Around Iredell Sports

2007 Sep-06

Progress slow for Evernham

by Ralph N. Paulk
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In late July, when mergers and partnerships dominated the Nextel Cup news, beleaguered car owner Ray Evernham thought it perfect timing to explain the inexplicable troubles that have plagued his drivers this season.

He blamed faulty test results in Las Vegas for much of Gillett Evernham Motorsports failures. Supposedly, computers were fed bad data and flawed information was gathered to build many of the team’s Dodge cars—including the Car of Tomorrow.

Yet, even as Evernham tried to explain his team’s failures days before the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard in Indianapolis, a sense of hope prevailed.

“It’s frustrating and we’re trying to stay motivated,” said Emporia native Elliott Sadler. “If I knew what the problem was, I’d fix it. I don’t think we’re that far away from ironing out all the kinks.”

Admittedly, when Sadler departed Robert Yates Racing midway through the 2006 season, he envisioned far better things with GEM. He said last week he couldn’t imagine spending the entire 2007 season trying to find speed instead of victories.

Neither could Kasey Kahne.

Evernham felt compelled to explain how Kahne’s season of great expectations went so wrong. Until recently, the six-time winner in 2006 looked like a dazed rookie circling about a racetrack in a powerful machine he’s ill-equipped to handle.

Kahne, Evernham reasoned, is a “great driver” who was simply saddled with a bad ride. So, he ordered his engineers and mechanics to try everything to remedy the problems. When the solutions weren’t forthcoming, Evernham concluded the testing in Las Vegas left them rolling snake eyes throughout a long, frustrating season.

In the past few weeks, Team Evernham—Kahne, Sadler and Scott Riggs—have made marginal progress. Yet, they are 21st, 26th and 37th, respectively, in the points standing.

Evernham’s drivers enter the Chevy Rock & Roll 400 at Richmond International Raceway Saturday night racing only for pride and victory. Their chances of making the Chase for the Nextel Cup began to fade midway through the season.

“It’s taken a while to get this big ship turned around and headed in the right direction,” said Sadler, whose only top-10 finish this season was sixth in the season-opening Daytona 500. “We’ve seen some gains here and there.

“Everyone is working hard, but it seems like we’re taking baby steps. The poor guys have been working hard at the shop. We’ve got a whole winter to get ready, and we’ll get there. We’ll be fired up and ready to go for the Daytona 500 in February.”

Evernham, too, is focusing on the future. The former crew chief committed to bringing his drivers up to speed soon after he sold majority ownership of his team to sports mogul George Gillett in early August.

Already, Evernham’s input has produced dividends.

Evernham began using the 2006 Chargers for all non-CoT events in an effort to regain some semblance of competitiveness. Suddenly, his drivers appear rejuvenated, particularly in qualifying. It’s a trend that began with Kahne qualifying fifth at Indianapolis, and carried over to Michigan, Bristol and California.

“Right now, we’ve figured out how to make it go fast for one lap during qualifying,” Sadler said. “Now, we have to figure out how to make it go fast for 400 and 500 miles.”

However, Kahne and Sadler fizzled at the Brickyard on race day—another disturbing trend, one that dogged them at Pocono and Michigan.

“We definitely have some work to do,” said Kahne, who has five top-5 qualifying efforts in the past six events. “It’s been a tough start, a tough season, trying to figure out what we need to do to make these cars work.

“I’ve had high hopes of turning things around and going fast. The longer the weekend goes, the more things get back to the way they seem every week. It’s disappointing. Every week I’ve gone into it with high expectations, hoping that we can make strides. I think we have to a certain point.”

At Michigan, Kahne qualified third and Sadler fifth. But they were hopelessly out of contention before getting a fresh set of tires, finishing 31st and 32nd, respectively. Riggs, who failed to qualify in five of 12 races, started 43rd and finish 36th.

“We kept feeling as if we hit on something, then we ran very bad in the race [at Michigan],” Sadler said. “We’re complaining about the same things, and we can’t quite put our fingers on it right now.”

Kahne, though, has seemingly put his finger on the right button the past three races. He has three consecutive top-3 qualifying efforts—including a pole victory at Bristol—and has finished in the top 10 the past two races (second at Bristol and 10th at Fontana on Sunday).

“It’s been a while since we’ve run up front all night long and had a pole,” Kahne said after the Bristol race. “We kind of put the whole night together. Everybody just stepped up and did a great job.”

But there’s much work remaining for Gillett Evernham Motorsports. Sadler and Riggs are still lagging far behind.

In a season in which GEM was expected to challenge Hendrick Motorsports and Richard Childress Racing, it’s been a mighty struggle. Now, they come to RIR for the first time in four years already excused from the Chase.

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