When Ray Evernham last set about grooming raw talent, the year was 1993 and the kid was Jeff Gordon, then 21.
You know how that turned out.
Now the prodigy is Casey Atwood, 20, so young of visage that “he got thrown out of the casino the other night while we were out at Vegas testing,” Evernham says. “When I gave him the keys to his rental car, the attendant said, `He can’t drive.’ I said, `He drives for a living.'”
Watch closely now.
More Top Picks Best Outdoor Kegerators
You’ll see there is no magic to Evernham’s star-making. The crew chief-turned-team owner is simply the most clockwork combination of organizer, innovator, motivator and driver coach ever to walk into a NASCAR garage.
This time the process will be highly visible. Evernham sort of sneaked up on the public with Gordon, as both were largely unknown initially.
Now, Evernham’s towering profile and his leadership role in the four-team, 10-driver Dodge invasion of NASCAR guarantee the microscope for Atwood as a Winston Cup rookie.
That doesn’t necessarily translate into pressure. Evernham lets kids be kids, and his team’s other driver, veteran Bill Elliott, who’s past his prime with nothing to prove, is a superb teacher for Atwood.
Listen to Evernham describing Atwood’s low-key role: “If nothing else, he’s entertainment for Bill. Bill just loves him. Every time they’re together, Casey says something and Bill just laughs. I say, `What are you laughing at?’ Bill says, `He’s got no idea, does he?'”
It’s their way of assuring Atwood how much time and patience they will have with him. Making him a dominant driver could take years. It did with Gordon. It was just that the rough spots, when Evernham dubbed Gordon “Junior,” went unnoticed before Gordon seemed to explode into stardom in 1995.
Evernham refuses to compare Atwood with Gordon, “just as I refused to compare Jeff to Dale Earnhardt, or Dale Earnhardt to Richard Petty.”
But if you listen closely, know the background details and read between the lines, there is one significant contrast.
“Casey can come in and tell you about the car,” Evernham says. “You need somebody who can relate exactly what the car is doing to the crew chief. It takes more than somebody who can tell you `It’s tight’ or `It’s loose.'”
What Evernham won’t say is that “tight” or “loose”–understeering or oversteering–was about all Gordon, as a rookie, could tell his pit crew about his cars. Only in recent years has he been mechanically specific–saying, for example, that the car’s track bar should be lowered, or wedge taken out of the right rear, or two pounds of air pressure taken out of the left-front tire.
If Atwood can be that diagnostic this young, that’s a head start over Gordon. Evernham signed Atwood last year because “when you see somebody who is doing well in every kind of car he drives, and he’s only 19, it can’t be experience. It has to be talent.”
That’s the same thing he saw in Gordon.
Atwood has obstacles Gordon didn’t: The new Dodges are unproven and Evernham the team owner can’t be nearly as hands-on with Atwood as he was as Gordon’s crew chief.
“If Casey spends three or four years learning Winston Cup,” Evernham says, “he’ll still be only 23 or 24 years old.”
Right on schedule for an Evernham project.
On board: Rick Hendrick, the Chevrolet team owner who launched Evernham and Gordon–then was “as angry as we’ve ever seen him,” according to insiders, when Evernham broke his contract in 1999 to join the Dodge effort–has turned out to be the background guiding force of Evernham Motorsports.
“He wasn’t very happy with me,” Evernham admits.
“[But] he turned around and helped me [learn to be a team owner] in many, many ways–with personnel questions, getting an engine program started, signing drivers. He has been, behind the scenes, a big supporter.”
A long shot? Buckshot Jones’ reputation among Winston Cup drivers is one of wildness and unpredictability on the track. Thus many were surprised when Jones was signed to team with Kyle Petty and John Andretti at Petty Enterprises, where patriarch Richard Petty, during his own driving career, was as smooth and consistent as they come.
Can “the King” teach that lap-by-lap consistency, down to the 100th of a second, to the rough-driving young Georgian?
“We’re going to find out,” Petty says. “I’d rather have a driver like Buckshot, who goes through life wide-open. It’s easier to pull somebody back than it is to kick them in the rear and get them going. I think we’ll be able to calm him down a little.”
Hot laps: Chip Ganassi already is creating shock waves, as expected, upon his move to ownership of a Winston Cup team after years of dominance in CART. This week Ganassi signed hot prospect Jason Leffler, 24, a Californian, right out from under the top team in NASCAR, Joe Gibbs Racing, home of Bobby Labonte and Tony Stewart. . . . Doug Douchardt, Chevrolet’s chief engineer for NASCAR, looking at the Dodge launch from the outside, predicts that “the No. 22 [Ward Burton of Bill Davis Racing] will lead the way for that program. They have momentum from last year [as a Pontiac team]. Ray’s deal [Evernham Motorsports] is under development. Some of the other teams [in the Dodge armada] are trying to build back up.” That would include Petty Enterprises, down for several years, and the team Ganassi purchased from Felix Sabates, who previously fielded Chevrolets for Sterling Marlin and the late Kenny Irwin.
More Top Picks Best Mattress Cooling Pads Under 1000 Dollars
———–
Ed Hinton can be reached at [email protected]