Evernham overcomes with pair of top-10s

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- If you'd offered team owner Ray Evernham two top-10 finishes for his three Dodge Charger teams before Sunday's Daytona 500, he probably wouldn't have taken them.

The owner's pride and competitive nature, including two Daytona 500 victories as a crew chief with Jeff Gordon using Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets, wouldn't have allowed him to accept a compromise.

But considering his three race teams lost their team directors, $100,000 in fines and a total of 100 driver and owner points earlier this week in a Speedweeks cheating scandal, there was a lot of satisfaction in the Evernham camp after its most experienced veteran, Elliott Sadler, scored a come-from-behind sixth-place and team leader Kasey Kahne was seventh.

"That's an unbelievable finish for the week we've had," Sadler said. "I'm so proud of my guys and how hard they worked this week."

Kahne was just as relieved to get the week behind him as he lost 50 driver points for an infraction during qualifying.

"We needed to make up some points that we lost," Kahne said. "We're still going to be behind in points, but we made up some ground."

Officially, Sadler is 11th rather than sixth in the driver standings due to a 25-point deduction incurred for an aerodynamic violation found before qualifying the Sunday before the 500.

Kahne, after his deduction, is tied for 22nd rather than seventh.

For the 500, Evernham deferred the team director's title Sunday to regular car director Kirk Almquist, but shared strategy calls and also was praised by Sadler.

His car fluctuated between its 30th-starting position to 14th by Lap 40 back to 36th at Lap 150 before coming on strong in the last 30 laps.

"Ray made some great calls on the pit box, especially the call for two tires at the end," Sadler said. "We worked and worked and worked on our car and by the end of the race we had it handling a little better.

"Our key [Sunday] was just avoiding all the wrecks. We stayed out of trouble until the end of the race and put ourselves in a spot to bring home a top-10."

Sadler was wide-eyed after an accident on the last lap involving no less than seven cars didn't sweep up either himself or Kahne. (Continued)