Ray Evernham guided Jeff Gordon through his 'Wonder Boy' years to the top of NASCAR. He hopes to do the same with new development driver Erin Crocker.
The ascent of Nascar racing into the mainstream sports consciousness in the last five years has produced every type of opportunity associated with the sport.
Fueled by big-money Nextel Cup teams, associated manufacturer and sponsor relationships, and youth-oriented race telecasts, the driver and crew development programs have become a practical means to groom personnel anywhere from behind the wheel to on top of the pit box. They are also proving to be a fast-track opportunity for young candidates of all kinds-especially drivers 15-20 years old-to have a front-row seat in "The Show."
Examples of Nextel Cup-based organizations with active driver-development programs include Joe Gibbs Racing and Evernham Motorsports. Each also fields a diversity program. The pinnacle of the Gibbs and Evernham driver-development programs are the Busch Series entries they field. At JGR, the program in 2005 included Denny Hamlin and J.J. Yeley. Evernham's "Hungry Driver Program" has featured multiple Busch Series entries, including Paul Wolfe and Erin Crocker.
Erin Crocker apprenticed in the Sprint Car ranks before getting an opportunity in the Evernham Motorsports driver-development program. Photo Courtesy of Evernham Motorsports
"The Hungry Driver Program helped our young drivers get an opportunity to get their feet wet in a competitive series, which the NASCAR Busch Series definitely is," said Elton Sawyer, Evernham Motorsports Busch Grand National Team and Driver Diversity program director. "We'll continue that program next year with about 10 or so races for some of our development drivers. It gives the sponsor a great opportunity to have Kasey Kahne, Jeremy Mayfield, and Scott Riggs drive the car early in the year, and we get to put some of our younger drivers in later in the year to see how their development is going."
Current NASCAR rules are tailor made for the driver-development system now in place. Qualifying impound rules provide fewer "Happy Hour" practices and have many Cup drivers running a Busch car on Saturday as a test for Sunday's race. Usual strong finishes in those events place the car firmly in the top 36 in points, guaranteeing the team a starting slot when the development driver gets a shot.
For some, such as Hamlin and Yeley, a couple of development races with solid results in 2004 netted a full-time Busch opportunity last season and a future rocket-ship ride to Cup. For others, it doesn't work out.
The driver-development program at Evernham Motorsports is run out of a sparkling NASCAR Busch Series shop in Statesville, North Carolina.
"Once you commit to a development program and putting young drivers in your cars, you then have to determine what young person to put in that program," said Steve de Souza, vice president of NASCAR Busch Operations and Special Projects at Joe Gibbs Racing. "You have to have someone who is good, encouraging, and exciting to our sponsors and everyone here at Joe Gibbs Racing. We still have to be in a position to win races. That's what drives sponsorship. We can't be putting a young driver in who is going to wreck every week. That's a big discouragement to everybody."
The Gibbs program is a development-by-committee concept where veteran experience is employed at all levels. At Gibbs, that means longtime Cup and Busch crewchief Doug Hewitt is in the mix, and so are former veteran Busch Series racers Mike McLaughlin and Curtis Markham.
Meanwhile, Sawyer, who went to the post 392 times in his career as a Busch Series driver, teams with Bill Elliott to pass out the sage advice to the driver-development candidates at Evernham.
Mechanics at Evernham Motorsports go through the final setup on two Busch Series cars headed for a weekend event. In 2006, the team expects to run at least 10 driver-development races.
"We have a lot of people here who have Cup-quality experience but like the feel of the Busch Series," said de Souza. "Those people are our teachers. Then we have people who are less experienced, but they want to train up and maybe make it to the Busch or even the Cup Series. We've already had a number of engineers, mechanics, and crew people do that for us. There's always a need for those people out there."
So, just how do the Gibbs and Evernham organizations find "those people out there"-especially drivers?
"We keep our ears open, and if somebody's name comes up more than once and from multiple people, we check it out," said de Souza. "Sometimes, we do get portfolios and look at their competitive record back to when they were very young, and it's impressive. That gets my attention, and I wind up developing a ticker on young drivers as they move up in divisions. If other people confirm what I'm watching, they move up on the ticker."
Denny Hamlin's Busch Series cars are lined up and awaiting service at the 100,000-square-foot Joe Gibbs Racing shop in Huntersville, North Carolina. The team runs its Busch, Hooters Pro Cup, and NASCAR Dodge Series driver-development teams out of the facility.
"Ray has a good eye for talent," said Sawyer of team owner Ray Evernham. "The Sprint Car ranks have produced some pretty good stars of late with Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Kasey Kahne, and so on. That's a good proving ground. I don't think anyone has a template that says if they watch a kid at 15 or 16 he is going to be the next Jeff Gordon."
In fact, young drivers aren't waiting until they are 15 or 16 to get noticed.
"You're seeing kids now at 4, 5, or 6 years old starting out in Bandolero cars, Micro Midgets, and Legends Cars," said Sawyer. "There are all kinds of programs all over the country. If you're going to put your mind to being a professional race car driver, get started at an early, early stage-on both the performance and the marketing sides. By the time you are 17 or 18, you have to be ready to be in a Busch Series car or even a Cup car. You need to be prepared to perform a lot quicker, so you have to be better prepared when you get started."