HMS Legend Unearths His Old-School Weapon That Helped Jeff Gordon Stay a Step Ahead

Amidst all his accomplishments, Ray Evernham receives the most praise for the innovative modifications he brought into action during his tenure leading Jeff Gordon’s #24 Chevrolet to 47 Cup race wins and three championships. His recently released, co-written autobiography “Trophies and Scars” has been gaining popularity, and this was brought up by Kelly Crandall on a recent episode of “The Racing Writer’s Podcast,” alongside the man himself.

Nevertheless, Gordon’s former crew chief clarified that his evolutionary drive to write was fueled by another drive to “read.” Contrarily, this also helped him stay ahead of the competition on the racetrack during his crew chief days in the #24 garage.

Ray Evernham’s “Manipulative” Strategies Helped Jeff Gordon Win 3 Championships

From co-founding ‘Superstar Racing Experience’ with Tony Stewart to rightfully placing himself in the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2018- the “revolutionary crew chief” has done it all. Only last month, Evernham told Dale Jr on DJD that the release of “Trophies and Scars” would help him be able to give his family a look into what he was “thinking,” and how he was “evolving with each step” in his NASCAR career. The autobiography co-written by Joe Garner has now become a growing best-seller, with its average rating listed at 4.9 stars on Amazon. 

Evernham’s expertise in the intricacies of “communications” does not fall as a surprise, as the former crew chief spent years controlling the radio communications. However, this wasn’t always the case, and Evernham shared a tidbit with Crandall of RACER.com on how he eventually ended up dominating his initial “nervousness” in the coming years.

He explained, “Literally, my finger would shake right on the button and my voice would crack because you’re thinking, I don’t know… ‘What do I do now?’… So it took a while but listening to a lot of the other crew chiefs helped me….” Evernham referenced the radio work of garage icons like Jeff Hammond and Buddy Parrott for helping him get accustomed, as he told Crandall that it was “probably well into ‘94″ before the crew chief gained familiarity of the system.

As the conversation continued, it revealed how Evernham’s using “transcripts of radio communications” between other teams helped him gain an advantage for Gordon’s #24 team.

The former crew chief admitted, “It’s all digital now. Everybody’s got digital and they’re using their different intercom systems, so you can’t get as much and practice and whatnot. But yeah, I used to get a printed transcript of the whole race. What I said, what certain other people said, and I would study that and that’s something that we just started developing because of our own radio conversations, but I really wanted to know. Even though I could hear it during the race, I wanted to go back and read it and I kept that as part of my notes… but it also helps you strategize.”

“And I think I learned at times (how) to manipulate some of the things that I wanted to get because I knew how they were going to respond or I would know how their driver was going to respond.”

The strategies that won 3 championships shone through for the innovator in this heartfelt interaction, but Evernham had more updates, as he continued to talk about their rival team at RCR — Dale Earnhardt’s #3.

A lasting impact straight from the 90s

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The Gordon-Earnhardt rivalry in the mid-90s claims iconic status to this day. On last month’s DJD episode, Evernham revealed an unlikely story of camaraderie between the #24 and the #3 crew chiefs, when he claimed that Andy Petree of Richard Childress Racing and himself collaborated amidst the countless duels between the ‘Rainbow Warrior’ and the ‘Intimidator’. Even Dale Jr was skeptical at first after hearing this story from Evernham.

Speaking further about his rival team with Crandall, Evernham laid out the most “intimidating” account of Dale Sr while comparing the #3 to the rest of the field. “Some guys would you know like Earnhardt could have told Earnhardt, ‘Hey, you know the back of the car is on fire,’ and he would’ve said, ‘All right, I’ll be in in a minute.’ If you would’ve said to somebody else the back of their car’s on fire, they’d be like, ‘Aah!’” screamed the #24’s ex-crew chief with a comedic re-enaction of the sentiment. Evernham solidified his claims with an apt conclusion: “So learning how those crew chiefs and drivers responded helped me actually manipulate some of the races to go in a direction we wanted to.” 

With the #24 now in the responsible hands of William Byron, Evernham, as well as Jeff Gordon can rest assured knowing the impact the duo have made on further generations to embrace the thrill of NASCAR racing.

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