segments of our life. But you are one of the greatest of all time… Never downplay yourself, because your legend is—you are a legend. And legend means: what did he do? Oh, he changed NASCAR forever.” — Kenny [96:05]

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For Listeners

Whether you’re a race fan, a competitor, or a student of leadership, “How Ray Evernham Changed NASCAR Forever” is a master class in grit, innovation, and what it takes to build not just fast cars—but enduring legacies.

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Listen on Dirty Mo Media or watch on the Kenny Wallace YouTube Show.

Transcript

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[Kenny Wallace]

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Kenny Conversation, brought to you by jegs, the leader in high performance aftermarket car parts. Remember to go to JEGS.com for anything you need to fix your everyday vehicle up or even that hot rod that you have. Oh, man, I got goosebumps, everybody. I want to make sure I get this introduction right to me. One of the greatest, if not the greatest crew chief of our time, NASCAR hall of famer, the great Ray Evernham. Ray, how you doing, buddy?

[Ray Evernham]

Kenny, I'm doing great. You know, it's. Man, it's good to see you and good to talk to you. We, we've had a long journey together because you knew me long before any of that stuff and, and you had to give me rides back and forth to the racetrack because I didn't have anybody to ride with.

[Kenny Wallace]

Hey, you know what? You've got a great memory. You must be taking your B12 because that is definitely a great memory. I remember when you first came down and I remember you before you were even with the great Jeff Gordon. Let's start like this though, my friend. I like where you're at. Is that Dan Gurney right behind your head and those helmets. Where are you?

[Ray Evernham]

I'm in my office. A lot of other memorabilia around, you know, since. Since I got out of the NASCAR stuff full time. One of the things we did was get involved in some of the historic racing, which I love. And we restored Mario Andretti's first indie win, and we also restored dan Gurney's last IndyCar wind car. So they were, they were two great projects that we, that we had. So got pictures of up there. That's Andretti, Gurney, Jim Clark, and Steve McQueen, because he's just one of the coolest guys on the planet, you know.

[Kenny Wallace]

Oh, man, Steve McQueen. What a badass. And speaking of a badass, I'm throwing out a tribute today, everyone. This is my Don Perdome hat. This is my, this is the snake. And you know, what a legendary logo. So if Don's watching. Hi, Don. We've had Don on Kenny Conversation. Well, let's start like this. You know, Kenny conversation lives on two platforms on the Kenny Wallace YouTube show and of course over there on Dirty Mo. And people tune in to hear your journey and what it's all about. So Ray Evernham from Hazlett, New Jersey. Is that right? Are you from Hazlett, New Jersey?

[Ray Evernham]

I am, yeah. So actually lived early years in a, in a, on the Bay shore there, you know, which is kind of the, the bay side, New York. Straight across the water by about six miles. Right. So we always looked at that stuff. But yeah, I'm, I'm from the Jersey shore, not the Jersey Shore you see on tv. The real Jersey Shore. I love it.

[Kenny Wallace]

So all of us racers, we stick together. And I know that you were an asphalt mod racer. I know that is your home turf. And you know, listen, we've all got memories, you know, I mean, I've done some wrecking in my life and I can, I, I, I can go back to 1991, you know, I, I had a championship won in the Busch series against Bobby Labonte and I had a bad wreck at Loudon going into three, and I had a positional vertigo and it, you know, it was tough on me. So you were an asphalt modified racer, but you retired after a big wreck in 1991 at Flemington. Just take some time and explain to everybody. I mean, is that where it all started for you?

[Ray Evernham]

Yeah, you know, it was a, it was a neat journey. It started all the way back to the asphalt modifieds I ran. You know, it started like everybody else in street stocks and stuff like that, 1975. So 50 years ago, ran my first race and then moved up. Always wanted to run the modifieds and was very fortunate to have been able to race with guys like Richie Evans and Jeff Bodine and Jerry Cook. You know, ran around Wall Stadium, you know, really some of my heroes around there. And the modifieds, the asphalt modifieds were always really, really cool for me. But 83 probably had the best year that I ever had in a modified and got the opportunity to go to work for Roger Penske and Jay Signori at the international race of Champions, Iraq. And I became there the Iraq crew chief. And I also got to be one of the IROC test drivers. The whole reason for going, and Roger and I still kid about this today, was I wanted to drive indycars and I Wanted to drive Roger's indycar. I never got a chance to do that. So Roger always kids me, goes, hey, look, I probably saved your life.

[Kenny Wallace]

Well, you know, I always find it interesting. Know, all of us do the same. We all make our way down to Charlotte because that's where everybody wants to be. Everybody dreams of being nascar. So you were racing. And when I go to North Carolina, I see a lot of great race car drivers that they're working on cup teams, but yet they're really good racers. And I look at them like, oh, my God, you're leading the championship in this series, but you work on my brother Rusty's cup team. So is what you're telling me. Are you telling me you were a modified racer and while you were a modified racer, your real job was iroc?

[Ray Evernham]

Yeah, so. But I had to cut back my schedule so I couldn't run for championships. And sometimes, you know, we'd run a few races a year and still did really good. Then I left IROC in 89 and started the cup team for Dick Johnson so I could go back racing more. And we ran, you know, we built cars, built hot rods, we got things going, got, you know, 1991, man, I was 100% ready to go. I had an ARCA car, I had the midget. I had been driving a pave modified, a dirt modified. Like, we were ready to go. And right off the bat, at Flemington, Flemington, New Jersey, I had a bad crash and, and got a head injury. And, you know, I skipped one little part because while I had my own shop, I got a call from Andy Petrie one day. He said, hey, look, I know this young kid and he's going to run three or four bush grand national races. We need somebody to go help him. Can you help him out in between your races? And I was like, yeah, who is it? And they said, it's Jeff Gordon. And I had just seen Jeff on Thursday Night Thunder, just drive over a guy in like two wheels down the straightaway. And I was like, man, I got to go see this kid. So I went down and worked with Jeff three times in 1990. We really, really hit it off. 91, he went to Bill Davis. I went back racing modifieds. Boom. I get hurt and I have to look for a job. And I came down here, actually to work for Alan Kowicki and only lasted there about three weeks.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah.

[Ray Evernham]

And got the opportunity to go back with, with Jeff Gordon.

[Kenny Wallace]

Okay, I want to zone in on a couple of these. We listen, we've done a Lot of studying on Ray, just like we do a lot of study on everybody. Papers and papers of notes. And I want to quote you. This is your quote after your wreck. When you wreck that bad, you don't remember anything about it as a driver. He added, I couldn't meet my own expectations, and that frustrated the hell out of me. So you had this injury, you realized that, you know, you couldn't, you know, run as good as you used to. What did you have?

[Ray Evernham]

A.

[Kenny Wallace]

A brain stem injury.

[Ray Evernham]

Brain stem injury, nose before. Before the Hans and all that. And I was very, very, very lucky because, you know, much more rotation and obviously could have had the same injuries that we lost a lot of modified drivers, too, at that point. But, you know, I fought hard to come back from that, and I came back from it and won the very first night back in the car. But deep down inside, I knew I wasn't right, you know, and so we went back the second week, boom, wrecked again, you know, and finally, by the end of the year, you know, there'd be times I'd run good men could run top two or three, right? And then all of a sudden go and hit a lap car or something stupid, you know, it was very. The brain injury was very inconsistent based on how much rest I'd have, how my body temperature was, how many laps we ran in a row, all things like that. And I just. I was so pissed off because I felt like for the first time in my life, I was the weak link. Like, I was. I was holding the car and the team back, and I just said, you know, guys, I'm done. And they're like, what for tonight? I was like, no, no, no, I'm done. I'm done. Moving to North Carolina.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, we are talking to the great Ray Everingham and his journey to being one of the greatest of all time. Whether it's driver, crew chief, and Ray, I know that's hard to talk about. It's hard for me to talk about when, you know, I lost that Bushcraft national championship in 91 because of my big wreck in turn three at loud. And I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. Just spend a little bit of time, want to, you know, follow your journey. I mean, you're one of the greatest, and it was tough on me to ask that, but that is you. And we both share our journeys, and so thank you so much. Okay, so we go to IROC now. This interests me a lot because I feel like we both have a lot invested. My brother Rusty the great Rusty Wallace, which I will not apologize for saying, my brother. We were good friends with Don Miller, and Don Miller worked the Sears Penske Tool account. So we knew Roger and we knew all of Iraq, and we worshiped Iraq. So, I mean, when. When you went to iroc, now that's zoned in on my territory, too. You learned these incredible skills. And what I want to get to is where you learned this great organizational skill. People from all over the world hire you right now to start up their organizations, get things rolling. Tell me about the time you entered that IROC door and who you met up and how you learned everything.

[Ray Evernham]

Well, believe it or not, I see you smiling. Well, Jay Signore is, you know, amazing guy, was Roger Penske's right hand at that time. And I'll get into Jay, but Jay's wife Barbara was like the dead mother of all of us. And the day that I went to Iraq to ask for a job, I actually had to interview. Interview with Barbara. Jay wasn't there. So Barbara. Barbara Signori hired me. And as I said, I love, love that woman. Like, like a mother. But her husband, Jay Signori, is one of the guys. The people on the inside of racing have heard of him, but from the people on the outside, he has a huge footprint tree, umbrella, whatever you want to call it, his systems, what he did managing Penske racing, and then what he did being one of the owners and team manager iroc. So many of his systems trickle down to not only championship IndyCar crew chiefs, but the championship cup crew chiefs. When I went to Hendrick, I used all of the systems that Jay Signore taught me about charting, man hours, preparing parts, car build sheets, you know, how to do all of these things. And took that over to Hendrick with me. And that organizational stuff that Jay Signori taught me allowed us to do our regular job efficiently, right? We saved time doing our regular job, which left us more time to figure out how to make the car go faster and get better. So inside the Penske organization there. And I know that you've been in this with Rusty for a long time, that culture inside the Penske organization is different. And it is a winning culture. It's a continuous improvement culture. And it's. It's very. You know, it's military. You know, it's like, look, this is. These are. Here's. Here's the reporting structure, here's the rules, here's the responsibility, and it's about winning. And, you know, they have that unfair advantage saying. And then you. Penske chiro. No no, no. The unfair advantage simply just means outworking your competition to find a way to win. That's what I learned from Jay and from Roger Penske and was really, really incredible time to work with the drivers that I got to work with. You mentioned your brother Rusty. Rusty and I are good friends. We weren't always good friends, you know, because when him and Jeff Gordon were wrecking one another, we used to give each other a finger and stuff, but now we're really good buddies. And I talked to him one time. First time I ever worked with Rusty. First time I ever worked with him, we used to do a little bit of a different front end setting on the IROC cars, because it's we. This. I didn't like the way the steering boxes had to go over center, and they put a little dead spot. I'm talking before power steering. Right. So I'm really giving my age away.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah.

[Ray Evernham]

So I used to put the toe in the left front versus the right front, which a lot of the cup guys did, and that would stop them from having to turn the steering wheel over center. First time Rusty and I work together, very first time he goes down the back stretch, Daytona. I know he comes around, he runs three or four laps. He comes in, I said, what do you think? He said, oh, you know, it's not bad. You know, he goes, you know, I feel like this car's got a little bit of toe out in the left front. Like, blew me away. And I said, how do you know that? And he explained, you know, like, he had an incredible feel for everything that was going on in the car. And when you get to work with 12 drivers a year like that, man, you can learn so much. Because Roger Penske used to say, these championship drivers, they look out of a bigger windshield. And what he meant by that was, they just see more in the picture than the guys that are average. And your brother's one of those guys, 100%.

[Kenny Wallace]

Then that. That. That makes me happy, because I can tell you where all that came from. That came from Bobby Allison. You know, Bobby was great, but he was also a little crude, being down there in Birmingham and only had access to so much. When we would do our bump steer, we would roll a toolbox up to the right front of the car, because that was the only straight edge we had. Yeah, we drilled the toolbox up to the right front, and, you know, course we'd start to run the right front through motion, and then we'd measure from, you know, behind the rotor to the toolbox to the Front. But Bobby Allison, man, he was the epitome, you know, him and Mark Donahue of Penske, and we. We worshiped Bobby Allison. And yeah, I mean, it was. That whole. That whole trio was Roger Penske, Bobby Allison, us, and they called us the Evil Gang because we were just a crazy group out of Missouri. But we won, baby. We won. Makes me happy. Makes me happy that you bring up those front end settings. Those. To this day, on my old dirt modified up here, I think of Ray Evernham daily because I. I might run an old dirt modified, but I got my sheet, I got my rhythm, what I do to check on everything. So, Ray, thank you for actually kind of in. In. In a way being part of my life, because, you know, not everybody makes notes. And every day, every Monday, I'm like, these are the things I got to do. Then I. Under here, I do chassis stuff. And so that is where you learned these organizational skills once and for all. Was it iroc?

[Ray Evernham]

It's. It was Iraq, and really under. Under Jay Signore and Roger Penske's umbrella. And being in that culture, you know, being in that. That efficiency in the. The paperwork and planning and knowing, because again, doing. Doing your regular job more efficiently leaves you an extra bank of man hours or whatever to improve, you know, to get better, to experiment and, you know, the. The efficiency and planning organization, absolutely 100% came from the Penske organization with Jay Signori.

[Kenny Wallace]

Okay, everybody, we have talked about Ray being a great race car driver, organizational skills, and now it's time to head south, just like everybody. I'm going south, baby. I'm going nascar. So help me fill in the gaps here. You get down to. Okay, Dick Johnson, but didn't you get hurt? I got this neat little quote in here. You spent a little time with Alan Kwicki and.

[Ray Evernham]

And it.

[Kenny Wallace]

And in the little note section here when I did my study, and it said, you and Alan Quickie, your personalities clashed.

[Ray Evernham]

Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

Is that. Is that true? And tell me all about it.

[Ray Evernham]

Alan was an incredible guy, and I want to start that. You know, I had ultimate respect for his ability to think about a race car and to know. But our personality, you know, me, you know, you and I get along good because I, you know, I'm open. I like. But my. I wear my feelings on my sleeve. I don't like being yelled at. I don't like being cussed at. I don't like being talked down to. And Alan and I did things differently, which is okay. But I don't know that he really respected kind of the way I did things, and I didn't like the way he talked to me. So by. I don't know, by the third or fourth day, we were literally throwing stuff at one another in the shop. And when people go, oh, that's. You know, you always say, no, I'm telling you. He got mad and threw a tape measure across the shop, and it flew and it hit, and he was mad at something else, wasn't mad at me, but it hit me in the hand, and I just picked it up and threw it back, you know, right at him, you know. Yeah. And we just didn't. We just didn't click. And then, you know, finally. Finally one day, I think it was the Friday before the Bush race at Daytona, we got into a big. We got into a big argument, like, outside of the garage. We had each other by the front of the shirt where he's shaking me, I'm shaking him. I quit. You're fired. Whatever. And A.J. floyd's looking over the top of his hauler right at us because we're bouncing off the side of his truck. And that's it. You know, I grabbed my stuff and I stormed out the. The gate, and I bumped straight in to Preston Miller and Lee Morse from Ford. Wow. And they said, where you go? I'm going back to sell frozen yogurt in New Jersey. I'm going to be on. On the boardwalk. Right. I don't know. And so they put me over with. With Bill Davis. And I do want to stop and say, you know, we. We just lost Phil Barkdahl. Yes. A couple weeks ago, and Steve Barkdahl and Phil Barkdahl took me in, gave me a place to stay, you know, really took care of me because they, they're the ones that put the first race car together for Jeff, and I helped them. But, you know, when you look back, and as I said, you and I. You and I, gosh, we've known each other for going on 34 years, something like that, and there's a lot of people that help you along the way. And, and, you know, we'll. Without Phil and Steve Barkdahl helping me out, I might. I might have gone back to New Jersey. You know, they, they. They took care of me for those few days that I was licking my wounds from, from having that fallout with Alan and talked me into staying and going to Bill Davis's.

[Kenny Wallace]

So I want to stay right there just for a minute. I. I think, because I'm 62 years old now, and I know you're 68 sometimes when we become. Sometimes when we get down the road and we make it. We both made it to nascar. You made it to the epitome. You're a Hall of Famer.

[Ray Evernham]

Sometimes we.

[Kenny Wallace]

We forget to look back at our journey. I just want to give you a shout out and then. Atta boy. Sometimes I have to get on. My big brother, Rusty. I'm like Rusty. John Childs, the man that started your career, wants a little love over here. Sometimes when we get big time, sometimes we forget about those people that were part of our stair steps. That's really nice of you. Well, anybody else? Right?

[Ray Evernham]

Yeah, you know, it's. It's the right thing to do. You know, it's. When you say anybody else, God is everybody. And I say this a lot, you know, I don't remember all the names. I remember the faces of a hand up. Some. Somebody taught you how to do something or they did this. And. And. And I feel like when we get to this level. Right, right. The only thing that we can say to those people is thank you. You didn't waste your time on me. You didn't waste your money. I remember you. And I know I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that one little thing that you gave me when I needed it, or that one little thing that you taught me. And couple weeks has been a tough couple of weeks, right? We lost Bill Davis, we lost Humpy Wheeler, like two guys that guided me through my early career. Steve Bird, you know, a guy I could go and have a beer with, you know, and when I was learning the Busch grand national stuff, and it's hard. So I appreciate, like, I sincerely appreciate all of the help that people gave me. I went back to Wall Stadium last year to see people and I said, look, you know, like, y' all been with me the whole time, you know, like, you. You were there in every victory lane. You were. You were there at the hall of Fame. You were. You were there through the Gordon years because, you know, I wouldn't be me if I didn't know you. And I said, you know, you and I helped. We battled. We battled for Rookie of the Year. We battled for wins. But again, we've always been friends. And you, your team, Your team used to cart mate to the racetrack when I was working on the. On the baby Ruth number one. Right, and you were in the 36 car, right?

[Kenny Wallace]

Yep, yep, yep.

[Ray Evernham]

And Cox was a Cox then.

[Kenny Wallace]

Cox treated lumber.

[Ray Evernham]

Yeah. And I would ride with your crew and we'd race each other, and then I'D ride home with your crew.

[Kenny Wallace]

And I don't know if you remember, I forgot who it was I told. But I told somebody that is one of the greatest crew chiefs of all time. Because when I would talk to you, you know, I understand chassis, but you never understand them right? Because it's different. You know, racetracks, banked flat, you know, all everything. I knew at an early age that you were great. You just didn't know it yet. When it comes to money, you deserve to feel safe from fraud and in control. And that's what you get with Cash App. Instantly lock or unlock your card with one tap. If a suspicious charge appears, Cash App declines it and alerts you with security. Lock face ID or biometrics. Protect your account. Order a Cash App card today at Cash App Card for a limited time only new Cash App customers can use our exclusive code to earn some additional cash. For real. Just download Cash App, use our exclusive referral code. Secure 10 in your profile. Send $5 to a friend within 14 days and you'll get $10 dropped right into your account. Firms apply. That's money. That's Cash App. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partners. Prepaid debit cards issued by selling nut and bank member fdic. Instant discounts provided by Cash App, a block incorporated brand. Visit Cash App legal podcast for full disclosures.

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[Kenny Wallace]

Prices and participation may vary. Okay, everybody hold on because now here we go. We're get. We are finally getting to Jeff Gordon. It took. Hey. Oh, my God. I look up, my clock says 24.00. I have a countdown clock, Ray, right here. So at 24, great number. That's odd. And I mean, that's unbelievable. At 24 minutes into the Ray of an interview, we are finally getting to Jeff Gordon. So you get done arguing with Alan quickie. You storm out of the garage area. Lee Morris with Ford knew you were smart. He knew you were special. And he stops you and he points you towards Bill Davis. Now, I want to say this and I want you to lead me the rest of the way. Bill Davis just didn't know that much about you. Didn't have time for you. So fill it all in. Now, how do you tell me about you, Bill Davis and that baby Ruth with Jeff Gordon?

[Ray Evernham]

Bill knew he had a great one in Jeff Gordon, but their cars weren't running like they should. Had good motors, good cars, but really straight up the front ends just weren't right in the, in those cars. And Ford paid me to go over there. That so Ford paid me to. And it was big money back then. 800 a week.

[Kenny Wallace]

That's survival money, man.

[Ray Evernham]

Yeah, I can stay on that. Hell, you know, I, I may not have to eat TV dinners every night, right?

[Kenny Wallace]

Roman Noodles.

[Ray Evernham]

Yeah, I lived in a one room apartment, you know, with a bed folded out of the wall, the old Murphy bed thing. But so sent him over there. And I will tell you that some of the best times of my life were working on that Baby Ruth car with, with Bill Davis and that group. Because Bill actually worked on the car. There was only four or five of us and there were one or two guys in the engine shop and I think there were, there were myself and Dennis Adcock. Bill worked on the car. I think we had a guy in the body shop, but Dennis and I were the mechanics. And man, I went there the first time and I, I said, well what about this, what about that? And Bill said, look, just do, do what you do, you know, get them to drive the way he wants them. And I checked the front ends. You talk about bump steer and stuff. And they had never checked any of that. Yeah, so I, man, I built a whole center link. You know, back then we didn't have all the slugs, so I had to weld up holes and I made this thing to, you know, move it and put the taper in there and all that stuff. Welded up all that stuff, man. And Keith, you were motor guy. He's looking ah, what's going on over this guy here? I'm, I'm the first. I mean I got their front end and I'm just cutting everything up, welding, re drilling holes and everything. We go I guess to Rockingham and sit on the pole, right. Miss the race, set up, finishing top 10. We go to Richmond, sit on the pole there.

[Kenny Wallace]

That's where I remember your right front. A frame you had, you know, you put a real long a frame on that thing with a lot of spacers and I, I understood you were trying to slow that camber curve down, but. Oh my God, this is like sticks in my head.

[Ray Evernham]

Yes.

[Kenny Wallace]

Okay, go ahead.

[Ray Evernham]

Yeah, well, you know, because he, he would, he was saying, man, I'm loose in loose end, tied off, loose and tied off, loose and tied off. And you know, I thought myself, heck, I was only that long you know, the camera was. The camera was going, woo. You know, and so, yeah, we. We slowed all that down. I'm. I'm a big believer in. In slowing suspension down, you know, especially with a radial tire, you know, like, you just. It just. The driver needs to drive the car. The car doesn't need to drive the driver. And when you got everything that moves too fast, the driver, you're great, you know, reacting. So. So we. We sit on the pole, miss the race, set up again, finishing top 10, but went good. So me and Keith Simmons, we weren't really getting along that good because he was a motor guy and he kind of wanted to call the shots. And I didn't really care about calling the shots because I didn't want to be a crew chief. I'm a chassis guy, but I. I'm like, look, I know what I'm doing with this chassis. So, you know, you go in the motor room. So we fought a little bit. Bill Davis sends us. We're going to go test. We're going to go test Atlanta. And we load up in the van. He makes me and Keith ride in the van with the crew, and he puts a case of beer in there in the van, right? Because the guy driving the van, he didn't drink anything. So we. We head to Atlanta with a case of beer, and by the time we got there, me and Keith had worked out a. A deal. Like, look, okay, you're gonna do this, I'm gonna do this. And we're not. We're just gonna stay in our lanes. And we went down to Atlanta, and I did a couple things down there. I remember when they were like, oh, my God, one time, you know, so Jeff comes in, he said, I'm loose. I'm loose. So I said, I'm gonna go up 100 pounds on the rear springs. And they're like, you can't.

[Kenny Wallace]

Oh, my God, he's already loose.

[Ray Evernham]

I was like, yeah, he's already loose because the car's going around. The spoiler ain't even in the air. We're going to stand that thing up, man. He. He's loose for a couple laps. He takes off and he goes and we go down there, we win the race. You know, we beat Mark. Mark and Earnhardt and. And win the Atlanta race. And that's when. That's when Mr. Hendrick. Mr. Hendrick song. But I mean, I'll never forget that because Andy Petrie called me up and he said, hey, what the heck did you do there? So I told him, I said, you're not gonna believe me. But I said, I, I, I, that thing, had that thing. And for a bush car now, I said, I think had a 500 in the right rear. He's like, what? He said, that's crazy. I said, you try it. So they try it with Harry and they damn near won the race there. I think Bill Elliot might have beat him on fuel mileage, but it was, you know, that when we started, when people tell them like, look, you, it can't be. That car can't be sitting down on the right rear with the left front up. You know what I mean? If we're going to go run dirt, we can do that. But so that, that's what started. And after we won that race, me and Keith, we got along pretty good.

[Kenny Wallace]

So this is perfect because it's like, how do you get to the great Hendrick motorsport? And I must say this, everybody, I was there during all those, those days and I was embedded in it. And you know, we'd run a 1400 in the left front, 1600 to right front or 1417, 350, 400. And that was the God's gospel. And if you didn't run that, you were crazy. So you're looking at the man, everybody, the great Reverend, you forever changed NASCAR because you brought in this concept of get the ass of the car up so the spoiler can go to work. And in, in, in a suite that day was Rick Hendrick. And all right, now you did perfect. You, you've changed the sport. The crew chiefs are calling you now. Fill that gap in because there's, there's Rick Hendrick. Tell me where you were and how much longer did you spend with Bill Davis and then when did Rick call you or how did it work?

[Ray Evernham]

Well, it was actually John Bickford who, who called me, who is another great mentor of mine and Jeff's, Jeff's stepdad and he's, you know, John Bickford has guided Jeff Gordon and Ray Everingham and just about every step that we made, certainly in the, in the younger years. And if you're not familiar with John Bickford, he's Jeff's stepdad, but he's the guy that brought Jeff through quarter midgets to sprint cars, to everything. Right?

[Kenny Wallace]

So, so let me, let me say this. I want all the fans to know this explained everybody how smart John was. I mean, he was a little engineering minded person himself too, right?

[Ray Evernham]

Oh yeah, John, incredible machinist. John had a company that built hand controls and things like that for handicapped people. To drive cars. Amazing machinists. But he also part time. They're running sprint cars. John invented a lot of the things that are continue on sprint cars today. Some of the way the oil pump systems work and wing sliders and. And stuff like that. John Bickford really developed a lot of that. The, you know, the. All of the kingpin style hubs and spindles. He had a company called MPD right down. And I'll tell you, John was smart enough pit stops. He built the early jacks for us. Hand built aluminum jacks with special pistons that we could jack the car up faster and all that stuff. You know, John, John's. He is just a. A genius. He's one of those guys that he. He's like a smokey unic. He never forgets anything that he reads. Like if he reads the encyclopedia, like he, he could. He. He could take your gallbladder out, you know, I mean, he just.

[Kenny Wallace]

And this is Jeff Gordon's stepfather. Okay.

[Ray Evernham]

I just think that was Jeff Gordon so real. I think he adopted Jeff when Jeff was only about one year old. Yeah, just an amazing guy and well respected in, in the industry. But so, so we're, we're running good, you know, we're sitting on polls. We hadn't won another race or whatever, but get a call from John and John says, hey, you know, Jeff's got a. An offer from Rick Hendrick. And Jeff had, you know, I knew quite honestly, and I don't want to get into who and what, but I knew Jeff had been offered stuff from other cup guys. And I will tell you something about Jeff Gordon. And to this day, you know, he's like a little brother to me, but loyal. He got offered a ride that had other famous crew chiefs involved and he said, hey, I come, but I want to bring this guy Ray. You know, like, we really get along good. And the other car owners told them that you don't get to pick your crew chief. You know, we're going to put you with this guy here. And, And Jeff didn't go, but then he got offered to, you know, the Hendrick deal. So I guess he went and met with Henrik and John Bickford calls me up and said, hey, we want you to go over to Hendrick and find out, you know, why they're not winning as much as they there. So I have to go over there now and like, oh my God, like you're fixing everybody.

[Kenny Wallace]

You're fixing Bill Davis now you're a fix Hendrick.

[Ray Evernham]

Well, no, I'm thinking to myself, Are you kidding me? This is Rick Hendrick. Oh, my God. You know, like the days of thunder. And I'm. I mean, it's like. And, you know, Tim Richmond, and, you know, oh, my God. You know, what am I gonna do? So I go over there, and Jim Johnson. Not. Not Jim Johnson, the driver. Jim Johnson, who was the manager then. He's probably not happy because he's got to take this guy around and show him everything. And I'm like. I'm judging him, and I'm thinking myself, this guy's. He hate my guts. So we. We went around the whole complex, and the stuff I saw was amazing. It was incredible. Like, it was no. Like, nothing that I had seen since I'd left Penske, right in the. The tools, the equipment, just amazing. So I went back, and I said to Jeff, I said, look, I. I have no idea why they're not winning, but I feel like it's because they're not using the stuff that Rick Hendrick is giving them. I said, I feel like with what we. What's there, if we can't win there, we can't win anywhere, because everything that you could possibly ever need is there. They're just not using it. And they. It's not like it was, like, going to. At that time, it was two teams, you know, but there's, like, two completely separate worlds, you know, one was up on the hill, one was down here. One used this motor, though. These guys use that motor. This. Use this chassis, or the other guy used that chassis. And Hendrik just started building their chassis. And they were beautiful, like. Like. Like jewelry. But they were heavy, right? And the front ends weren't right in them. And I'm like, I can fix that. You know, like, well, give me those fabricators run in is your specialty. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I just. You know, everybody has got something, right. I didn't get the musical talent. I didn't get dance talent. I love it. I didn't. I never got to be as good a driver as a kid, but for some reason, I could just sit and. And see it. You know, like, you see the tire. You just see how it's working. And I'll tell you, and I've said this before, when Jeff Gordon talks about. I see it. It's like a. Like a CAD thing working in your mind. You know, it just works. We. We were racing. Not. I was not racing last night, but we had a little event at the 1010 Motor Club that Mr. Hendrick and Marcus Smith had things.

[Kenny Wallace]

We keep it's on my race cars.

[Ray Evernham]

What's that?

[Kenny Wallace]

It's on my notes. The 10:10.

[Ray Evernham]

We're gonna talk about all. We were there last night, and Jeff's talking, and it's like, boom, right back. You know, it's like, look it. It's like we had never stopped working together. And, you know, we were playing around at that place last night with his race car.

[Kenny Wallace]

I want to say this. At one time during my NASCAR cup career, I wasn't hitting it off with my crew chief, and I came to you as a friend, and I said, ray is a NASCAR driver like myself. Are we supposed to know how to build the shocks? Does Jeff Gordon know all about the shocks? And I want to jog your memory for a little bit. You said, no, Jeff doesn't know how to build a shocks. But the way he explains it to me, I can fix it. So what you're saying is you and Jeff created this dynasty because you guys had the most unbelievable communication. Is. Is that accurate?

[Ray Evernham]

Yeah, and I think we still do. And we. I always use this in my speeches, and it's true. But like a true team, like a true relationship, it's built on trust, honesty, and respect. And Jeff and Gordon and I have always had that. And he never told me. He never got on and said, hey, put. Put a round of wedge in. Hey, raise a lower track bar. He would. He would say to me, I feel like this when I'm turning the wheel, and as the weight moves, I feel this. And then I would ask him, where are you at on the throttle? Do you feel. You know, if I nail this down, will it help? He never tried to tell me how to do my job. And honestly, the only things I ever said to him, especially in the early days, is be like, hey, dude, you know, like, you're. You're. You're. I'm not trying to tell you how to drive, but those other guys are letting off about 200ft further than you are, and you're flying. You know, like, these cars are not sprint cars. They're heavy. And we used to kid around about that, but we still to this day have an incredible amount of communication. Jeff knows a lot more now about cars than he did because he has to sit in all the technical meetings. And he really. Jeff's smart, right? You know, like, and you're smart. And. And I've always said this. Great race drivers are smarter than they are brave, right? You know, people think, oh, what. What makes a driver. Quick reflexes. And he was really brave. No, you know, just like Mr. Miyagi, hey, real racing is here. Nair. Right? So that. That. And Jeff is. Jeff was always very smart at saying, hey, look, if I tell, I'm going to focus on what I feel and just let Ray Ray fix it. And we always had that. A lot of drivers and, you know, crew chiefs argue because driver will say, oh, the car's messed up. And the driver and the crew chief will say, you're not driving it. Right. You know, and. And I've. I've given what I feel is good advice to some crew chiefs when they're starting to tell a driver how to drive the car. I said, look, your job is not to tell him how to drive the car. Your job is to fix what he is saying is wrong. And until you can drive that car faster than that guy that's driving it, don't tell him how to drive it. Go work on what he's telling you is wrong. This is a real good story about Bronx and his dad, Ryan. Real United Airlines customers. We were returning home, and one of the flight attendants asked Bronx if he wanted to see the flight deck and meet Kathy and Andrew. I got to sit in the driver's seat. I grew up in an aviation family, and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me of myself when I was that age. That's Andrew, a real United pilot. These small interactions can shape a kid's future. It felt like I was the captain. Allowing my son to see the flight deck will stick with us forever. That's how good leads the way.

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[Kenny Wallace]

Prices and participation may vary. So this now we have entered the territory of a dynasty. Okay, so you go to Hendrick. Well, let me just back up for a minute, because I think this is fun. This is where real stories are made. Do you remember? And where were you when Rick Hendrick shook your hand and said, okay, I want you to create this new team? You know, it's Jeff Gordon as a driver. How did that team. When was the moment that you created car number 24 with driver Jeff Gordon?

[Ray Evernham]

It was the day after the first Charlotte race in May of 92 that we won the poll and the race, and I had to go meet then with Mr. Hendrick and knew all of this stuff was. Was going on. And I will tell you, when you talk about dynasty, you Know, I look at is me and Jeff. Really me. Me and Jeff and Rick and. Because we'll get into a little bit more on why Rick Hendrick was so important, because, like I told you, I didn't get along with Allen, and everybody's got their stuff. Rick Hendrick has always been the type of person that gave me the confidence to do that. He. He believed in me so much, it made me believe in myself. So. But. And that. That'll lead me to the story of the day we met. He's like, okay, this is Randy Dort, and he's going to build your motors. Randy will build what you want. You know, here's. I forget who was in charge of the chassis shop then. Might have been Gary DeHart. Say he's going to. He's going to build your. Your cars, you know, and this is Wayne Stemler. He writes the checks. And Jimmy Johnson manages. And here's how it goes. And, you know, and this is going to be your building. And it was really cool building, because all the stuff from the days of Thunder deal was in there, right? I was like, oh, can I keep that stuff? They're like, now we're gonna have an option, right? So it was really cool, but I was like, well, cool. So I'm gonna be the team manager and chassis guy, and I'll, you know, I'll put this deal together, and I'll take care of the chassis, and I'm gonna go and I'm gonna try and hire Andy Petrie to be the crew chief. And Rick's like, like, oh, no, no. You said you're gonna be the crew chief. I was like, no, no, I don't have any experience. I don't want to be the crew chief. You know, and it. You know, he said, well, Jeff. Jeff wants you to be the crew chief. I said, Mr. Hendrick, I don't have any experience of being a crew chief. I'm a really good chassis guy, and I can manage this place. We should get, like, Andy Petrie or somebody to be a crew chief. And he goes, well, you're going to be the crew chief. He said, that's the only job I got. Take it or leave it. And he. He saw something in me and in Jeff that he just. He let us fumble around for the first year. We fumbled around. You know, we came close to winning. We won the 125, and we came close to winning. But he was very patient, and he also stood behind me when I wanted to do things different, you know, because you got to remember you Know, Harry Hyde was there and Gary and you know, Ken House who was always a pretty open minded guy, but there were a lot of people there going, that won't work. You can't do that. We've always done it this way, Wilson and I'm doing things different, like way different than they.

[Kenny Wallace]

No more, no more three five zero four hundred in the rear, huh?

[Ray Evernham]

No, no more, you know, and like say talking about, hey, well that's within. That's plus or minus an eighth. Yeah, that ain't good enough for me. We're gonna make it plus and minus zero. That's impossible when you welded it, whatever, right. So you know, on the way I wanted my cars built and then I would go up there and argue. Me and Eddie Dickerson almost gotten so many fist fights up there, know, because. And then finally, you know, and, and Rick supported me. Like when, when he comes in there one day and sees us doing all that crazy pit crew stuff, he says, what are you doing? I said, I don't want to make the mechanics do it. I said I'm working them guys 16 hours a day. I want to have a separate pit crew. He's like, what? You know, and, and when he got it, he, he supported Jeff and I to become Jeff and I, right. Like to. He allowed us to do things differently than his company was doing. And you know, by the time we got done, I felt like by 95, 96 the Hendrick cars we were so far ahead of every, ahead of everybody else with our cars, with our aero program, like engine program. And it all came down to engineering and the, the first engineer, the first engineer that we hired, 1992 and I believe he was the first engineer hired at Hendrick Motorsports was Brian Weitzel. And he's still there. And he had to drive the truck for a year because we couldn't hire an engineer. So he was a truck driver, but he was our engineer. And then man, they hired Steve Levitt came in and Don La Tarte came in and Rex Stump came in and Gary Aker came in and all of a sudden, you know, Hendrick was, was that juggernaut. Still are. You know, there are cars where I don't know if. Do you remember that time that, that Gary Nelson got mad at me and they took 24 car apart in the, in the bay at Michigan.

[Kenny Wallace]

So I want to tell everybody this. Hang on everybody. We are going to get to T Rex because I told, I told somebody yesterday, I said, my son in law, Brody Pompey is an incredible engineer. He builds Outlaw carts right here out of my shop. He goes, oh, when you talk to Rare and make sure you talk about T. Rex. I said, we will, and we're gonna get there, everybody. But I want to go back a little bit because you did create this incredible minds of geniuses. You had all these smart people in there. But Andy Petrie is what I really zone in on. You know, you, you could, you could say, now, Andy, Andy's gonna watch this. I love Andy Petrie. I drove for Andy. He gave me some of the greatest runs of my life. Earnhardt, myself, first and second at Talladega. But I love Andy. And Andy is a strange character because he, he's up in the mountains there. You could say, oh, he's country. He's a country boy. But Andy hired. And I got brain fade right now. He hired that Ford engineer. And when I was with Andy, Andy always had an engineering mind, you know, Leo Jackson creating camber in the rear ends, making the rear ends have camber. So Andy was always engineering minded through Leo Jackson. But you always talk about Andy Petrie. Tell me about this relationship with you and Andy.

[Ray Evernham]

It started when I was at iroc. Andy was, I don't even think he was crew chief on Harry Gantt's car then, but he'd always come say, hey, what's up? What, what's up with the new. What are you doing with the IRA cars? And Andy. And Andy was always nice to me, talked to me. But he, he, he hung around the Irock garage to see what we were doing, you know, because we were testing shocks and radial tires and doing all that stuff, and we, we just got to be friends. And I, I like Andy, you know, and, and you know, he's no like you. Oh, well. And, and he thinks, like, it, it's just not enough to race. He races to win. Right? And he's always, you know, trying to find a way. And he put Jeff Gordon and I together. He, when he called and said, hey, Phil Barkdahl and Steve Barkdahl are gonna do this deal. Will you come help these guys? So, you know, if Andy hadn't made that phone call, Jeff wouldn't be together and all this wouldn't happen. And when Andy and I got to be racing, I would go, Andy Petrie, Tony Glover, Jimmy Fennec, Robin Pemberton. We were like, we hung out. And those guys helped me so much. And, and I can tell you, and we've talked about this on the Dale Jr. Podcast. Andy's running the three car. I'm running the 24 car. And we got our own channel, right, The Andy and Ray channel. And we're strategizing to get both our cars in position. Then we let Earnhardt and Jeff fight it out. But Andy and I worked together when he was on the 3 and I was on the 24 car. We were like unofficial teammates. I mean, we fought hard to who was going to win, you know, or whatever, but we helped each other a lot. There was one time, you know, I, I got set up information from him, but there was a time I built shocks and put them on the three car because he needed to win the championship and we weren't going to win it.

[Kenny Wallace]

Man, that is absolutely awesome. And, and that's why I wanted to stop right there and zone in on Andy. I just always thought Andy was extremely smart. And he, he's got some great stories too. You know, putting that, that Bush grand national car of Schrader, you know, left rear, right front spring only torsion bar, basically sway bar, front rear, whole car smashes down until NASCAR outlawed it.

[Ray Evernham]

Terry Satchel, that's. Was that the guy?

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah, that's who I'm talking. I would tell Terry, Terry would give me these, these numbers with his calculator and, and I'd say, I want that number right there. And they go, okay, then you got to do this and this. And it was awesome. I mean, I love.

[Ray Evernham]

He was, he was a smart guy, too, but you know, Andy, Andy Petrie is one of the guys. I do, I do feel, you know, I do feel Andy. Andy's hall of fame.

[Kenny Wallace]

Oh, yeah.

[Ray Evernham]

In my opinion. So hopefully, you know, one day he gets in there too. You know, there's some of the smartest people, in my opinion, some of the smartest people in the freaking world, right, mechanically or common sense wise, are in that cup garage area, or at least they were when I went with the people that I grew up around. You know, when you talked about Leo Jackson before.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah.

[Ray Evernham]

Amazing. That guy was amazing, mate.

[Kenny Wallace]

Amazing, right? Leo Jackson was. Everybody, let's remind everybody, right? Leo Jackson was the one that made it to where we could put camber in the rear ends. And of course, the dried plates were in a radiused. And the, the, the, the, the axles that I run in my old dirt car right now, which are strange axles is what they're called, they're beautiful axles. But the splines are radius to this day because of Leo Jackson's original engineering. Because those radial tires, they needed camber. But. Okay. Wow. There we are, Ray. We're starting to talk racing. We got to get back to the interview. I love it. Okay, so you create this dynasty and you go to Rick Hendrick, 47 wins with Jeff Gordon. Three championships, 1995, 97, 98. You know, I got goosebumps right now, Ray, because when I'm reading off those 47 wins, three championships, I think of you and Jeff at the wall Waldorf as story in New York and you know, Earnhardt raising the glass of milk up because Jeff's too young to drink. And just for a moment, when you look back, do you ever lay in bed and, and just for a moment just dream of those glorious days or were you too intense? Do, do you remember those glorious days?

[Ray Evernham]

You know, that's a really good question because that's something that I do remember. I do think about certain parts of it now, but when you're in the hunt, you know, the championships, you remember some of them, you know, like I remember the first championship a lot. I don't really remember 97 and 98 a bunch, those celebrations. I, I, I remember certain races and then, but certain, I, I do remember certain races. Standing in victory lane and talking to, you know, Ed Guzzo or Brian Weitzel were winning. We won, right? And I'm like, man, we better get our together because we almost got beat this week. You know what I mean? Did you see so and so if he hadn't messed up in the pits, we weren't going to win this race. You know, thinking about stuff like that, you know. But you know, the thing I will never forget is being able to stand on the stage at Waldorf, you know, and I was a big Bill France fan and you know, thank you, Mr. France. Looking up, seeing all of our guys up there in the balcony and at that time they played Somewhere under the Rainbow and whatever or over the Rainbow. And I just remember thinking, okay, man, if I get hit by a meteorite right now, it's been enough. It's good, I'm good. It's like everything that you've ever wanted and you know, so I, I, I remember a lot more about the 95 championship than I, than I do the rest of them.

[Kenny Wallace]

So this is my opinion, you and Jeff changed NASCAR forever because you ushered in the new era setups and Jeff ushered in the. He was not a redneck. Jeff was not a country guy. He was from California. And they could not deny Jeff Gordon's God given talent. Jeff was and still is one of the greatest race car drivers of all time, our era. But I want to zone in on three things that I think epitomize you and that legendary run. Number one, you came up with this psychological slogans and the one that I liked. And please fill in. We're going to do this. First, refuse to lose. Remind me, what were some of the other ones that you wrote in the shop and had on the wall?

[Ray Evernham]

Well, refuse to lose was actually from UMass. John Calipari, I didn't know. Kind of stole it from him accidentally. Right. But John ended up being a good friend. But when we sold T shirts, John got a piece of that. But that whole refuse to lose thing came about because in 1995, we should have won Daytona 500. And we messed up in the pits. We. We messed up in the pits, and we were waiting. Jeff should have just wailed on us, yelled at us, and he didn't. He just said, look, guys, it's going to be another race next week. You know, we're. We're good. We're going to go get them next week. And we went into Rockingham, and that's when we said, we refuse to lose. Like, we refuse to lose. That was a big stepping stone for the team. And that's when we came out with the T shirts, and that's when John Calipari called and said, hey, I actually have a copyright on that. But it was all good. But a lot of the other things, you know, probably there's an old book that set the tone for building the 2014, and that was by Pat Riley. It's called the Winner within, and it talks about all the steps that build people up and the steps that bring them down. So, you know, in those areas I wanted, we had positive, you know, think positive signs everywhere. Like you couldn't go in the bathroom and stand in front of the urinal without having to read something motivational.

[Kenny Wallace]

But you did that. You did that.

[Ray Evernham]

Yeah, but it's. And I still try and do it because that's what the difference between a manager or crew chief and a leader is. Right? Your job as a leader is to make people confident, make them get better. Make them. Make them better than they actually are. And, you know, there's. There's a sign hanging in my workshop right now. It says the mind can only hold one thought at a time, make sure it's a positive one. Right? So, you know, and, you know, that confidence, it builds, and it built more and more in the team. And as I said, we. We got a lot of leeway to do things because Rick Hendrick believed in us so much. And then it Started to catch on to the rest of motorsports and that realizing, you know, that. That you've got to have that leader that's positive. People have got to know, not just, hey, we got to do this. People got to know, okay, here's what we're going to do. Here's why we're going to do it. How do you think we should do it? Right. Yeah. Everybody on that 24 team had input. Everybody. I don't care if you swept the floor or right up to the crew chief. You know, like, if you had an idea, I wanted to hear about it. I had to say, okay, here's. Here's this week's goal. I want to take 10 pounds out of this car. Put your ideas in that jar right there, and then we're going to all discuss them in the next meeting.

[Kenny Wallace]

That's awesome. And everybody. Everybody said, well, we can do this. We can do that. And you got that car. Now, there was another one that escapes my mind, and it might escape your mind, too. It's been a long time ago, you had another phrase, something like, you know, from upstart to contender. Yeah, that. That one. You know, you made these things famous, you know, throughout America. If not.

[Ray Evernham]

Well, that's another one. That's another. I stole from a basketball guy. That's the one that was in Pat. That's in Pat Riley's book. Thank God Pat and I have. Have become friends now, too. But Pat Riley, great leader. Great Pat Riley, one of the greatest coaches, greatest leaders, manager in all of sports, not just basketball. Like, if you. He. He figured out how to get those guys motivated. Amazing guy. So in his book, he had a checklist for building a championship team from nobody to upstart. So in 93, we were a bunch of nobodies that started a team. We gave ourselves a check mark. So 94, we damn near won the Coke 600 for. Finished second to Dale Earnhardt. 94, you know, contender or I'm sorry, back to. Again, the 93 contender or from no upstart to contender. That was 93. 94. We come back and win the Coke 600. From contender to winner, 95 winner to champion. Boom. We win the championship. And then it was from champion to dynasty. And we never put that check mark in. We left that, you know, again, that's. But we. When you look at the. The, you know, again, hall of fames and things like that, and I still have that checklist here. It hangs in. In my current shop. But, you know, that. That's the stuff that when you look, you talked about 47 wins. Those 47 wins were only. Jeff and I only had 216 starts. We had 105 top five finishes. We 216 starts. We won 47, 147 races. And, you know, we would have, should have, could have. You know, we won 95. We lost 96 by a few points to Terry. But Hendrick, Hendrick. So that influence was at Hendrick, right? And we're really proud that we were able to give Rick Hendrick his first championship. But then we won 97. And in 98, we just, man, we, we blew it out. We tied Richard Petty's record for wins in, in modern day. And, you know, but it was, it was incredible, Incredible times. And as. And I really want to make sure that I, I, that I say enough about Hendrick Motorsports, because Hendrick Motorsports now has won I don't even know how many championships. Right? Eleven, in my opinion.

[Kenny Wallace]

Okay, look, Rick is the legend. Rick Hendrick is bigger than big. However, it is a house that you built. That is my opinion.

[Ray Evernham]

I helped. I helped put the walls up, but I didn't build it.

[Kenny Wallace]

It is the house that you built. No doubt in my mind. Okay, let me. You said something. Now I want to zone in on it. I keep reminding everybody everything that you started, brother. Rusty was going to win that Coke 600. He was gone.

[Ray Evernham]

Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

And you, you were the first one in those, those days, you said right sides, only two tires. That was unheard of. And you did it. And the car went faster.

[Ray Evernham]

Poor Rusty. And again, Rusty and I get along. We have had so much fun. But he. All three times we won the Coke 600, Rusty was second.

[Kenny Wallace]

I never realized.

[Ray Evernham]

He reminds me of that. And he reminds me about Indy with Bill, too. But. And what was funny, the last time we won with Jeff in 98, Rusty's leading again. He comes in, he take. He's like, I'm not getting it. They take two. We took four. Yeah. So. But yeah, that was, that was. That was our first. Our first win on two tires. But we had tested that during the week. Remember? You. You run.

[Kenny Wallace]

You.

[Ray Evernham]

You go into Charlotte on Wednesday and just run and run and run. And we tested how far we could go on two tires and really not lose speed. This is a real good story about Drew, a real United Airlines customer. After almost four years of treatments, I was finally cancer free. My mom's like, where do you want to go to celebrate? I'm like, let's go somewhere tropical. And then pilot hopped on the intercom and started talking about Me. And I was like, what is going on here? My wife beat cancer too. And I wanted to celebrate his special moment. That's Bill, a real United pilot. We brought him drinks and donuts. We all signed a card. I was smiling ear to ear. Best flight ever, for sure. That's how good leads the way.

[Commercial Announcer]

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[Kenny Wallace]

Prices and participation may vary. I'm doing my best, everyone. I'm doing my best. So he's, he's created this dynasty. He changed the sport forever with stiff rear springs, the slogans. You know, I remember NASCAR was a little redneck back in those days. I'm the one that said this. And here comes Ray and Jeff, both of them from different parts of the United States, Ray Evernham from the Northeast. And you were a Yankee and nobody liked Yankees. And you know, it's calmed down now, but in those days, Ray, you, Jeff Bodine, you guys were Yankees and that's, you know, I was, I was a Crew Chief in 84 before I became a race car driver. So you got that damn Northeastern Yankee, Ray Evernham. Then you got this guy from out here in wine and cheese, Jeff Gordon, and they put, they mash you two together and buddy, you, you changed NASCAR forever. Okay, so the other one, so far we've done refuse to lose the slogans. Two tire pit stops. These are things that you did, you changed. Now these pit stops. Oh, my God. You know, I was a crew chief, Ray, and I changed the tires, there was mechanics underneath the car changing the rear ends, and then they, they would do the pit stops. You were the first person to bring in race day fresh crew members. Tell me about this.

[Ray Evernham]

Well, when I studied so to become a crew chief, like I said in 92, When I got hired, I didn't really want to be a crew chief. So since I was going to be a crew chief, I studied races and I looked and then, you know, I looked and, you know, we didn't perfect the pit stop. That's wood brothers and petties, right? But what I didn't understand by being around the cup stuff at Kawiki's for three weeks and then being with Bill Davis, I didn't understand how you could afford to give up seconds on pit stops because nobody had really time to pit practice or they were tired. And I said I wanted to bring in people who were Athletes to change them to change tires and fuel the car. And they're like, well, you can't. They got to know how to work on the car. It's like, well, not actually working on the car. We can change them to change tires, to jack it up, to put gas in it, you know, if the car breaks. Because, you know, at that time, you could have one guy come over wall and go back. I said, I'll bring the pit crew back and the mechanics can go over the wall because, you know, we weren't wearing helmets or any of that stuff back then, right? There was no. You could have. If seven people went over, seven people come back, you put seven more over, right? So.

[Kenny Wallace]

Darn.

[Ray Evernham]

Yeah. Right. Yeah. So. Well, heck, during our pit stop, a lot of people don't know this, but during the pit stop, we sometimes used eight or nine men. You could only have seven over the wall, but they did not have to be the same seven at that time.

[Kenny Wallace]

Wow.

[Ray Evernham]

So knew that we looked at those things, but we started hiring people that would just come in. They'd come to practice two, three nights a week. They had to come to the meetings. They. They practice damage repair. They practice simple things. You know, a tie rod, banging out a fender. We practiced those things, but they were fresh, you know, and because you remember what, you were right there with us. When we ran for rookie of the year, there was no testing rules. We tested everywhere. We raced, right? We raced, I think 29 times, but we also tested 29 times. So those poor mechanics were worked out or wore out. The picture of our group for 1993, there's 14 people in it.

[Kenny Wallace]

Listen. Listen to this, right? This is what they say about you, and I want to read it to you because I think it's awesome. Ray Everingham created a group of specialists, often former athletes, who would train to perfect their assignment task. Tire changing, tire carrying, jack up the car, etc. Much like professional sports teams, Ray Evernham incorporated choreography, put his crew members through strength and agility training, and analyzed. Ray analyzed pit stops on film between races to point out spots where his crew excelled or could improve. Ray Everham's methods led to the car spending less time in the pits, gaining spots on a racetrack. Ray Evernham. And this is what I want to end with. Ray Evernham is credited with changing the expected duration of a Ford tire pit stop from 20 seconds to less than 15. My friend, it don't get any bigger than that. The Wood brothers are the legends, but you knocked five damn seconds. And this is right here. This is what you know, I mean, I know this, but, boy, it's nice to read that talk about that.

[Ray Evernham]

It makes me feel good, you know, you want to. You know, there are things I want to make sure I left the sport in a positive manner. Some of the safety things that we did and I'm proud of. But talking about pit stuff, you know, I've always looked as a crew chief, as like a head coach of a footballer team. Right. You got. You've got your. Your defenseman and your quarterback coaches and whatever, you know, an offense, defense. You know that. One of my coaching team was a guy named Andy Popathon. To see you who worked hand in hand with me on all of that crew stuff. You know, he. Former Stanford University football player. Andy spent several years growing that stuff through Hendrik and always will be proud and thankful for Andy. But, you know, if I were sitting here and say, yeah, you know, I thought of all those ideas, I'm the guy that thinks of stuff. And then I get really smart people to do it for me, and that's.

[Kenny Wallace]

What the greats do. That's. I mean, that. That is what the greats do. I just want to say this. It just jogged my memory. The great Buddy Parrot. Rusty won like 10 races in one year. And people were saying, oh, Buddy Parrot don't know nothing about chassis. And Rusty would say, but he sure can run a race team.

[Ray Evernham]

Yep. So.

[Kenny Wallace]

So, you know, you. You do things differently. Everybody does. Okay, this. This is. This is the moment of the show that all the racers want to know about T. Rex. So we're kind of going back to earlier. You started it. You red lighted on me. I'm like, we got it. Hold on. And we could talk about Gary Nelson hollering at you about something else, but let's. Let's talk about T. Rex for a moment. So you bring this. You redesigned the NASCAR race car, and you brought it out during the All Star race. I believe you. You change the sport forever. And NASCAR says, don't ever bring this race car back again. Tell me about T. Rex.

[Ray Evernham]

So. All right. How long do you want me to spend on this story?

[Kenny Wallace]

Well, whatever you want to do.

[Ray Evernham]

All right, Well, I want. Just before I jump on that, I do want to go back and. And tell you that Buddy Parrot, I think, was one of the best crew chiefs. And, you know, his name comes up hall of Fame all the time. He should be in there. And Buddy Parrot does know chassis and stuff, but he's one of the guys that I studied his. How he ran a race team he's one of the guys I studied. He's also one of the guys I never wanted to mess with on pit road because Buddy, Buddy Paris, tough son of a gun. So if he ever wanted to see you and he wasn't happy, you were afraid of it. But that guy is awesome. So T Rex. And again, this is. It becomes an urban legend and I get all this credit. But it was Mr. Hendrick that said, look, boys, we're gonna, we got, it's time we look at doing something different. He said, I got Rex Stump here. I'm gonna start up an R D deal. I want all of you crew chiefs and to give him your ideas of what you know, in a car and let him design it. So we all talked Rex Thump. Brilliant Guy, Brilliant. You know, came from Chevrolet. Great overall chassis guy. So within the rules, okay, he designs this car that is structurally rigid and the springs are outside the frame rail and the whole front suspension geometry is again, completely different. Just different. Right. And I love this raised. It had three by five frame rails and it raised the floor pan, you know, so get all the stuff out of the wind and, and all this. Well, we, we get this car done, we take it to Texas and Terry's testing it and it's like, man, it's just there. Yeah, you know, not good. You know, then again, like I said, this is Rick's idea. So it's his baby. So we're. Damn, we're all going to try and make this thing go. And couldn't. Couldn't make it go. So we decide we're going to. At Charlotte, the Charlotte test, you know, we go over there two, three days we could test and 2 o' clock to 5 o' clock in the afternoon at Charlotte. All you're doing is burning gas, right? You can't, you can't make any speed. So we had blacker. Remember that car over there we were running. I forget what the times were with blacker. 31 seconds at that time, I don't know. 30 seconds. And we decide we're going to try and get this T Rex car going. Jeff takes it out and he runs back. It's nah about half, half a second. Probably off the blacker. He's like, yeah. And he says there's something there. But I just, I, I just don't know. And I was like, well, you know, we're not going to learn anything. Run the other car. Let's play with this one a bit. I said, let me try something. Let me just try something here. And I thought about all of this rigidity and talk to Rex and everything. And kid you not. I said, and, you know, back at Charlotte and the hot setup was, you know, you had 450, 400, and then you had your. But had. We had to run about a 18 or 19 in the right front. And then we ran our 13 or 14 over on the left front. You ran your inch and eighth bar. Inch and three, 16. Well, that's a big bar, right? Well, I said.

[Kenny Wallace]

I said.

[Ray Evernham]

Put a pair of 450s in the back of this thing and equal up the front springs. You're like, what? I said, put equal spring. Like what? They said, what do you want to put in? I said, I don't know. Give me. Put pair of 16s in the front of it.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah.

[Ray Evernham]

And so give me the biggest bar. Give me the biggest part. We got. Oh, my God. Inch and a quarter. Inch and a quarter bar. It had rust on it. Had been in the truck, you know, the whole time, right? So we. We put that stuff in there. And, you know, Jeff was a guy who. I used to run his cars flat. Like, Jeff very rarely ran any more than 49. 49 and a half percent diagonal, ever. Right? He was not. So I look at this thing, and I was like, yeah. You know, so we screw around, you know, move some weight around, and I can't remember who we shot getting the left side wheels equal, but ended up with about 51% wedge. Equal front springs, equal back springs. He goes out, I'm on the top, the truck. He runs about three laps. He goes by, and I click. And I'm. It's like, up same speed. You know, I'm about ready. And Brian Weitz was up there with me, and his eyes got about this big, and he's like, what? And I look and he goes. He's showing me his watch. It's a second faster than blacker. Now Jeff comes in, he opens his shield, and he goes, what was that? I said, I don't know. Well, you know, he goes, it's. I said, look, well, don't do that again. Run one corner at a time. Like, don't.

[Kenny Wallace]

Don't get knocked out.

[Ray Evernham]

Yeah. So we do. We realize, man, this thing is bad the bone. Bad the bone. So we decal it all up. We're going back, run the Winston. Well, that's when you used to have no pit road speed. Remember that? And we had. He comes off of the track 160, whatever, and hits pit road and stands back on the gas. And then he. He tries to stop and he slides by us with all four wheels locked up. And he's screaming at me, the brakes ain't working. The brakes ain't working. I saw all four wheels are locked up. Let's start last. And. And people think we won all three segments with. With bl. With that. With T. Rex, but we didn't. We actually won all three segments of the Winston the year before. I think 96, 95 or 96 with one of the other cars. But he starts in the back, drives up. They used to have the thing, so we didn't want to get too far up. Remember they used to reverse. Yeah, they invert. Yeah, yeah. We didn't want to drive too far up. So he's like, man, we're really good. Really good. So the next one we. I think we run up to second or third and we had to pit. It was. It was pit then, right? It was all out pit. Right. So we pit. And I think we came out in. In third. And I forget maybe Terry and Earnhardt, whoever was up in the front there. Well, they dropped the green flag and Jeff just goes around them and he's leading the thing by the time they hit turn two and he just starts legging it and like he's running. He's running laps eight tenths of a second faster than the second place car. And I mean he's just gone and just building. So he wins the race. We go up, we do all the celebration and I come back and Buster the inspector says to me, hey, Bill wants to see you. So I'm thinking, me, Bill, Francis friends, he's gonna go up there, we'll have a beer and talk about the race, whatever. Bill sitting in that truck, remember in the last phone, like a. Like a beige push button phone. And going there. And Bill's sitting there. You know, he smoked, smoked Winston's. See that phone right there? You need to pick up that phone and call your boss and tell him that car is illegal. And I said, no, no, no, it's not illegal, Bill. You know, your guys watch it past inspection. It's all fits, all the rules. And he goes, it won't tomorrow. And you know, the. The thing was, the chassis was so different. You know, when we dropped the nose of that thing and flattened it all out.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah.

[Ray Evernham]

With the floor pan raised underbody. Aerodynamics, man, that thing just. It was like sucked to the ground. It was so fast in traffic because it wasn't like it wasn't really relying on just a spoiler or the air dam. It created that vacuum underneath of it, it was, it was badass but that, that was it. So that was the end of T Rex.

[Kenny Wallace]

Well, I, I got to go back just for a minute. This is the racer in me. What made you during that midday test? Because yes, you're right, it'd be 100 degree and you're just doing nothing. You know, at Charlotte we tested forever. What made you pick those springs? Did you calculate that? Did you and any engineer calculate that or did you just choose that out of your head?

[Ray Evernham]

I kind of choose out of my head because I've always had this theory and it's going to sound crazy. Do you remember a guy named Duke Southard?

[Kenny Wallace]

No, I don't. No.

[Ray Evernham]

Old Big old racer out of, out of Florida I think. He ran New Smyrna a bunch and everything but he had this, this suspension book, you know and, and, but he always had this theory about front springs, split springs, you know, and when car transfers weight, you know, if you've got a, let's say you got a 1500 pound spring over here and a 2000 pound spring over here. Yeah. You know, when that car rolls and transfer the weight, well, it's not going to push down that stiff spring as much as that other spring is going to come up. So the front of your car is going to be higher in the air, you know. And I was like, well this thing's stiffer and you know, maybe we just, maybe, maybe we just need to use the left front and make this thing square. Going back to my modified days and thinking about all that split spring stuff and it just took off. Now what I didn't exist, what I wasn't counting on was that underbody aerodynamic deal like that. Yeah, it, it put the car at a platform where it stayed flat and when it stayed flat and didn't let the air under the nose and everything, it, man, it just went. When it shut that note that air coming in it, it still had to suck it out the back but you know, because we had the quarter pounds and stuff up and so it was like, it was like, you know, it was like ground effects almost.

[Kenny Wallace]

So do you, do you think that in our early days that our right front frame flexed so much that it, the right front area came up that we had to make up with it with a stiff spring. And now that you had this quality metal rigid. That's what you're saying? And so, so the 1900 pound right front days was that was to make up for the flex, is that what you're saying?

[Ray Evernham]

Yeah, I think that was some of it. And then as the tires got better, you know, the radial tires and things got better. And then we, we also found out, remember the old KNC rigs and stuff when we saw what was happening to our front end. Oh yeah. Everybody like. Holy crap. Like the, the center links and the tie rods and the steering arms and all that stuff was just bending and flexing. The more we took that stuff out of there, the softer we could run those cars. Now. I mean I don't know what, what they. I don't know what they run. You know in, in the front of those cars. Now there's still a ton of force at places like Charlotte's got the same force. You know the wheel force transducer deal at that time. Same force at Charlotte then center corner of Daytona. Right. So a lot of, A lot of force there. But you know they're, they're, you know when they got into the bump stops and all that stuff, it was crazy. I'm gonna tell you straight up. 1999, one Daytona 500 with a car that had like a 200 pound left front spring in it basically had no left front spring. Just sat on a bump stop all the way around.

[Kenny Wallace]

That is so badass. I'm sorry everybody that we got into this, but this is my jam. I'm. I might be crazy, but the best are. And Ray Evernham's a little off center too. So.

[Ray Evernham]

Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yes chassis guys, we love that type of talk. And I'm. I'm hoping that all of you racers. That was for my son in law Brody Pompey that I had. I had it wrote down and I showed him my notes. I said T Rex is right here, buddy. Wow. So there it is everybody. We. We got to go. Ray, I'm so sorry. Can you stay a little longer?

[Ray Evernham]

Yeah, I'm good.

[Kenny Wallace]

Okay. Thank you. That is what made your legend. So everybody, we all agree that's what made Ray Everingham's legend. And. And we're already at. You will be our longest in Kenny conversation history.

[Ray Evernham]

That's because you and I both talk too much.

[Kenny Wallace]

No, no, we. We talk about what needs to be talked about. Jeff Gordon is over or not. Jeff Gordon Taylor and our junior's 311000 views. And he's long too. And everybody's going to want to. Here's some of this. So let. Let's start like this. After all that success, that should have been good. That was good for any crew chief in NASCAR history. After everything you did, you. You could have rode off into the sunset you could have said, well, I'm going to go up in the office here and Hendrick can just run you boys, but I'm out. But that was not enough for you. You leave because Dodge, I guess Daimler Chrysler calls you up and says, ray, I want you to start a new NASCAR team organization. We don't got to go too deep. But you leave Hendrick because Daimler Chrysler calls you. Tell me about that time.

[Ray Evernham]

That was real tough decision. There was a lot going on. Had the opportunity of a lifetime and, and again, you know, we do this stuff sometimes only to prove it to ourselves, right? Did you see that, that F1 movie where he, he keeps film Ain't about the money. Well, what's it about? And you get it, right? And I get it. Brad Pitt, people might not get it because it's, it's about proving something to yourself in, you know, and I'm going to tell you straight up. I thank God for friends like Jeff Gordon, Rick Hendrick and every day what they did for me. But you always have that question, can I do this with. Without the support of them? And when the job was to create a car, a motor race, teams, parts distribution, and that's. They go 500 day countdown. Well, I have 468 days. I didn't have the name 500. And we did that. We won in our first year. We ended up winning at the Brickyard. We put drivers in the top 10 for three out of my six years. And it was, it was an incredible, incredible experience. And I just needed to know. There's two things I've done in my life that people consider a little crazy. I did that because I needed to know if I could do it. And I ran Pikes Peak to see if I really was as smart as I thought I was, you know, but that, that deal, everything that you do in life should shape you. We should evolve. We're not the same people we were 30 years ago. And, and you know, to evolve you have to change and you have to do things and you have to do things that test you. And, and my great mentors that I, that I love so much, Jay Signore, Roger Penske, Rick Hendrick. You know, the examples of the people they, they, they do this, they never quit. You know, they're, they until the box is shut, that those people are going to be developing, work and evolving. And you know, when that Dodge deal, I look back on it and think, you know, it was incredibly successful, but it wasn't as successful as I wanted it to be. You know, Learned a lot from it and I learned a lot about. More about people. I learned a lot about. More about leadership. And you know, I look back at that and think, man, that was a tremendous opportunity. But it really wasn't me because, see, the whole time I was running the company at 450 people and doing all this stuff, doing this thing, I wanted to be down on the floor working on them damn race cars, you know, So I knew it was great. It was great for me financially. It was great to do it. I feel like we did a good job. But man, I just love working on race cars.

[Kenny Wallace]

I wanted. I, I like reading these things because I feel like they do a much better job than I ever could. I just want to read this and then you tell me whether it's right or wrong. Evernham Motorsports, the team ran debuted in the Winston cup series in 2000 out of Bill Elliott's race shop in a limited schedule with Casey Atwood. Evernham was also tabbed by Daimler Chrysler to bring Dodge back into prominence in NASCAR's elite racing series, leading the development of the intrepid RT race car that debuted in 2001. The team operated with direct factory backing and sponsorship. It goes on. Is it, is that, is that the way you remember it?

[Ray Evernham]

Yeah, definitely. You know, again, it, remember, you know, we set. Our stuff was really far ahead. You know, when, when they sold out and you know, I, I, Yates got sold up. Gillette and Yates was involved and, and Jack Roush. I remember Jack Roush saying to me, wow, you know, your stuff was in like the way that you guys built cars. Cars and the stuff. You know, we, we were into robotics and things like that. What I feel stopped us from getting ahead or, or took us down a little bit was a. The fact that I really wasn't enjoying it and we got too far out into the future with some of the things that we were doing, like doing our own tire data and writing our own simulation and you know, we, we almost were becoming an R D shop and I think that hurt our performance at the racetrack and that, you know, that takes the wind out of a lot of people's sails. And at the same time, I sold the company with the agreement that I would, I would now take over the competition stuff. You know, I'd still own part of the company, but I would be the competition director. I'd be where I could make a bigger difference rather than trying to sell sponsorship. I don't have B2B. I don't have those things, you know, like, I'd have a good time and hang out and everything, but I don't have things to offer sponsors, so my partner coming in was supposed to be handling that and I was going to do all the race stuff and I never got control back of the race stuff again. So, yeah, I went on. I went on what they call it walkabout. I got put on. I couldn't. I wasn't allowed to go racing because of my contract. So I took, I took my wife and built some sprint cars.

[Kenny Wallace]

You know what? That was a part of your journey. And we're gonna move on now. Okay? But we, we. I'm not saying we went in. Listen, if we want to go in chronological order, this would be a, a 12 hour show, no doubt. But I want to move on now. This is my opinion. People always call you right now, to this day, 20, 25, people call you because of everything we just laid out. You have an incredible organizational skill to you. You know how to start up. So I'm going to name some things and we'll just gloss over them. You Americana TV show srx Executive director of the Heritage Invitational, the rebirth of Iraq. And we got this little 10 10th track over there that Marcus Smith and Rick have built and maybe you can fill the holes in. So I just named all these things Americana tv. You brought in srx, Executive director of Heritage Invitational Iraq Rebirth. And I, and I, I'm a big fan. I'm watching it all. I sent you a picture.

[Ray Evernham]

Yeah, I've got it. Yeah?

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah. Of me, you testing, testing IROC cars. Out of all those.

[Ray Evernham]

Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

So out of all these things that I just mentioned to you, this, you got to be having a good time right now, or is it aggravating?

[Ray Evernham]

Well, it's like everything else. Some, some days are aggravating. But where I'm at in my life right now, Americana TV, it's on hiatus because, you know, TV's tough. I don't tell you that. We enjoyed it. We found cars and incredible people so really, really enjoyed that. I loved doing ESPN when I did the ESPN stuff. That was awesome. Like, I love, I love espn. Love the people I work with. Work. Work with your brother, you know? Yeah, loved it. You know, and if ESPN came back, I'd go right back there tomorrow. Love doing the live race TV stuff, you know, with the heritage, which is what Rick Hendrick and Marcus Smith are trying to grow here is a Pebble beach ish type car week here in Charlotte. They built a beautiful, I mean a beautiful facility called 1010 Raceway with a beautiful Clubhouse and a lot of car manufacturers have been over there. Porsche, Ferrari. And so in April we have a huge car show we call the, the, the Heritage. Friday we're going to run the Iraq cars, historic Iraq cars and then historic Indy cars and exhibitions. And then Saturday is, there's a big Concorde and I enjoy that a, because I do anything to still stay involved. I spoke with Mr. Hendrick this morning and I said look, you know, like I, I feel still Hendrick, you know, like, and like if you ever need me to put my jersey on for a day, a week or whatever, you know, put me in coach, you know. But I've been honest with him and some of the other offers that I have. I'm not the guy. I'm not seven days a week, 24 hours a day, forever. Now I do that. I could do that three months, six months. You know, I did it with the irocolate project. But in life as you know, people, people change and you lose people that as you get older. I've got a 10 year old girl now and I don't want to miss as much with her life as I missed of my sons. My son and I've got a great relationship now. He's doing great. His mom passed away, you know, and you know, I'm like sorry about that. Right. I need to be available, you know what I mean? And I can't be available if I take on a job that needs me all the time. So I, I take on things that I can control some of the schedule for and that works good for me and I, I love still being around the people that I started with. Yeah, you know, I, I, I do and it's, it's part of, of life. But I do now, as I said, want to dos versus have to dos because I, I enjoy working with the people more than anything.

[Kenny Wallace]

I, I want to say this about you. We all are our own worst enemies. I read this great story about Bjorn Borg, the great tennis player and o', Connor. They, they were I, for I, I think that's the name but Bjorn Borg had a nemesis and, and they made each other better. And after all that success, Bjornborg, the great German tennis player, he was bitter and he sold all his trophies. And I've told this story about two times. Bjornborg sold everything because he was bitter. Later in life he forgive himself and he found all his trophies back. You know, the great trophy spent millions of dollars, my friend. You changed NASCAR forever. And life is a journey and we forget sometimes we forget these segments of our life. But you are one of the greatest of all time. That. This is my opinion, that time in Hendrick, you. You made Hendrick. You needed Rick because he had all the money, but you. You carried on that legacy. Harry Hyde was there. Harry was gone. He was getting older. The drivers left. But, my friend, you are one of the greatest of all time. I love you. Don't be so hard on yourself, because life is a journey. It's not a destination. We don't stand on.

[Ray Evernham]

You don't.

[Kenny Wallace]

You know, you don't end. You are still Ray Evernham, and you got so much to give. So never downplay yourself, because your legend is. Is that you are a legend. And legend means he's a legend, because what did he do? Oh, he changed NASCAR forever. Then you did it with another race team, you know, with Bill Elliott and other drivers. That is my tribute to you.

[Ray Evernham]

Okay?

[Kenny Wallace]

I want you to know how great.

[Ray Evernham]

I appreciate that you've been a good friend, and I appreciate you. Appreciate you having me on. And as I said, you know, it. Love the sport, love the people, and, you know, I'm. I'm gonna run hard at it until they close the lid.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yes. Yes. One last thing. We're gonna end like this, everybody. We're gonna put Ray Evernham on the spot, and we have the ability to edit this part up. I'm gonna. This is how we're gonna end, because everybody wants to hear from people like you, Mark Martin, the greats. This is a little comedy, okay? But it's serious. Let's pretend the fans are right. NASCAR is failing. It's not what it used to be. It's no good. This is comedy. Now, let's pretend we're serious. How do we explain to the fans that there are people spending $40 million a charter right now? So if you come in, you got to spend $40 million on a charter. If NASCAR is that bad, what do these smart people see? That they're willing to spend $40 million a charter to be in NASCAR? There's mixed messages right now.

[Ray Evernham]

It.

[Kenny Wallace]

Where is NASCAR if we're spending this kind of money to own a charter?

[Ray Evernham]

That's. You know, you come at that from two things. You look at it as a businessman in sports. You think, okay, if you're spending $40 million, you know that NASCAR is a good business case, and that charter is going to get big and you can make money at it. And I know that there's a lot of argument going on, but you're not going to spend $40 million if, you know, you can't make money. That's a simple, you know, that's common sense, right? That's, that's like, look, I didn't go to business school. I don't have an mba. Why would you buy that then if you, you know, like, that's just so. NASCAR's future, I think, looks bright when part of what I would like to see is everybody has a right to make money. Every right to make money. Everybody's got a right to make money. Some of the. I'd like to see more of the DNA, like, why did you race? Why did I race? Just like we talked about the F1 movie. You know, it's about the money. You know, I wish more people got that. But my opinion, NASCAR as a business is still going to continue to grow because as long as, since they, since they said they had the first race when they built the second car, right? And as long as we're, as, as long as we're still driving up and down the street in cars, people are going to race them. And I would like to see more of the personality like yours, like your brothers, you know, the Dale Earnhardt, those things. Put more back into the sport. Because I think even in football and baseball, we still have those stories of these kids, poor kids or kids that weren't wealthy inner city kids that work their butt off to get there because they love the sport. They didn't do it to buy a new car. You know, I also feel like I would like to see the drivers and crew chiefs have more ability to adjust the car to suit their. The way they want to drive it. Not, you know, now you get in a car, you got to drive it the way it has to be driven by what the data says. I'd like to see, I'd like to see more adjustability in the car for the, to personalize towards the driver. And, you know, I want to see more personal drivers. I want to see, I want, I want to, I want to know who they are, what they are behind the scenes. And, and I, I'm not a big fan of a, Of a kid that doesn't appreciate stuff because his daddy or mom paid a gazillion dollars for him to get in the car, and then he tears the hell out of everything. I want to see those kids fighting from, from the, the back of the pack because they want to be there, that they want to race everywhere. I'm a huge Kyle Larson fan for that reason. You know, those guys that will race anywhere, anytime just because they want to race, that. That's what our sport needs more of.

[Kenny Wallace]

Ray Evernham, thank you so much. I really appreciate you talking about NASCAR today and I agree with you 110%. Listen up, everybody. If you want to see Reverend Ham's pretty face, you can watch that. You, you can watch that right here on the Kenny Wallace YouTube show. If you're driving down the road and you want to listen to it, you can go right there to Dirty Mo Media. Ray, anything else to say, buddy?

[Ray Evernham]

No. Kenny, I. Again, great to see you. Really happy when you called. And as I said, it's the, you know, memories and, and people. It's good to be able to, to catch up. Wish you the best. Think you're doing awesome in your dirt car, man. I, I follow you and, and you've worked hard at that, so it's great. You know, hey, nothing better than to sit here and talk about all the good stuff that we used to do, right?

[Kenny Wallace]

That's right. As Alan Kwicki said, we're going to leave like this, everybody. Lonesome Pine, Virginia. Paul Andrews. Since Alan getting a little nervous, he wrote PMA on a chalkboard, hung it up, and it said positive mental attitude. And we're going to leave you all like that until the next Kenny conversation. We'll see you all next time. Goodbye, everybody. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Twitter.

[Ray Evernham]

Facebook, Tick Tock and Instagram. This is a real good story about Bronx and his dad Ryan. Real United Airlines customers. We were returning home and one of the flight attendants asked Bronx if he wanted to see the flight deck and meet Captain Andrew. I got to sit in the driver's seat. I grew up in an aviation family, and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me of myself when I was that age. That's Andrew, a real United pilot. These small interactions can shape a kid's future. It felt like I was the captain. Allowing my son to see the flight deck will stick with us forever. That's how good leads the way.

[Commercial Announcer]

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[Kenny Wallace]

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