DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- If you see Ray Evernham around a NASCAR racetrack this season, you better cherish the moment.

Unlike in years past, when Evernham was winning races and championships at Hendrick Motorsports and forging a legacy as one of the sport's best crew chiefs of all time, while working with Jeff Gordon; and later when he left that role to build his own race team as Dodge's flagship team in its re-entry to Cup racing in 2001 -- in 2008 Evernham has no clearly defined role in NASCAR.

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And while Evernham says he has no intention of leaving the sport entirely, his involvement will be the least it's been in decades. There's no telling where he'll show up next.

His absence was certainly felt last week when Elliott Sadler's No. 19 Gillett Evernham Dodge team participated in the first Sprint Cup test of Preseason Thunder at Daytona International Speedway -- and Evernham wasn't there.

So it was a pleasant surprise last weekend at Daytona, while Craftsman Truck Series teams participated in their Preseason Thunder test session; that Evernham dropped in to check on the progress of his friend, Erin Crocker, who was testing a Morgan Dollar Motorsports Chevrolet.

And he made no bones about where he stands, even though it seemed painful for him to be having the conversation -- as much as it seemed that way last fall when he discussed changes that were being made to the team in the wake of its majority sale to businessman George Gillett Jr. and his family.

"It's odd and it's going to be odd," Evernham said. "But I'm a percentage owner now. I don't have a job at the shop -- I don't really have a job. I can come and go as I please.

"It's just entering a little bit different part of my life. I've been on the road for 15 years, and a lot of things have passed me in that time. I've got a 16-year-old son [Ray Jr.] that has some challenges in his life that I'm trying to help him with.

"I've got a lot of things to do, so I can try to stand back and help without having the 360 people [GEM employees] counting on me to do a job every day. I've handed off all of my competition responsibilities to Mark McArdle and I'm in the process of handing off a lot of the business stuff.

"It's the first time in probably the last 35 years that I don't have a set job."

It's incomprehensibly hard for someone not on the inside and not inside Evernham's head to know exactly what's there.

Evernham said time would tell if his new role, while presenting its own set of challenges, was a comfort -- or more of a frustration.

"We'll see -- it's early," Evernham said. "I'm still learning. I transitioned from driver to crew chief and crew chief to owner -- then I sold the majority of [Evernham Motorsports] to the Gilletts, and I'm just trying to help them get their feet on the ground, because I believe in those people.

"And in the interim, like I said, there's a lot of other things in my life that have passed me by. I still have a passion for this -- I love racing. I have a passion for it and I always will have a passion for it, but I need to just do it a little bit differently than I've been doing it.

"And this is going to allow me to spend some time to help my son with his life and to enjoy some of the things that I want to enjoy, with a little bit of a relaxed schedule -- but it still will allow me to have the passion."

The team -- including lead driver Kasey Kahne and his crew chief, Kenny Francis -- has seen the change and is comfortable with it, which makes a lot of sense since better performance is all racers ultimately care about; not to say that ever was a question with Evernham.

"I think Ray's going to step back a little this year," Kahne said. "He's always been such a hands-on owner, because of his background and what he's done in the sport, but now he's put Mark McArdle in charge of the car side of things, at the shop and he's going to come to races, do more with sponsors -- act more like the average owner, I guess.

"As far as him and racing and how bad he wants it and him doing whatever it takes to make sure we run good -- that's all still there. But as far as him being in the middle of the set-ups and being in the middle of some of that stuff, I think he's getting away from that and kind of letting other people just put a better team together to do that.

"I think there's already been a difference and everybody I've talked to, at the shop is really impressed and happy with the way things have gone so far."

Francis, who with Kahne won a league-leading six races in 2006 before hitting a winless skid that's now reached 41 races, then picked up the story.

"I think it's a lot more organized and focused on solving the problems that matter, whereas last year, we jumped from one problem to the next, without ever fixing the first problem, and we kept going around in circles," Francis said. "Mark [McArdle] doesn't have as much on his plate as Ray [did]."

But empty plate aside, seeing him at Daytona, it was hard not to think that Evernham was like a man who at best was going to the dentist, and at worst was going in for major surgery -- that his passion and commitment to "his" team, as Kahne acknowledged, wouldn't allow him to fully let go.

"I read somewhere that I'm going to be back in the fab shop, building cars," Evernham said. "It's not like I'm going to be getting my Rainbow Warriors suit [from the Hendrick days] out and jump back on the [pit] box.

"I'm not going to be doing that. Again, it will be pointing out direction, giving an opinion or direction and maybe researching some things. But like I said, I have a passion for the sport, but I just cannot do it the way that I want to do it.

"I want to be a help, to be a mentor -- like I said, I get to help the Gilletts go. And I do want to work with the sponsors a little bit, doing the speeches and the autograph things, but I just don't have to do the negotiations anymore, so instead of the good-cop bad-cop, I get to be the good cop."

In the end, Kahne said he was happy for the man who gave him his first opportunity in Cup racing.

"He's going to do other things on the side, that he enjoys," Kahne said. "He's definitely going to do different things this year than what he's done in the past, and that's good for him. He's built a great organization and he's done a good job with it, so he deserves to be able to step back."