Ray Evernham was one of the most important pillars upon which Rick Hendrick built Hendrick Motorsports into the giant operation it is today. The veteran crew chief won three Cup Series championships, all with Jeff Gordon, and was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2018. To honor his contribution to the team, Mr. Hendrick attributed his latest investment to him.
Hendrick Motorsports and Atrium Health have partnered to run the newly built 35,000-square-foot Atrium Health Motorsports Athletic Center at the team’s campus in Concord, North Carolina. This center will provide medical, wellness, and performance resources for the team’s pit crew members and support the health needs of the team’s employees in the Charlotte area.
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It also includes a multi-functional gym, modern locker rooms, and dedicated areas for physical therapy. There is also space to conduct sports science research and a closed-loop pit stop practice circuit. The bottomline is that this facility will provide everything that a pit crew needs to function at its absolute best. So, where does Evernham fit into all this?
He was the man who revolutionised the structure and standards of the modern-day NASCAR pit crew. Mr. Hendrick detailed in a press conference, “I had never seen anything like it. Our guys would change the tires; they had big tummies, smoking cigarettes. That’s how pit crews went. You just pick anybody on the team and say, ‘Hey! You’re changing tires today.”
When Evernhamcame in, he demanded more from his crew. From fitness levels to operating methods, he changed everyone and everything. While Mr. Hendrick couldn’t make sense of it all at first, he realized how big the change was on the track after one particular visit to Daytona, when Gordon’s crew was able to complete a pit stop four seconds quicker than the rivals.
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“It was Ray Evernham,” he continued. “It was his idea. He talked us into it and started recruiting people. This is where it is today. Everybody picked up on it.”Gordon, who is now the vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports, was a part of the conference as well.
He emphasized how important pit crews are today and underlined that there is no facility like Atrium’s in the sport today. Evernham is currently working on reviving the IROC Series and serves as a consultant for Hendrick Motorsports as the team continues to set records in the world of stock car racing.
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