Year in Review: Evernham Motorsports

Ray Evernham has been trying for three years to get his NASCAR Winston Cup team to elite status. The three-time champion crew chief has had a whiff of success as a car owner - he did win the Brickyard 400 last year, after all - but consistent long-term achievement has been fleeting.

	Bill Elliott finished ninth in the Winston Cup standings. Credit: Autostock

But maybe Evernham Motorsports is finally getting close. With a late-season run that matched any team in the sport, Evernham's two teams were consistently out front.

Bill Elliott won at Rockingham and finished in ninth in the Winston Cup points standings. Jeremy Mayfield didn't win in 2003, but he notched two second-place and two third-place finishes in the final 11 races. Mayfield ended up 19th in the points, but from where he came, that's acceptable.

The crowning moment for Evernham's teams came in the season's penultimate race at Rockingham, where Elliott dominated the race, and Mayfield finished third. Elliott's team also won the pit crew championship, and Mayfield chipped in with a fourth-place finish in an Evernham Busch Series car.

"I think it was just a good weekend to prove that Evernham Motorsports is a strong organization, and it's continuing to build," Evernham said. "We brought in a Busch car and it ran well, along with both Cup cars and the pit crews. It was a good time to draw a line in the sand for us and say, 'Look, we really have built something good here, and we now have another stepping stone.'"

Sure, there are questions about Elliott's future, but the team's future seems bright.

And to think, after the June Dover race, Mayfield was 33rd in the points and Elliott 23rd. But the teams were quietly confident things would form into shape soon.

From there, the two teams started going forward as all the pieces of the puzzle came together. Evernham's aerodynamic department got closer and closer on bodies, the chassis shop started turning out better cars, the engine department got more horsepower, and the chemistry between both driver/crew chief combinations surged.

After finishing 20th or worse seven times in the first 13 races, Elliott closed 2003 with only three such results in the final 23 events. He was a strong fourth at the road course in Sonoma, Calif., and later finished fifth at Indianapolis, fifth at Darlington and fourth at New Hampshire.

The NHIS race started a streak of 10 consecutive races to end the season where Elliott was 14th or better. First, he was 14th at Dover, and then 13th at Talladega, leading a couple of laps.

Elliott dominated the Kansas race, leading 115 laps, but he ended up a disappointing second. Things really had turned around.

He then finished fourth at Charlotte, ninth at Martinsville, fourth at Atlanta and 14th at Phoenix.

The No. 9 team dominated Rockingham and the finale in Homestead, but a last-lap flat tire ruined a back-to-back victory party in South Florida.

But Elliott could hardly be disappointed.

ALSO  •  Driver Page: Bill Elliott  •  Driver Page: Jeremy Mayfield  •  Team Page: Evernham Motorsports  •  Year in Review Archive

"You've got to look at the whole perspective," Elliott said. "If you look at where we were at six months ago, it's been a fantastic second half of the season. That's what we've got to build and expand on. This sport is so apt to change, and so many things can happen.

"It's hard to get everything aligned in the right direction. That's the key thing about this sport. If you can ever get it aligned and going in the right direction, you've done a good job. I feel like, from the standpoint of Ray ... the guys at the shop in Statesville, and the engine guys in Concord, they've been able to bring it all together. Ray is dedicated to the deal, and I think that's what makes it all work."

Evernham stayed dedicated to Mayfield in 2003, and it paid dividends down the stretch. Mayfield, paired with crew chief Kenny Francis at the start of the season, started 2003 fine, with an eighth-place finish in the Daytona 500. But that turned out to be an anomaly, as he didn't post another top-10 until June.

Meanwhile, the rumors started flying again, as they had in 2002. Was Mayfield on the way out? Evernham tried to quell the talk, but it wasn't until Mayfield made five consecutive solid runs at midseason that the rumors subsided.

Mayfield and Francis began to click, and Mayfield reeled off finishes of 15th at Pocono, 13th at Michigan, 10th at Sonoma, eighth at Daytona and 10th at Chicago. Not great, but it beats the heck out of running 33rd in the points, which was where Mayfield stood after the June Dover race.

The No. 19 team stubbed its toe, dropping five spots in the points to 30th, but starting in late August at Darlington, a Mayfield favorite, Mayfield picked up the pace. He finished sixth at the tough old track and followed that with a near-victory at Richmond. Mayfield ran down Ryan Newman in the closing laps but couldn't get by, ending up second.

Two races later at Dover, Mayfield was again behind Newman, and the two battled hard for the victory. Mayfield wouldn't shove Newman, so he finished second again.

Two races later at Kansas, Mayfield followed Elliott's coattails, leading 37 laps and finishing third. He then was seventh at Atlanta, and though he blew up at was last at Phoenix, Mayfield ended 2003 with a third at Rockingham and a sixth at Homestead.

"At least now we can go into next year with a lot of momentum we haven't had," Mayfield said. "I haven't had that since I've been here. This is the best I've felt since I left the No. 12 car and we were at the top of our game over there. Our cars are better, and we know what direction to go in."

Same goes for Evernham's other team, too.