Ray Evernham
| Raymond Evernham | |
|---|---|
Evernham at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2016
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| Born |
August 26, 1957 Hazlet, New Jersey |
| Residence | Cornelius, North Carolina |
| Occupation | Consultant |
| Known for |
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| Spouse(s) | Erin Crocker |
| Children | 2 |
| Website | Ray Evernham Enterprises |
Ray Evernham (born August 26, 1957) is an American consultant for Hendrick Companies, formerly an auto racing crew chief for Bill Davis Racing and Hendrick Motorsports, owner of his own team Evernham Motorsports from 2001–2010, and analyst for ESPN's NASCAR coverage. A three time Winston Cup Series Champion with driver Jeff Gordon, in 1999, Evernham won the NASCAR Winston Cup Illustrated “Person of the Year”.
Evernham was a modified racer. When he was 26 years old, he was hired by the International Race of Champions (IROC) as a chassis specialist. Drivers were impressed that he could translate what they were saying about the car's handling into technological adjustments.
He crashed at Flemington in the middle of the 1993 season. He damaged his brain stem, which left depth perception impairment. He said, "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." His accident prompted officials to put foam blocks in the corners to lessen impacts.
Evernham started working for NASCAR driver Alan Kulwicki at the end of 1991. Their personalities clashed, and Evernham stayed with Kulwicki for six weeks before quitting at Daytona. As he was walking out of the garage area and NASCAR, Ford engineers Lee Morse and Preston Miller stopped him. They had worked directly with the Ford teams, including Kulwicki's, and they were impressed with Evernham. They suggested that Ford might find Evernham another assignment outside of NASCAR's top division (Winston Cup, now Sprint Cup). Jeff Gordon had just become a Ford driver and he had mentioned that he would like to work with Evernham again. The two had worked briefly together in 1990, when Evernham had worked on some chassis setups for Gordon's Pontiac team. Evernham thought back to that brief time with Gordon, remembering, "From the first day we ever worked together, boom! We hit it off. We had fun, we did good, he was what I wanted, and I was what he wanted." Gordon's owner, Bill Davis Racing, did not want to hire Evernham for their NASCAR Busch Series team. "Bill Davis didn't want me," Evernham later recalled. "But Ford paid my salary to go and work for Bill Davis, because Jeff wanted me there so bad."
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