Evernham, Elliott, Mayfield and Atwood in NJ..for fun: It was private playtime for Cup team owner Ray Evernham and his Cup drivers on Thursday [Sept 19th] at New Egypt Speedway, as Evernham, Bill Elliott, Jeremy Mayfield and Casey Atwood spent the day at the central Jersey half-mile, getting down ‘n dirty at a specially scheduled Billy Pauch Driving School. “These guys are under a lot of pressure to perform weekly on the Winston Cup circuit and they need a chance to kick back and have some fun,” Evernham said of the decision to treat his team racers to a day of driving dirt cars. “I tried to think of something to do for their birthdays, but none of us are golfin’ or fishin’ kind of guys. This is what they love to do,” Evernham concluded, gesturing toward the arsenal of dirt-track equipment Pauch amassed for the occasion. Evernham’s group, which was flown into a private airport in Toms River early in the morning, arrived at the speedway to find enough playtoys to make even the most diehard driver drool, from Sprint cars, to Late Models, to Modifieds and more. Pauch, the two-time New Egypt Speedway Modified champ from Frenchtown, NJ, initially gave his celebrity students a tour of the track, showing them the best line to run in his two-seater Late Model school car. Once acclimated, first Elliott, then Mayfield, Atwood and Evernham took turns racing a pair of Pauch’s 358 CID school Sprinters, one a Maxim, the other a Gambler chassis. Evernham was a former regular at Wall Stadium’s paved track and the old New Egypt asphalt quarter-mile in the 1970s and ’80s, Ray has a single 1976 Modern Stock victory at New Egypt in the record books; he also raced to numerous top finishes driving Ruth and Jim Bauma’s pavement Modifieds. At Evernham’s invitation, the Baumas visited their famous ex-driver during the unpublicized closed-gate school session on Thursday.(Philly News)(9-27-2002)
