Editor’s note: This is the sixth installment in a seven-part series celebrating the 30th anniversary of Jeff Gordon’s first NASCAR Cup Series championship and the first for Hendrick Motorsports in 1995. Join us each Thursday as we relive all the moments and talk to many of the players involved in one of the organization's and the sport's most unforgettable and important seasons.
For Jon.
CONCORD, N.C. - Without question, traveling was a passion for the late Jon Edwards.
He did it professionally for decades, following NASCAR from track to track, establishing an industry standard while serving as a public relations liaison for some of the greatest drivers in the history of the sport - Jeff Gordon and most recently, Kyle Larson.
But of all the roads Edwards took, he had two favorites: victory lane and memory lane.
When approached by HendrickMotorsports.com for an interview for this series, Edwards, busy at the time, was gracious enough and excited to block off some time on his schedule for a future date.
That day, tragically, never arrived. And this series, forever and heartbreakingly void of Edwards' steel-trap recollection, passion for history, charisma and flair for words and perspective, will never feel complete.
Yet, in typical Jon Edwards fashion, he couldn't help sparing a quick moment before another meeting to spin yarn that immediately came to mind. Grinning over a cup of coffee, he recalled an interaction that took place the day after Gordon finished off Hendrick Motorsports' first NASCAR Cup Series championship at Atlanta Motor Speedway in 1995.
An early riser, Edwards came to the race shop at 7 a.m. that morning. He wasn't alone.
"I come in and (No. 24 team crew chief) Ray (Evernham) was in the garage. I said, 'Ray, what the hell are you doing here?'" Edwards laughed. "But he was so pissed about how they ran at Atlanta, he was in the shop working on how to be better. That was just Ray."
Evernham is the first to admit that his meticulous nature and unyielding desire to win is both a gift and a curse. It helped drive Gordon and the 24 team to that championship in '95, and again in 1997 and 1998, but the pursuit and pressure of perfection also drove Evernham temporarily and unexpectedly, out of the sport by 1999.
So, when asked about the team's coronation day on November 12, 1995, memories flood back to Evernham. And eventually, he gets to the positives: feelings of exuberance and the significance of being the first team to break through for team owner Rick Hendrick.
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But that's not where he starts. Instead, he begins with a fix for a car that finished a long-forgotten 32nd that day. Solutions he was contemplating that next morning when Edwards stumbled upon him and that have stayed with him for 30 years since.
“It’s just my nature. We thought for a long time we had a steering box issue, but I never let it go," Evernham said. "Right now, it’s still in my mind. I feel like we were too aggressive with the front aero on that car and we tried to tighten it up mechanically and it made it too hard to drive. We were too aggressive on the front and overcompensated.”
Oh, the conflicted nature of the tortured genius.
Yet, while the years have done little to squelch the fire inside, they have softened Evernham enough to better articulate the meaning and the weight of the accomplishment.
"I got up the next morning really early and went to the race shop. That was my solitude and my safe place," Evernham said. "Every day that goes on, now for 30 years, I think about those things more and more. Jeff and Rick and I get together and talk about those things. We’re still really close.
"You start to realize the people you do it with is more important than what you do.”
FROM WINNER TO CHAMPION, PART 4: Evolution, execution and radio magic
Making a list...
In Evernham's eternal pursuit of competitive edge, he was not one to leave stones unturned. And that search was not limited to mechanical tweaking.
Scouring high and low for tips and tricks to become a better team leader, he figured a good place to start was with one of the most successful professional sports coaches of all time, Pat Riley. In Riley's book, "The Winner Within", Evernham found some inspiration.
Riley, who won five NBA championships as a coach, laid out a step-by-step process in team evolution ... a checklist of sorts. Evernham grabbed the idea and ran, bringing with him a posterboard to Hendrick Motorsports when he arrived in 1993. Displaying all five steps of the ascension, it hung in the race shop for all team members to see:
- From Nobody To Upstart
- From Upstart To Contender
- From Contender To Winner
- From Winner To Champion
- From Champion To Dynasty
With each box checked, the team and driver grew more confident. And while the majority of the auto racing world may not have had Gordon tabbed as a NASCAR title favorite in 1995, by then, those within the team's walls were believers.
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“I think a lot of people internally knew the ingredients and resources that were there," Gordon told HendrickMotorsports.com. "I think a lot of people were working toward that. It wasn’t like we were total underdogs; it was just building toward something.”
By the time the NASCAR Cup Series arrived at Atlanta Motor Speedway for the season finale in 1995, his Rainbow Warriors had already checked three boxes over the course of three seasons. Only two remained.
And one more checkmark was ready by the end of that day in Georgia.
Brian Whitesell served as an engineer on the No. 24 team during those years. When talking about 1995, that white poster quickly came to mind.
"We knew we had the capabilities and yes, to win that for Mr. H was absolutely a focus," Whitesell said. "I’m sure Ray went through that checklist, working toward being a champion, 'From Upstart to Contender' and whatever else was on that sign ... just that whole attitude was definitely there from the beginning."
But while it took the team just three years to elevate from rookie struggles to the top of the heap, in a relatively short span especially at that time, little came easy.
And so, the 24 team worked. A lot.
“We worked really hard night and day,” recalled Chad Knaus, a future Hall of Fame crew chief who served as a tire changer and fabricator on the No. 24 team that year. "We were practicing pit stops after work. We had guys that were employed at places away from Hendrick Motorsports and had real jobs so they would come in after hours and we would practice pit stops by the light of trucks and vans just so we could see.
"I can tell you everybody else was at home.”
FROM WINNER TO CHAMPION, PART 2: Championship Material
As they say, what happens in the dark always comes to light. And that light shone on a chilly November day at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Despite some late-season hiccups, the No. 24 bunch had done just about enough to lock up a championship heading into the last race of the season. Gordon needed only not to finish 42nd (dead last) or to lead a lap to wrestle the trophy away from Dale Earnhardt once and for all.
Hendrick was taking no chances. He entered two additional cars into the field, one to be driven by Jimmy Horton and the other by future NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series champion, Jack Sprague.
However, went off-kilter from the start. Sprague didn't qualify and while Horton did, earning the 34th spot on the starting grid, he was injured in a crash in an ARCA race that Saturday and had to be replaced by Jeff Purvis.
Despite the adversity, Purvis' entry into the race all but assured Gordon's title. Should the 24 team find itself in trouble, Purvis would immediately peel off the race track, insuring Gordon wouldn't finish last.
1995 NASCAR Cup Series final points standings
| Driver | Points |
|---|---|
| 1. Jeff Gordon | 4,614 |
| 2. Dale Earnhardt | 4,580 (-34) |
| 3. Sterling Marlin | 4,361 (-253) |
| 4. Mark Martin | 4,320 (-294) |
| 5. Rusty Wallace | 4,240 (-374) |
| 6. Terry Labonte | 4,146 (-468) |
| 7. Ted Musgrave | 3,949 (-665) |
| 8. Bill Elliott | 3,746 (-868) |
| 9. Ricky Rudd | 3,734 (-880) |
| 10. Bobby Labonte | 3,718 (-896) |
As it turned out, it was all much ado about nothing. Gordon led lap 61 during a green-flag pit cycle, putting any potential calamitous drama to bed, for good.
And yet, it wasn't exactly initial jubilation from the 24 camp. And Evernham, though feeling it too, knew he had to change something on pit road.
“We were getting our butt kicked so bad at Atlanta and I just didn’t want to finish the year like that,” Evernham said. “We were terrible. We were getting lapped. That was one of the worst races we had in three years. I was embarrassed.
“So, everybody is standing there with these long faces and I thought, ‘Let’s have some fun.’ So, we called everybody to do the pit stop."
That included both Evernham and Hendrick, who went over the wall to service the No. 24 while other crew members swapped positions.
FROM WINNER TO CHAMPION, PART 1: 'One Hot Night'
Coronation day
The weight of the accomplishment hit all involved at different times after Dale Earnhardt took the checkered flag and the roar of the engines gave way to clamor in the grandstands.
For Knaus, after a season's worth of working on cars, fittingly enough it was a ride of his own that he remembers now.
“You win that championship and what they used to do, they’d put everyone on the team on this big semi-trailer, and you’d take a victory lap around the whole race track and it was awesome,” Knaus recalled. “The crowd would stick around, and yell and scream and I remember being on there with a bottle of champagne and spraying it – it was a really magical moment.”
It would hardly be the last such occasion for Knaus, who would go on to sit atop the box for seven Cup Series championships with Jimmie Johnson behind the wheel.
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And that's a common thread throughout the '95 Rainbow Warriors team. Steve Letarte went on to find success as a crew chief and eventually, TV analyst. Gordon went on to win 93 career races and three more titles with Evernham being part of two of them. Whitesell continued to climb up the organizational ladder and has now been around for all 14 Cup Series championships won by Hendrick Motorsports.
“It was a really powerful year and I think it was definitely foundation building for all of our careers," Knaus concluded. "You can say so many people that were on that team and at Hendrick Motorsports through that period that have had significant impacts on our sport. It’s something I’ll never forget.
BY THE NUMBERS: A look at statistics from the 1995 NASCAR season
“We were really not traditional NASCAR people and that didn’t always fit well with a lot of folks. So, for us to go from where we were in 1993 to winning the championship in ’95, I think it speaks volumes about the work ethic we had, the guidance from Ray and the latitude Rick gave us to go out there and be aggressive and do what we needed to do to win and win at a high level consistently.”
It was no coincidence that it took a team of talented, hungry people to go, "From Winner to Champion" as quickly as the 1995 No. 24 team did, bucking logic and turning the racing world upside down. An argument can be made that Gordon's first championship helped usher in a youth movement that has continued to this day. Hendrick Motorsports' current roster of four Cup Series drivers - Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, William Byron and Alex Bowman - already have 35 full-time seasons among them and Bowman, having turned 33 in April, is the oldest of the four.
As much in 1995 as in 1985 and now, in 2025, Hendrick's knack and intuition when it comes to people has been as pivotal to the organization's success as anything that's been put into a race car. His gut instinct when it came to hiring a baby-faced Jeff Gordon and a relatively inexperienced crew chief in Evernham, changed the path of his company and the sport, forever.
“A big part of my job is giving our teams what they need to be successful and getting out of the way," Hendrick told HendrickMotorsports.com. "But you’ve got to have the right people using the tools – that’s what wins races and championships. We believed in Ray’s vision. We gave our folks the support they needed to think big and innovate. The investment was really in our people.”
Certainly, Evernham had envisioned a better run than 32nd to cap off the best-to-date season in Hendrick Motorsports history. It's something that still comes to mind all these wins and years later.
But even Evernham was eventually swept up into the mad celebration - willingly or not.
“After the race the guys lifted me up on their shoulders and carried me to victory lane and that’s when it really started to sink in," Evernham said.
And certainly, the frustration of the day could never taint the performance of that year. The Rainbow Warriors lost the battle to Earnhardt that day in Atlanta as the No. 3 Chevy rolled to a win.
But they won the war.
And while that 32nd-place showing was troublesome to Evernham the next morning, it did little to stifle the joy that still beams through when talking about 1995.
“I can tell you something, Jeff and I still to this day feel very lucky to have delivered the first championship to (Hendrick) because he’s given so much to us and so many other people,” Evernham said. “I can’t even begin to tell you how much that man has meant to our careers, mine and Jeff’s, and a lot of other people’s. To look back and think we were able to give him a gift that he didn’t have, that’s really special to me.
“There’s no way in the world I can explain it; I tried to do it the best I could in my book, but what a difference working with him made in my life.”
While the day was a coronation for Hendrick, it was also just the beginning of the most dominant run by any company in the sport's history.
And at the center of it was Gordon, who found success at an unprecedented, breakneck pace. Thrust into the limelight, cresting the wave as NASCAR surged into uncharted stratospheres of worldwide popularity, his speed, youth and marketability had made him the face of the fastest-growing sport on earth.
To say the least, it was a lot for a 24-year-old.
"I don't know exact what's going on right now, my head's spinning," Gordon summed up with a sheepish and exhausted grin after the race.
And yet, a new day had dawned. Gordon knew that.
With success came expectation. It's something that would eat at Evernham as the decade wore on and the wins, titles and pressure piled up.
For Gordon, now the vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports, he's watched as the template his team used to win that title in 1995 has slowly evolved over the years, through eras, rule packages, car iterations and schedule tweaks.
Certainly, his experiences have helped relate to each new incoming crop of drivers. And that's true still for Larson, Byron, Elliott and Bowman.
He's the first to admit all four feel much same burden as he did back then and likely, even more so.
“I think internally, everybody knew once that first one comes, it’s something we should be able to sustain and you can never guess it goes as well as it has since then," Gordon said. "But the makings were there, and you just had to put the right people in place and once you accomplish that, not only does it build the team up, but it starts to build everything.
"Everything was building and that’s why Terry (Labonte) and the (No.) 5 team were right there to pounce the next year and then it started creating what we have today: this internal friendly rivalry where you’re sharing information and building off of other people’s momentum because if they can do it, you should be able to do it. It’s a strong group of how we go about racing and how we attack the competition with ideas and creativity and hard work and all those things it takes to build great race cars and teams and now it’s become expected.
"It maybe wasn’t as expected at that time, so there was pressure but not so as much. Now it’s expected.”