Indiana native Chris Evans has found success in ventures including coal mining, natural gas and real estate. And with his ever-curious business mind at full speed, Evans has shifted gears into another pursuit.He's going racing.
Evans has become a team owner on the NASCAR Busch Series, with hopes of someday owning a full-fledged Nextel Cup team. But like any other business, Evans' Christine Marie Motorsports is taking it one lap at a time.
"My goal is to be in this forever," he said. "It's a unique sport, and we want to be a part of it."
Evans has teamed with driver Chris Cook, a racing instructor from Phoenix, and Nextel Cup series driver Joe Nemechek to form a team that will compete at least four times this season on the NASCAR circuit at each of its stops at road courses. The team made its debut on March 6, when Cook, 33, placed 26th at the Busch race in Mexico City.
The next scheduled race is with the Nextel series June 26 at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif.. Cook will then compete in a Busch-Nextel doubleheader on Aug. 13-14, at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International.
The Mexico City race, the first NASCAR-sanctioned race outside the United States, was in some ways a better start than anyone could have imagined. And although one might think Cook's 26th-place finish sounds good, the driver and car owner said it could have - and should have - been better.
"I had made a goal of a top-10 finish," Cook said. "I think it was a very realistic thing to consider. So it was a little disappointing to not get it."
"All in all, he did an outstanding job," Evans said of his driver. "But one little thing went wrong, and it cost us."
That little thing was a flat tire, which sent Cook to the pits with about 25 laps remaining on the 2.5-mile track. To that point, Cook had been having an outstanding day, with a high point of ninth place. But when another driver lost control and turned sideways on the track, Cook had to swerve to his left to miss him. Cook then clipped Ron Fellow's car, which flattened his tire and shoved it into the fender. That, compounded with a broken connector rod that forced him to start at the end of the field rather than his qualifying spot - 16th - stacked the deck that much more against Cook.
"I hate sound cliché," Cook said, "but that's racing."
But the team isn't complaining about the race. Driver and owner are excited just to have the opportunity, which they gained when Nemechek struck a deal with them to compete with his NEMCO Motorsports team.
"Getting the opportunity to do what we're doing is extremely unique," Evans said. "It doesn't happen very often."
Evans, a lifelong racing fan, struck up a friendship with Cook about five years ago while attending the Bondurant School of High Performance Driving in Arizona, where Cook was an instructor.
Evans thought so highly of Cook's talent that when he began exploring the chance to form a team, Cook was his first choice to drive the car - not that Evans ever seriously entertained the idea of driving himself.
"Believe me, I'd love to be in the car," Evans said. "Nothing could top that experience. But recognizing my talents his talents, I had to put the best guy in the car, and that's Chris.
"I've been racing at the amateur level for years, and I think I'm a good racer. But I'd equate my racing level to Chris' like this: I'm an EMT, and he's a brain surgeon. He's just off the charts."
The pair struck a deal with Nemechek last December to form the team, which is named Christine Marie Motorsports, after Evans' youngest daughter. He names all of his businesses after his three daughters.
Nemechek has supplied the team with four cars and the use of his top-of-the-line
equipment at his garage in Mooresville, N.C.
Cook, who continues to instruct drivers at his own school, ShiftintoGear, Inc., said the relationship between he and Evans is what fuels the team.
"I can't say enough about Chris," Cook said. "He's a great friend. He's so savvy about everything he does. If he doesn't know something, he's gonna do what he can to find out about it. He just has a passion for this sport, and it's very intense. He's a rare breed, and I'm learning from him every day."
Evans has bankrolled most of the team's expenses for the four races and wouldn't say how much that costs, other than, "it's near the seven-figure mark." But he's hoping to pick up additional sponsors and be able to race at a few oval tracks with the Busch series this season.
"We're probably not going to make any money this year or next year," Evans said. "But over the next five or 10 years, I think this will become a real viable business. If we keep recruiting more sponsors, I think this will be a successful venture."
And if that should happen, Cook's dream of racing full-time with the best of the best will come true.
"We'd love to go full-time," Cook said. "And I'd like nothing more than to drive for Christine Marie Motorsports for a very long time."
On the 'Net: www.christinemariemotorsports.com
www.shiftintogear.com
