What! - Sabotage or Incompetence?

28th July 2007

What! - Sabotage or Incompetence?

posted in NASCAR |

What the frickin’ hell is going on at Evernham Motorsports?

I might be a wee bit over the line in calling events sabotage (I hope?) but no matter how you slice it this IS incompetence and it has led Evernham to run the 2006 Charger in the remaining non-CORN events this year and without technical director Eric Warren:

Warren was recently given a leave of absence after team owner Ray Evernham discovered critical changes regarding aerodynamics and simulation software were made to the 2007 car after an early-season test at Las Vegas.

He said those changes weren’t reflected in the cars that were built moving forward, leading to less than stellar results on the track.

“So we basically have spent half a year trying to build a foundation that didn’t exist,” Evernham said on Friday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. “The information that we had was nonexistent. We had to go back to doing things the normal way and put cars in the wind tunnel to find out there was a huge difference.”

Remind me again what this guys job title was?

Thanks, a “technical director.” Allegedly.

From the looks of things he couldn’t direct a good arson fire in a match factory.

“Right now Eric is on leave until we decide if we’re going to put him in another position or find a happy medium and let him go somewhere else,” Evernham said.

Your way too kind Ray, show this guy the door.

Evernham also said the situation has delayed finalizing his partnership with Montreal Canadiens owner George Gillett but should be complete in the next two weeks.

Gee, I can’t image why! Isn’t “technical buffoonery” a marketable commodity?

Evernham Motorsports, NEXTEL Cup, Sports, Dodge, Auto Racing, Motorsports, Full Throttle

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 28th, 2007 at 3:17 am and is filed under NASCAR. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 On July 28th, 2007, phastphil said:#

How many other teams have made similar mistakes, but never “fessed up”?

posted on July 28th, 2007 at 11:26 pm

2 On July 28th, 2007, George said:#

Maybe Ray should get in touch with Mike Coughlan and find out how to purloin aero secrets from other teams? After all NASTYCAR doesn’t have any ethical codes do they? Oh yeah I forgot, they have the “If we don’t like it, it’s illegal” rule.

What I can’t figure out, did Warren change the sotware and simulations, or did he ignore the early season test results from Vegas and build on outdated info? Sounds like the latter.

Ray’s marriage to a Canadian partner surely signals a future Cup race(s) north of the border.

posted on July 28th, 2007 at 11:27 pm

3 On July 29th, 2007, Marc said:#

I vote for the later as well George. Not to sure about a Cup event up North, the Evernham/Montreal Canadiens marriage may be a clue but the lack of an oval larger than 5/8ths of a mile reduces the chances.

Not that I would be against another road course, in terms of “money” it would make it more cost effective for teams to have another circuit. Using a road course car 3 versus 2 times a year is more cost effective but admittedly it would be a small advantage.

posted on July 29th, 2007 at 5:37 am

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