MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- After 30 years of running at full speed nearly every waking hour of every day, Ray Evernham is ready to take a rest.

Everything is relative, of course. That doesn't mean he won't stay busy.

Looking ahead

For the first time in decades, Ray Evernham finds himself out of NASCAR. Now he begins a new chapter which includes spending more time with his teenage son and a greater attention to short-track racing.

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The former Cup Series champion crew chief and car owner will serve as a network television analyst. He also recently purchased East Lincoln Speedway -- a three-eighths-mile dirt track located in Lincoln County, N.C.; and is helping promote a class of four-cylinder speedsters that he hopes to make affordable and safer for young drivers looking to start out on dirt or pavement.

Oh, and there is the little project he has going with professional drag-race driver Doug Herbert. Evernham and Herbert are building a behemoth that they hope to take to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah this August, where Herbert plans to make a run at the land speed record of 500 miles per hour for a piston-driven car.

But what really keeps Evernham cooking these days is the museum/shop he's putting together in Mooresville. It's located in between the city of Charlotte and the Statesville, N.C., shop where he so recently used to put in long hours as the head of Evernham Motorsports and later, to a lesser degree, at what became Gillett Evernham Motorsports.

Evernham met with some media types at the home of Ray Evernham Enterprises on Tuesday, where he looked back on his years as a crew chief and owner in the Cup Series and looked forward to what may lie ahead. But first, he made it very clear that he's taking a break from the competitive side of the Cup wars.

"I know that at some point, I'm going to have to step back into something that's highly competitive," Evernham said. "But I want to make sure I'm rested and refreshed when I do that -- because I don't feel like I was using my brain as much as I should have been for the last couple of years."

Evernham sold controlling interest in his Cup operation to the family of George Gillett two summers ago. It wasn't long thereafter that he began staying away from Cup races more frequently -- and as time went on, he became less and less involved with the race teams he helped found when Dodge made its return to racing with him in 2000.

He admitted that he is saddened by the fact that the Evernham name no longer is part of the sport. Gillett Evernham Motorsports officially became Richard Petty Motorsports one week ago after a name change was agreed to following the merger between GEM and Petty Enterprises.

Although Richard Petty said then that Evernham was a consultant with the new combined company, Evernham admitted Tuesday that is true only in the sense that he has a contract indicating so. He insisted he has no real involvement with the company, and doesn't expect to nor wish to have any going forward in the future.

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I know that at some point, I'm going to have to step back into something that's highly competitive. But I want to make sure I'm rested and refreshed when I do that -- because I don't feel like I was using my brain as much as I should have been for the last couple of years.

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-- RAY EVERNHAM

"I think that if you're not going to have any input or any control, it's best not to have your name on it," he said. "So, you know, in some ways it's sad to know that the Evernham name is not really going to be involved in competitive racing this year. But again, I don't really have any input into that place at all anymore.

"I have a consulting agreement. I have a minority interest in ownership, which I have offered for George to buy me out at any time that he wants to. But really, I don't have any input on what's going on over there."

Evernham said he didn't have much input from the time Gillett purchased controlling interest in the operation during the summer of 2007. Gillett and his family also own the Montreal Canadiens in the National Hockey League and the Liverpool Football Club in the English Premier League.

"I think there was certainly a time when they wanted me to be active -- but we were very philosophically apart about how things should be done," Evernham said. "And that was something that I knew the day that I signed the papers. In respect to George, the best thing for me to do then is to let him do what he thinks is best."

Asked how they were philosophically different, Evernham added: "Really just on the competition decisions, people decisions, sponsorship decisions. But you know, he has successful sports franchises. I'm a racer, and there comes a time where maybe the sport has passed racers by."

Nonetheless, Evernham said he is not done being involved with racing at the Cup level. He said he knows he has "a couple of big projects left inside me." Yet he scoffed at the idea that a return to the top of the pit box as someone's crew chief might ultimately beckon him.

"Great quarterbacks, great coaches ... people always say they can go back and do it again. I think I had my time, and I really appreciate that. But everybody is in a cycle," he said.

"That's not to say I wouldn't enjoy helping a crew chief. But to be a crew chief nowadays is much different than when I was a crew chief years ago. And it'll be 10 years this year since I was a crew chief. I think that job has changed.

"I do think I can still add to a team in some ways, but as much as you would think I would be tempted to go back and get on the box and make the call that saves the day, those days are probably past me now."

He indicated that he would be more likely to help NASCAR if they ask for his assistance in some way with safety or some other initiatives. He also said he would never turn down inquiring phone calls from team owner Rick Hendrick or driver Jeff Gordon, with whom he won three Cup championships as crew chief.

"If [NASCAR president] Mike Helton came to me and said, 'Look, we need you to come up here and help us with NASCAR because it will better the sport,' I would do it. If Jeff Gordon said, 'Look, I'm thinking about retiring in a year or two years and I really want to work together, will you come help Stevie [Letarte, Gordon's crew chief]?' I would consider that. I can tell you Jeff believes in Stevie 100 percent and he should, because I believe in Stevie, too," Evernham said.

"But if somebody said we want you to take [rookie driver] Joey Logano and go bring him the championship, I would say I'm not interested. That's nothing against Joey Logano. [But I've] been there, done that. I couldn't get fired up about it, even though it would probably be a smart thing to do because Logano is probably going to go on and be a great champion.

"But it's not what I'm about now. There are so many contractual things that just can't happen -- plus my priorities are just a little bit different."

Evernham added that he looks back on his efforts to rebuild the Dodge racing program with great pride. His race teams at Evernham and Gillett Evernham won a total of 15 Cup races and 28 poles while running eight full-time seasons.

"I felt like overall we did a pretty good job for what we started with. I think certainly we did a proud job for Dodge, and, you know, the truth is I worked myself to death doing it. I couldn't give any more effort than I gave. I gave the best of everything I had at that time to make that successful," Evernham said.

"We built the business. We promised we were going to win races and we won some races. And we had a good enough business plan together to be able to do something that a lot of people in this sport haven't been able to get done. We sold a race team for franchise-type numbers to another professional sports organization. So I think when people look back at it, people will have to say that even though I didn't win a championship ... most people will tell you we did a pretty good job and then made a pretty good business decision."