NASCAR Hall of Fame Crew Chief Ray Evernham led Jeff Gordon and the #24 Hendrick Motorsports team to three Cup Series championships in four years. Among the 49 victories that he secured during the 90s were multiple Daytona 500s and Brickyard 400s. With the sport’s dynamics changing drastically between then and now, could he still be the apex predator in today’s stock car racing world?
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The chief was amongst those in attendance at Darlington to watch the latest Cup Series race. Taking up questions from Frontstretch, he was asked the same. He replied, “I think it’s a much different job than I did back then. I don’t know if I have the skills to be a crew chief today. It’s a lot more data management. Where, back then, it was people-driver communication and whatnot.”
Continuing, he pitched with optimism that he loved the sport regardless and would just have to get used to using the new tools should he come back to the pits. Asked if the prime #24 car could come up top in a battle against the Next Gen car, he said that it couldn’t if all the current rules were to be followed. His mechanical prowess was the key factor behind the extreme dominance of the car back in the day.
Ray Evernham is not a big fan of how NASCAR has become data-oriented
Detailing how data has taken up a higher role in making decisions than the word of people, the chief broke down why he wasn’t very fond of it. “The tools we had in the day were very limited,” he said. “So it was a lot more about the people. The driver feedback, the crew chief decisions, and how you built the car. Now, the sport is very data-driven. So, you pretty much have to do what the computer tells you to do.”
Though Evernham acknowledges that evolution is a must in the sport, he does not want the human element taking a back seat because of it. He reminisced that the sport was still about people to him and hoped that it could continue to be so and less about the computer. Notably, he is considered one of the revolutionaries who helped improve pit road efficiency in NASCAR.
He was one of the first chiefs to use a specialized group of individuals, mostly former athletes, instead of team mechanics as crew members. He trained the group in strength and agility to perfect the art of pit stops. The result of his efforts is very well evident today. From being timed at over 20 seconds, a four-tire pit stop averages around the 10-second mark today. Big credit to Ray Evernham.
