Q&A: Evernham, Baldwin

RICHMOND, Va. -- Kasey Kahne posted his first Cup series victory Saturday night at Richmond International Raceway in the Chevy American Revolution 400. Team owner Ray Evernham and crew chief Tommy Baldwin discussed the win with the media:

With the dominance of Roush and Hendrick this year, what does this win mean for your team?

CHEVY 400 •   Results •   Standings •   Lap by Lap Victory LaneKasey Kahne celebrates his elusive first Nextel Cup win Stewart saves itLeader Tony Stewart spins but saves his car in traffic Chevy 400Complete coverage of the Chevy 400 at Richmond Sign up for TrackPass now BUY YOUR NEXTEL DRIVER PHONE

Ray Everham: Jack Roush and Rick Hendrick have done a tremendous job building what they've built. Hats off to them. The future, the business plan looks like you're going to have to go to more and more cars if you're going to be competitive. We're trying to go to three cars right now. It allows you to have more assets, spend more money on research, development, engineering and things like that, and it gives you more chances to win when you've got five good cars versus two good cars.

I don't want to sit here and say it's a David-and-Goliath-type situation because we can beat them. That's not being cocky. We've got the right things in line to beat them. We've got two great drivers and two great race teams and we've still got Bill Elliott doing all of our R&D. We've just got to hit our stride.

It's more special to me, this win and what it means because this will always be remembered as Kasey Kahne's first win in the next several years. He's really going to do big things in the sport, and some day he and Tommy will be sitting at the head table in New York and things like that we hope, but we can always look back at this and say, 'This is where they got their first win together.' To do that and be the first win for the new Dodge Charger, it means a lot.

Jack Roush and Rick Hendrick are going to be very tough to beat this year, but if we use our stuff efficiently and do the right things, we can beat them.

How has team adjusted to the new Dodge Charger?

Tommy Baldwin: We ran so good at the end of last year. We had some good tests in the winter and Kasey just thought because they cut the spoiler off that's how the cars were supposed to drive. They were supposed to be that loose. We tested decent and the speeds were good, but as soon as we got around cars at Las Vegas and California we were horrible. We had to go to work.

	Inside the Numbers Evernham Racing has six wins, three from the pole position Year Track Driver St. Fin. '05 R'mond K. Kahne 1 1 '04 R'mond J. Mayfield 7 1 '03 R'ham B. Elliott 5 1 '02 Indy B. Elliott 2 1 '02 Pocono B. Elliott 1 1 '01 H'stead B. Elliott 1 1

The engineering group did a good job of planning and putting together a test we went to. The 19 car [Jeremy Mayfield] went to Kentucky and we had a lot of packages to try. We hit on something and that's what started steamrolling. Every test we went to we worked on something else and it got to last week here. We felt like when we left here we weren't very good, and the guys just dug their heels in the ground back at the shop and they had a great plan.

We unloaded [at Richmond] and we were really good. We never made a mockup run. Our first mockup run was in qualifying. We worked on making sure our tire wear was real good on long runs. We were making the longest runs in practice yesterday. We knew we were decent. The only thing we weren't sure of was what the track was going to do after the Busch race and a little bit hotter weather [Saturday night], but it all paid off.

Ray Evernham: On the chassis side of things we've got to work it out. The guys have come a long way with that, but when you throw something in the mix, it's tough to develop it. [Saturday night] there was aero involved, but a large part of it was mechanical grip that Tommy and Josh Brown and guys that worked on springs and shocks came up here and tested. They tested back to back, one of our last year's cars against one of our new cars and they found some things to make that car a little bit better.

We've really have to throw everything away from last year and start fresh. None of the stuff we did last year was working. Some of the stuff they did [Saturday night] still makes he shake my head. It's different from what you normally do. I think getting so open minded again, and saying the last three weeks, 'OK, we came here last year and won, but we're going to do something totally different.' It's been a building process to find that information, but it seems now we have a combination that this Charger seems to like.

How do you set upthe car at the end of the race?

Tommy Baldwin: Basically what we did, we scuffed a set of tires [Friday] to prepare for the end of the race. We had a good idea how long the tires would last in the run. We knew with 60 laps to go we were done with the pit stops. We were sticking to our plan. If the caution came out anywhere between 290 and on we were staying out the whole run. We basically knew that. That lap 353 there was no way we were coming in. We ran our fastest lap with three laps to go, so the Goodyears were really good tonight.

We knew that on every restart if we got off two in the lead we'd probably be OK. It was pretty close there [on the last restart]. Tony [Stewart] did everything he could do to get a fender on the right rear quarter and slow us down a little bit. He did that, but our car just turned a little bit better in [Turns] 3 and 4 than his and we got the lead back. That's all she wrote.

How are you adjusting to being a team owner?

Ray Evernham: I'm not really in the same position I used to be. The relationship between Tommy and Kasey is more like it used to be between Jeff [Gordon] and I. Now I sit up there on the box and look at 'Are we putting another set of tires on?' and things like that.

I'm really proud of the way that the overall team got together and said, 'Look we need to get back to the basics we were working with last year and start with a clean sheet.' No matter how good we did last year, we're going to give the car what it wants. It's really turned around for them. That's a hard thing to do, to walk away from a combination when they've had success with it. They trust in their engineering and testing and they move on.

• Q&A: Kasey Kahne