Means again in October 1999, Dodge reentered NASCAR’s prime sequence after 15 years within the wilderness with a lot fanfare. The corporate had slunk out of NASCAR in 1984 after years of decline — the final Dodge win had been in 1977, when Neil Bonnett beat Richard “The King” Petty at Ontario Motor Speedway — and most race followers figured that was the tip of Dodge’s illustrious racing historical past. Time makes fools of us all, nevertheless, and by the flip of the millennium, the boys at Dodge had been tanned, rested, and able to get again to racin’.
The home that John and Horace constructed had recruited no much less a personage than former Jeff Gordon crew chief Ray Evernham to steer the brand new race staff. Funding would come each from Dodge and the corporate’s vendor community, and the hassle would contain such luminaries as Roger Penske and Richard Petty. The joy was almost palpable, and Dodge entered the aughts with excessive hopes for its new racing endeavors.
Sadly for everybody concerned, the honeymoon did not final very lengthy and Dodge exited NASCAR racing once more in 2012, seemingly eternally.
Boogity, boogity, boogity! Let’s go racin’ boys!
Dodge’s reentry to NASCAR in 1999 began out comparatively sturdy. The newly shaped Evernham Motorsports started 2001 with drivers Invoice Elliott and Casey Atwood behind the wheels of shiny new Dodge inventory automobiles. As well as, Chip Ganassi Racing, Invoice Davis Racing, Melling Racing, and Petty Enterprises threw in with Dodge. These groups began racking up wins and it seemed like Dodge was reclaiming its historic racing legacy. These had been good instances, the salad days when huge names gained huge races with Dodge automobiles. Like all good instances, sadly, they would not final.
The lengthy fall began in 2006, when Evernham driver Jeremy Mayfield simply stopped successful races. What adopted was a years-long decline that noticed Evernham Motorsports undergo quite a few mergers and buyouts whereas different groups fled Dodge for marques like Ford, Chevrolet, and Toyota. Then, in 2008, the worldwide financial downturn dealt Dodge’s guardian firm Chrysler a crippling blow which brought about the corporate to concentrate on survival reasonably than racing. In 2012, regardless of some optimistic strikes, Penske left Dodge for Ford and successfully killed off Dodge’s NASCAR racing efforts.
Regardless of that uninspiring finish, there have been perennial rumors that Dodge will return to NASCAR racing, and even speak of Ram main the way in which with an entry within the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Collection.
