Ray Evernham can explain how he accomplished so much throughout his career and how he did it. The why? He can explain part of that, too, but some parts of that story will remain a mystery, even for the man who created a Hall of Fame career.
"When they throw the ball to you, you have to catch it," Evernham said. "But to be in that position, to get the opportunity is something -- it's part of that path of life that we don't understand.
"I think, 'Man, had not been for this, had not been for that, things could have been different.'"
Evernham caught and ran with the ball, and his success certainly can prove the "right place, right time" theory of life.
A member of the NASCAR Hall of Fame's ninth class, which will be inducted on Friday night in Charlotte, North Carolina, Evernham is considered by many as one of the greatest crew chiefs of all time. He won 47 races and three Cup titles as a crew chief with Jeff Gordon as his driver. He left that job in 1999 to become a team owner, leading the anchor team of Dodge's return to the sport. He won 13 races as a car owner before selling his team to George Gillett.
"When I think about the Hall of Fame, it comes back to somebody that helped me or something that happened that kept me going down a road," said the 60-year-old Evernham. "So you keep thinking, 'I didn't do anything that special. I just kept getting put in these situations.'"
Joining Evernham in the 2018 class are former drivers Red Byron and Ron Hornaday Jr., former car owner and engine builder Robert Yates and broadcaster Ken Squier. Byron and Yates will be inducted posthumously.
A former modified driver, Evernham raced against the stars of the Northeast modified circuit, including Jerry Cook and Richie Evans, both NASCAR Hall of Famers. He was racing while working as a chassis specialist with the International Race of Champions (founded by Roger Penske), and an accident in 1991 at Flemington Speedway in New Jersey resulted in a brain injury. While he did return behind the wheel to race again, he retired from driving soon after the crash.
He moved to North Carolina to work for [driver] Alan Kulwicki, and after quitting, landed with Ford and Jeff Gordon before being hired away to join Gordon at Hendrick Motorsports in 1993.
"If I hadn't gotten hurt in that modified, what then?" Evernham said. "The only reason I moved to North Carolina was because I needed a job. I couldn't find enough work up north. ... You meet people like [former crew chief] Andy Petree, who put you in touch with Jeff Gordon.
"[Broadcaster] Mike Joy got me the job with the Kulwickis. There was so many things that was so close to not happening."
Obviously, the biggest break was to follow Gordon to Hendrick Motorsports, where Evernham had more resources than he could ever imagine.
"You feel like, 'Wow, to get in the situation that I did at Hendrick Motorsports, where he had everything in the world to do it with and felt like there were people there at that time who just weren't using all of Rick's resources.'
"All we did was get in there and use the stuff that he had in place. And man, it was magic."
But even working at Hendrick, Evernham had used lessons from the past. Having worked with Banjo Matthews and Smokey Yunick, they taught him how to think through the mechanical process and the cars. Penske and IROC president Jay Signore taught him about organization.
And even as a driver, he learned.
"The DNA that I got from running around the short tracks of New Jersey and racing with the people that I got to race with, I didn't realize how incredible that was," Evernham said. "Those guys beat me like a damn drum, and at the time, I hated it but I didn't know how much I was learning."
The interesting part of many of Evernham's opportunities is they might not even be possible today. IROC no longer exists. Crew chiefs typically are more engineers than seat-of-your-pants racers. No new manufacturer has entered the sport in a decade and only two have in the past 20 years.
NASCAR's evolving culture also needed a person such as Evernham in a leadership position, Squier said.
"He was one of those people that was going to be needed, and needed badly, who not only understood how to put some pieces and parts together, but he also was a good manager of people," Squier said. "That was a whole part of the act.
"A lot of those early days of stock-car racing, you got the neighbors to come help. ... That changed. It changed so dramatically. It needed the kind of people that Evernham represented. Wherever he went, whatever he did, he just kept growing on it."
He might have met his match when it came to the role of team owner. He lasted as an owner for fewer than seven seasons, getting out in 2007 when the sport -- and team value -- was at its peak.
"You've got to be able to have that compassion along with determination," Evernham said about being a leader. "That part I enjoyed. I loved working down on the floor with the guys. I loved being at the racetrack.
"But as far as the actual managing without the personal touch is just something I didn't enjoy. I really believe that's why I didn't enjoy being a car owner as much as I did a crew chief because we got so big so fast that I had to act more as a CEO and manager rather than one-on-one digging down with the guys, coaching."
It was at the car, not in the office, where Evernham will leave his legacy.
"My best qualities are my worst qualities -- nothing was ever good enough," Evernham said. "That's good some ways; that's bad some ways. That constant drive to want to improve, and I don't know so much if it was about the competition, winning the race, as much as it was being able to say you built the best mousetrap.
"When people would go, 'Oh, wow, you won the Daytona 500,' I'd rather they go, 'You came up with this really cool suspension long before somebody else had it.' Those are the things that excited me."