“The man was a genius… He could figure fuel mileage, tire stagger, anything, while he was driving the race car. He was a very calculating individual. He had an unbelievable mind and memory.” This is what Ray Evernham once said about Alan Kulwicki. Back in 1991, veteran broadcaster Mike Joy lined up Evernham with Alan Kulwicki’s AK Racing team. Kulwicki, a rare driver-engineer hybrid, quickly butted heads with his new hire. However, the story behind it has remained untold from Evernham’s perspective… until now.

Just six weeks of working with Alan Kulwicki, tensions boiled over during Daytona, and the two went their separate ways. Speaking to Kenny Wallace on the Kenny Conversations podcast, Evernham recalled those days: “I wear my feelings on my sleeve. I don’t like being yelled at. I don’t like being cussed at. I don’t like being talked down to. And Alan (Kulwicki) and I did things differently, which is OK, but I don’t know that he really respected kind of the way I did things, and I didn’t like the way he talked to me. So by, I don’t know, by the 3rd or 4th day, we were literally throwing stuff at one another in the shop.”

The tensions flared when Kulwicki, famous for his meticulous eye, asked Paul Gibson to recheck Evernham’s frame height measurements while prepping for the Daytona 500. Gibson hesitated, knowing full well that the 68-year-old wouldn’t take kindly to the implication that Kulwicki didn’t trust his work. If anything, Kulwicki was the team owner at the end of the day, and Gibson reluctantly had to do what was asked, which essentially dropped a lit match into a pit of gasoline.

Evernham remembered the instance that really set him over the edge, adding, “And when people go, oh, that’s you know, you always say, no, I’m telling you, he got mad and threw a tape measure across the shop, and it flew and it hit and he was mad at something else. Wasn’t mad at me, but it hit me in the hand and I just picked it up and threw it back, you know, right? You know, and yeah. And we just didn’t click.”

And then came the turning point: the run-in with the Fords. Miller and Morse, a pair of Ford engineers, had been keeping tabs on Evernham’s work. Impressed, they invited him to join one of Ford’s teams outside the Winston Cup series. Around the same time, Jeff Gordon signed on with Busch Series outfit Bill Davis Racing and voiced his interest in reuniting with Evernham, with whom he had briefly worked back in 1990.

The present consultant for Hendrick Companies said, “And A. J. Foyt’s looking over the top of his hauler right at us because we’re bouncing off the side of his truck. And that’s it. You know, I grabbed my stuff, and I stormed out the gate, and I bumped straight into Preston Miller and Lee Morse from Ford. And they said, ‘Where are you going?’ I’m going back to sell frozen yogurt in New Jersey. I’m going.”

Soon enough, everything aligned, and Evernham struck a deal with Bill Davis Racing and Gordon, setting in motion a partnership that would soon become a legendary chapter in NASCAR history. Over 216 starts with Jeff Gordon in the Cup Series, Evernham scored 47 wins, 116 top fives, and 140 top tens. And earlier this year, Tony Gibson—longtime NASCAR crew member for Alan Kulwicki—revealed that he had seen the cracks between Ray and Alan way before.

Well, as things in the past remain in the past, Evernham and Kulwicki moved on to better things. And now, as the co-principal of IROC Holdings, Ray Evernham has managed to land one of the biggest deals for the sport.

How Ray Evernham changes the game for IROC in 2025

IROC just cranked up the nostalgia dial to 11. On Wednesday, IROC Holdings, LLC, and General Motorsports dropped the news that Chevrolet is officially sliding back into the spotlight as the presenting sponsor of IROC. The revival began in 2024 when NASCAR Hall of Famer Ray Evernham teamed up with venture capitalist Rob Kauffman to bring the long-dormant brand roaring back to life.

It is a reunion decades in the making. GM and IROC have been involved since the series’ 1974 debut, when the Camaro became an icon of the International Race of Champions. After a seven-year breather, GM made its return in 1996 with the Pontiac Firebird, and now, in IROC’s reboot era, Chevy is once again back where it belongs.

Evernham was more than delighted: “We are thrilled to welcome Chevrolet as our presenting sponsor for IROC. Chevrolet has not only played a key role in my own personal career, but they’ve been a vital part of IROC’s history, too. Rob [Kauffman, co-principal] and I have had a lot of fun bringing the IROC brand back to life, and to now have our friends at Chevrolet and General Motors involved makes it even more exciting.”

Chevrolet’s return has already been stamped with some serious track action. IROC staged its first reunion event at Lime Rock Park in July 2024, then fired up its first real competition since 2006 at the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in August 2025. With momentum building and Chevy firm in the mix, Evernham believes the foundation is now set for IROC to thrive well into the future.