Evernham's test works; Atwood gets ARCA win

LONG POND, Pa. -- Casey Atwood made team owner Ray Evernham's great experiment pay off immediately when he won Saturday's ARCA RE/MAX Series Pepsi 200 at Pocono Raceway in a research & development Dodge Dealers Intrepid fielded by Evernham Motorsports.

	Casey Atwood is 31st in Winston Cup points. Credit: Autostock

While the goal of picking up Atwood's confidence could pay dividends in Sunday's Pennsylvania 500 NASCAR Winston Cup race, Evernham said the results of the test of various parts and pieces in the ARCA event could appear as soon as next weekend's Brickyard 400.

Atwood has struggled in his second Winston Cup season and just past halfway through the season is only 31st in the standings. Saturday was his first ARCA start.

"It's a special win for my career -- I'm only 21 years old," Atwood said. "Obviously my Busch wins are special, but my ultimate goal is to win a Winston Cup race and Winston Cup championship.

"Until that happens I'm not really going to be satisfied. I think we learned a lot this weekend, and it's going to help us in the future."

Evernham said that while giving additional personnel some over-the-wall experience could pay off way down the road, the impact of Atwood's win might be seen sooner.

"We had parts and pieces all over that car -- and personnel," Evernham said. "Depending on what they see when they get that motor home, you could see parts of that as early as next week."

	Ray Evernham wanted to get mileage on some of his equipment -- and confidence for Casey Atwood. Credit: Autostock

Atwood took advantage of the work of his hand picked crew, some timely cautions and fresher tires to take the lead from third generation driver Jason Jarrett with nine laps remaining.

Atwood pitted with less than 20 laps to go and picked his way through the field to beat the son of former Winston Cup champion Dale Jarrett.

"It was great for my confidence," Atwood said. "I think we learned a lot this weekend. We learned some stuff that's going to help us out in the future in the Winston Cup division -- that's the main thing that we were trying to do today."

"This was a test -- it was a good young group of guys working on that car, and it was good for them to be able to go for the win," Evernham said. "The main thing was to get mileage on some of the pieces that were in that car (but) it was great to win and let the guys get confidence.

"We actually put in some new guys that don't have a chance to go over the wall. There were some experienced guys, and there were some guys that don't even really have a chance to go to the track."