Conversation: R. Evernham

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. -- Ray Evernham and Jeff Gordon made a mark in the sport through the 1990s which established them as one of the best crew chief/driver combinations of all time.

After that, Evernham made the move to team ownership as Dodge's flagship program in its return to Cup racing in 2001.

Evernham now has taken the latest step in his career progression, a deal through which he and businessman George Gillett Jr. have formed a partnership to create Gillett Evernham Motorsports.

The new organization's president and CEO, Evernham discusses the partnership and its impact on the race team and its prospects for the future, among other topics.

Ray Evernham's courtship of George Gillett was really about Evernham attempting to apply his best talents to where they are needed most within his organization.

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Q: What are the details of your Aug. 6 announcement?

Ray Evernham: It's something we've been working on for quite some time with the Gillett family. We've been really, really close and worked through the weekend and got it done. It will allow us to go forward and continue to grow the company in a way that we want to.

A partnership with Gillett brings a lot of things for Evernham Motorsports in that it will allow me to concentrate a little bit more on the competition side but it also allows us to be in touch with other professional sports and sports marketing programs and some entertainment and recreational things across the country, across the world that we would never had access to.

Q: Is it hard for you to let go of some of the ownership?

Evernham: You always have mixed emotions when you build something from the ground up. But you also have to look to what you want to accomplish. As the sport changes, the job gets bigger.

I was saying to somebody the other day that all of a sudden you're the world champion plate spinner and it goes from spinning 10 plates to spinning 20 plates. Sometimes you've got to have a little bit of help. My goal is to win the championship. The direction the sport has grown, there's no way I was going to be able to accomplish that on my own.

You'll see in the future that there are very few teams that are owned by a single person. It was a perfect opportunity because George does the things that I need someone else to do. He can open doors for the company that I just couldn't open. It will allow me to focus on the competition side, which he doesn't do.

Q: Will you make all of the racing decisions?

Evernham: We're still trying to work through those things. Right now, nothing's changed. I'm pretty much the CEO of the company and I'm still making a lot of the business decisions. I'm hoping to come up with a system that we decide what George is going to support.

I'm always going to have a pretty big vote in whatever happens, whether it's business or competition. But, I really want to hand off some of the day-to-day business stuff to other people. It's going to be a transition because I've done it all for so long.

There's going to be some good support there but I've still got to bring them up to speed. I'm going to focus as much time as I can on building our new cars and making sure our engines are going in the right direction with this new Dodge R-6 engine and the COT program is on track.

It's certainly not going to cut down on any of the time that I'm spending but eventually it will be bigger as I get some new people trained. (Continued)