A Steering Wheel Pin
Evernham makes changes, Ford woes at Daytona, and an unlatched steering wheel pin.
Evernham Changes Directions.........
The Dodge's return to Winston Cup racing last year was not as stellar as some would have liked to have seen. The Dodge camp took four wins out of the thirty-six point's races that were scheduled. Hypothetically, on an even parity basis, each model would have won nine races. Basically, I think the Dodge did really well on its first year return to the circuit. When you consider the seven pole positions that Dodge drivers garnered, the parity begins to look better.
The big leadership role guiding Dodges' return to WInston Cup played by Ray Evernham and Evernham Motorsports did not amount to much. Chip Ganassi Motorsports eased in and showed Evernham how it was done. The No. 40 Coors sponsored Ganassi entry driven by Sterling Marlin was the Dodge performance leader for the entire 2001 season. Ganassi brought a lot of winning open wheel technology and experience to the Cup circuit, incorporated it into stock car development, and ended up with a winning formula. As a matter of fact, Chip Ganassi recently hired Roger Mears, brother of 4-time Indy 500 winner Rick Mears, to oversee his stock car operations.
Ray Evernham does not seem to be the least bit daunted by Ganassis' success. He managed to record a win with his No. 9 team and driver Bill Elliott along with three of the seven pole positions. Evernham is taking a different approach to the 2002 season. He has hired Lou Patane to head up the business end of his company with the title of Senior Vice President. Patane retired last year from Daimler-Chrysler as their motorsports director. Evernham has also hired Eric Warren as technical director to work with his crew chiefs and engineers. Warren, a Ph. D. in fluid dynamics, is a former employee of Penske Racing and the Ford Motor Co.
With these new hires, Evernham is planning to park himself atop the pit box on Sundays and direct his new driver of the No. 19 Dodge, Jeremy Mayfield, to a Winston Cup Championship. Evernham claims that this is what he does best and misses the most. With others taking care of the business and technical parts of the company and his 141 employees, he can tune himself into guiding Mayfield to a championship, hopefully for the 2003 season. Mayfield is a winning driver who fell short of expectations at Penske Racing South. Instead of gearing himself to make Rusty Wallace look good, Mayfield tended to drive his own race and paddled his own canoe. Penske (Wallace) fired him during the last part of the 2001 season. Mayfield ended up with some of the fastest testing times in the second segment of January 2002 Daytona testing.
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