NASCAR Legend Jeff Gordon’s impact on HMS, best Gordon stories & more | Harvick’s Happy Hour

Kevin Harvick is joined by NASCAR Legend Ray Evernham! Kevin and Ray discussed Jeff Gordon’s impact on Hendrick Motorsports, traded their best Jeff Gordon stores and more.

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The truth behind a car that was so fast NASCAR banned it | Harvick’s Happy Hour

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You have all these
mechanics and engineers and all this brain trust of how
to structure the organization. How did Jeff fit into that
puzzle and how big of a part was Jeff of development of
what was better or worse, or did you guys just plug him
in there and say, hey, drive it? Kevin I’ll tell you,
through my years at iroc. Dealing with foyt’s and Andretti
unser’s, you know, the formula one guys, you know, Moss
belle, all those guys, they all have something special. They feel something different. And you have this, too, right? You’re one of those
guys that drive out of a bigger windshield. And that’s the way
Jeff Gordon was. We kid Jeff to
this day, you know, like he’s not allowed to touch
tools or whatever he’s learning. He doesn’t know. He didn’t know one
thing from another, but he could give you a lap. As good as any computer. He made it so easy for me to
change the car or adjust it. You know, he would
tell me things like, when I get off in
the corner there, I feel like the weight
transfers from this wheel, it’s over on this wheel. It gets it gets a plant and then
it rolls back here, you know, so picking apart the, you know,
like shocks and arrow and stuff like that was it was
incredibly easy because he would give such detail. And, you know, I do talk
about that in the book like. From Friday to Sunday. I can never complain
about Jeff not being involved, not being
whatever because with the team he left it up to me. But I don’t know
that at that time without having on board data
that I could have ever worked with anybody better than him. I have told several people
that because when I came to stewart-haas
racing, our alliance was with Hendrick
motorsports, and we immediately realized that. Jeff was that was
the car that we looked at because
we could see all the things that were going on. So we developed
this relationship with how we looked at things and
with myself and Rodney and Alan and everything
that was happening at Hendrick Motorsports
at that particular time. But one of the things that I
always tell people when Jimmie Johnson started to not have
the results that he had, it was because Jeff Gordon left. And I truly believe that
because I felt like when I got to stewart-haas racing that Jeff
Gordon was the reason he was the one that pushed
all the buttons, whether it was in the
engine shop or the chassis shop or the
engineering department or whatever was off at
that particular point. And what you just said pretty
much verifies what I, what I saw because I just
felt like Jeff was always the one that could
make that department get better and help him guide them. And, and I think that’s a
piece that a lot of drivers don’t realize is how much they
guide the ship with the things that they say and what
they relate to the people because we’re problem solvers. But I always felt
like when Jeff left, that was the biggest
problem that Jimmy had because of the fact he had never
had to really develop anything at Hendrick Motorsports
because Jeff was so ingrained with what
you guys did and that carried all the way through. And I don’t know what you
think about that, that comment, but Jeff was an integral part of
the way that things progressed. And he is he you
know, he it’s not like he was going to go
to the Fab shop and say, we need to do this. But he was so good about
analyzing what he felt. And, you know, as we talked
about bigger windshield meaning, you know, race drivers, great
race drivers like yourself have a different view of. Time let’s just say, you know,
and I’ve always said this, you know, they asked about
Michael Jordan and, you know, it’s a different view of time. They can compute so
much more in time. Like when I’m driving, I’m
doing can do to save my life and not crash. Right that’s my job, right? That’s when I’m out there. So I come in and somebody
else has got to fix my car. Right? but with guys
like you, with Jeff so analytical and, you know, when
you talk about a guy like Jimmy. Jimmy was just bad fast. But as you know, Jimmy
Jimmy was used to the trucks and all that stuff. Like he learned a lot
of travel and the lower they got those cars and
the less they traveled. I think it was harder
for him, you know, and I think there were
some people that helped and some people,
you know, it hurt. But that transition period
of a car going from, let’s say, static to
straightaway to being loaded up in the corner and
then it loads up here and then it changes here in
transition and it changes again. That’s something
Jeff Gordon could pick out like unbelievable. And to me, that was everything
about setting a car up. You know, the only
problem we ever had with that was his rookie
year, like at Rockingham. He’s like. Tighten the middle. Tighten the middle. And I’m like, man, can’t
tighten the middle. Tighten the middle. Tighten it. And then I’m just
terribly loose off. Tighten the middle. I said, look, walk
me down here and show me because I don’t understand. We walk down in the corner and
1 and 2 at Rockingham there and I forget there’s a sign,
you know, like a, you know, it was a sponsor sign
and it’s right smack in the middle of the corner. And he says it was a right
there sign right here on end. Right here on entry. I was like, whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa. That’s not entry. That’s the middle. He looks at me, he
goes, no, that’s entry, because that’s where I let off. I said, well, maybe
that’s the problem. You know, the rest of the guys
are letting off back here. So once we got on
that, you know, it was easier to fix the car. Yeah and that’s a trust thing. And that’s, that’s the
thing that crew Chiefs and drivers that trust
each other because we’ve had a lot of conversations about
Chris gabehart and Denny Hamlin lately. And if Chris gabehart
tells Denny Hamlin to drive it off of
a cliff, he’s going to drive it off of a cliff. And there’s just there’s just
when you have that, that crew Chief team relationship
that is at its peak, it’s when the doesn’t get mad
that he’s being told that he’s doing something wrong is when
the crew Chief doesn’t get mad that the is telling him he’s
do something wrong because they have that trust in each
other that you just can’t buy and you can’t create. It’s not something that you can
you can just turn on and off and that when you tell Jeff
that he’s driving in too far. I bet he went out there the next
time and just let off sooner, didn’t he? A little bit. Then he’d go back into. But I used to have to take him
down and watch other people. Like if someone was
faster than him. I was like, watch
where he’s letting off, you know, like Martinsville. It took us years to do that. And he finally, boom,
you know, it it clicked. You know that. That communication, that
trust, that trust, honesty, respect that thing
is that strong makes a strong relationship, whether
that’s your family or your wife, whether your teammate. But that is very
important because as much as I thought I knew or the much
I would do if he said I didn’t like that, even if
I was really sure it was going to work or be
better, I wouldn’t put it in because he didn’t
like it, which mean it wasn’t going to be better. And I’d have to find another
way to give him that feeling without doing that. He hated moving the panhard bar. You got to ask him about this. Like I would move to. I would raise the panhard
bar one round, which is like 60 thousandths across
the rear end, which is nothing, right? And he’d be like,
now it’s too much. Go a half a round. I was like, that’s nothing. He’s all I can feel it, you
know, and, and I’m like, OK, you know, but, but I had
to give him what he wanted. And in his mind, if I didn’t,
if I went ahead and raised that track bar,
then then he knew I wouldn’t have faith in him
when I when I did, you know, so I had to listen to him. What was the best
BS story you ever told Jeff Gordon on the radio? That turned out pretty good. I don’t know if it
turned out good. We had a when, you know,
as he was coming up and of course I’m in I’m
coach and you want to be positive and whatever and
I remember we were Atlanta somewhere we’re running like
terrible and I was like, no, I was like, your lap. Times are good. Like those guys are, you
know, those guys are you know, they’re all backing up to you. And he pushes the button. He’s like, ray, why is it that
you tell me that all the time that I’m catching them and
I can see them driving away out the windshield, you know? And another time we had a we had
a little blowout on the radio at Vegas. And it was, it was kind of
funny because we couldn’t we couldn’t stay angry. Like after the
race, he’d come in and he’d, he’d look at
me like a kid, like, you know, like my little
brother, you know, little kid. And I would laugh
or he would laugh. So we would just start laughing. But that day we
were the tauruses were kicking our butt, man. They were killing us right
when we weren’t used to that. In 98 when they came
out with that Taurus. And we’re back. They’re running like 11th,
which you know, in the world, he’s he’s, he’s screaming
this, that and my God. And I said, OK then
come in and we’ll pit. We can’t pit, you know,
if we pit we’ll go. I said, well then shut up
and drive it because I can’t run alongside it and fix it. And then he didn’t say
another word to me like, you know, he picked up
probably a couple of tenths for a little bit, you
know, but he didn’t say. And afterwards he’s like
and I just laughed at him. I was like, bud, what
do you want to do? They kicked our butt, you
know, like we got beat. Like we didn’t make
a top 10 today. One of one of my coolest career
moments was actually at Vegas. Because if you remember, I
think it was probably 2000, we would go out there and
they just let the Bush cars and the Cup cars go
out there together when they would have the open test. And the first car that
passed me was Jeff Gordon. And I thought, man, I have
I have absolutely made it. I’m on the same I’m on the
same race track as Jeff Gordon.