Ray Evernham and his team have seen better times.

A year ago, Evernham Motorsports was by far the best Dodge team in NASCAR's Nextel Cup series. It was on course to put Kasey Kahne in the Chase for the Nextel Cup championship with six wins and six poles, and have Elliott Sadler and Scott Riggs wind up in the top 22 in season points. The expectations for 2007 were much higher.

So far, though, this season has been a nightmare for Evernham and all three drivers.

After the first nine races, Sadler leads the trio at 15th in the standings, while Kahne is 31st and Riggs 36th. Each has produced one top 10 this season, and the only one of those coming since the season-opening Daytona 500 was Riggs' eighth-place run at Martinsville.

"It's easy to go back and look at all the things that went wrong," Evernham said.

The first thing to go wrong came at Daytona, where all three of Evernham's crew chiefs were caught cheating in a post-qualifying inspection.

Kenny Francis, crew chief for Kahne, was suspended four races and the No. 9 car was docked 50 points. Rodney Childers, crew chief for Riggs, and Josh Browne, crew chief for Sadler, were suspended two races and each of their teams lost 25 points.

"We got off base early in the season, obviously, with the loss of the crew chiefs, and our resources aren't as deep as they are at other places to overcome something like that," said Evernham, a former championship crew chief.

He also pointed out that building both the current cars and NASCAR's new Car of Tomorrow, which will run a total of 16 races this season, has pushed his team to the limit.

"Let's face it," he added, "Dodge has been cutting back resources so, and I'm not complaining, but we probably don't have as many resources to develop two programs at one time.

"We've told everybody time and time again that the big companies with a lot of resources are going to be able to get things done faster. And Rick Hendrick showed how strong his company is, the way he's dominating this year, to be able to have enough people to develop two cars at one time, and come out and be kicking butt in both of them."

The Hendrick team has won six of the nine races, including three by reigning Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, one by Kyle Busch and the last two by Jeff Gordon, the four-time champion and current points leader. Johnson, Busch and Gordon have swept the three COT races run thus far.

"That's just a tribute to Rick and his organization, but they also have a lot of resources," Evernham said.

The slow start has been hard on his drivers, particularly a very frustrated Kahne, considered one of the bright young stars of the sport.

"Sure it's frustrating, but my biggest thing as a driver right now is just making sure I bring it home in one piece and get all the points we can each week and not get down on the guys because they're working hard; and it's just a matter of trying to do everything right on my side of things," Kahne said. "As the year goes on, hopefully the cars (will) get faster."

Evernham is hopeful that things are already beginning to turn around as they head for Richmond and another COT race this week. All three of his drivers were in the top 15 last Sunday at Talladega.

We're just trying to keep everybody focused on the right things," the owner said. "We're one or two good runs away from turning the thing around, and I think the guys have got good attitudes, at least outwardly.

"Hey, inside, anybody that cares about it is being eaten up a little bit. But, outside, you've got to control the part you can control. This is the same team that won the most races and the most poles last year and we'll get it turned around."