How Rick Hendrick Handing the Reigns to Ray Evernham and Co Made NASCAR History

Hendrick Motorsports tasted real dominating success in the late 1990s when they won several Cup Series championships with Jeff Gordon. A big part of that success can be attributed to his then-crew chief Ray Evernham. What made the NASCAR legend so good was that Rick Hendrick gave him the freedom to work how he wanted to. While that set the foundation for HMS to become the winningest team in the history of the NASCAR Cup Series, not everyone was in line with the sudden changes Ray Evernham was trying to make!

Ray Evernham recalls fighting with the HMS old-timers

Before Jeff Gordon and Ray Evernham tore things up in the Cup Series, Hendrick Motorsports was not considered a regular title challenger. Evernham evidently changed everything, which he recently talked about on an episode of Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast. From making the cars lighter to hiring professional athletes for the pit crews, the motorsports legend revolutionized the sport and that’s all thanks to the freedom he got to do things his way.

“We used a lot of engineering practices and whatnot to lighten the cars up and do things but I would tell you that even though I fought with a few of the old-timers there at Hendrick, once they started to see how much lighter and how much faster our cars could be. They really gave us a lot of room to move and when I told them I didn’t want to use the mechanics to work on the pit crew and they were like, ‘What? These guys work on the car, you gotta let them try’. That’s exactly why we can’t have them doing it because they’re working on the car 14, 16 hours a day. They got no time for pit practice and that was something Mr. Hendrick supported me on,” he said.

Evernham also revealed his process of splitting up a team into three separate divisions. This was something unusual at least during that era and it certainly raised some eyebrows. But like every gamechanger, the 66-year-old stayed true to his beliefs.

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The three divisions in Hendrick Motorsports’ teams in the 1990s set up by Evernham

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The three divisions were called offense, defense, and special teams and it worked a treat. Back in those days, delegation of responsibility was not that big of a practice. The mechanics and engineers had to do a lot of extra work which often took their focus away from their main job of building the car. Ray Evernham stopped that and hired more employees to fit different specialized roles within the team.

“They let me do what I wanted to do with that team and I decided to use a professional sports team and split it up and to like…we split up into offense, defense and special teams. Special teams meaning the pit crew, defense, the mechanical guys that build the car…and the offense guys were kind of our R&D shop with me included. We did a lot of stuff back then that people would look at and go, ‘We can’t do that’, and I was like, ‘Why can’t we do that?’ ‘Cause nobody else does that’.Well that’s no reason not to do it as long as it’s faster. So we were involved specifically a lot in the development of the Hendrick car itself,” he added.

The history of Hendrick Motorsports is as intriguing as it gets. The trophies and records sure add to the team’s lore but the the stories associated with Rick Hendrick’s organization have kept fans hooked throughout. With the team’s 40th anniversary celebration set to take place, hopefully the team will be able to script history once again!

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