NASCAR: GEM Getting Back to Winning Ways after Vegas

By Mike Delahanty

Manager, Dodge Motorsports

(Editor’s Note: This is a post from Mike D. related to the run in Las Vegas a bit over a week ago. He’ll be putting his thoughts from Atlanta up here soon, but we thought you’d enjoy seeing his thoughts from the previous week in the meantime. We’ll have the MOPAR color poll up soon along with another installment of our sit-down with the 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8 designers in the next day or two.)

LAS VEGAS — After the 2006 season, Kasey Kahne and the Evernham Motorsports had established themselves as the hottest team in then Nextel Cup NASCAR racing. With 7 wins Kasey was the hottest driver and the Evernham cars were brutally fast – especially on intermediate tracks. But in the few short months between the 2006 and 2007 seasons, the magic disappeared for Kasey and the entire Evernham Team. After months of searching for the winning combination, aerodynamic issues were finally identified as the culprit. Both Kasey and Gillett-Evernham finished 2007 with no wins.

Leading into the 2008 season the GEM organization realigned its race Team and appointed Mark McArdle as the head of racing operations. As the brains behind building powerful GEM engines, McArdle is the consummate ultra-organized and methodical leader. Mark brought order to the demoralized GEM shop and a sense of calm that has led to a turnaround for the start of the 2008 season. The GEM cars of Kahne and Sadler tested strong at Daytona and Las Vegas. And when the real racing started in Daytona, Kahne and Sadler were among the leaders in the Dodge Dominance at Daytona. Kahne followed with another top 10 at the rain-delayed California race. And at Las Vegas Kahne finished in 6th and became the only driver to score top 10 finishes in the first 3 races. Now in 3rd place in the Sprint Cup points, Kahne is the top Dodge Driver and his teammate Elliott Sadler sits in 9th place.

With 33 more races to go, it’s a long way to the Sprint Cup championship. But it looks like Kasey, Elliott and the GEM team are on the right track.