June 1, 2009
By Matthew Pizzolato
Matthew Pizzolato
|
It’s been a long time coming, and it’s finally happened. At least, that’s what most of Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s loyal fans would say. They have been clamoring for a new crew chief for NASCAR’s most popular driver for months now.
Something drastic needed to be done because after getting off to a fast start last season, winning the Budweiser Shootout and a Twin 125 at Daytona, the pair fell off toward the end of the season winning only one race and finishing dead last in the Chase. And so far this year, Earnhardt is in danger of not making the Chase at all, which when you look at the success of Hendrick’s other teams, is unacceptable.
After Charlotte, all three of Hendrick’s other teams are in the top twelve, as well as both cars at Stewart Haas Racing, a team that uses Hendrick equipment. And after a run of bad luck early in the year, Mark Martin has vaulted from the bottom of the point standings to 12th place, but the 88 team has remained just outside the cutoff for the Chase all season.
Rick Hendrick had been supportive of Eury so far this year, but his tune changed after the rain-shortened Coca Cola 600 where the 88 team finished two laps down due to an ill-handling race car.
“Our performance hasn't been where it should be,” said Rick Hendrick in an article on nascar.com. “It's impossible to pin that on any one factor, but a change is the right decision at this point. We have a plan in place, and we're going to move forward with it.”
Eury was moved into Hendrick Motorsports research and development group and was replaced for the Dover race by Brian Whitesell. Lance McGrew will step next week as crew chief on an interim basis.
Mixing up driver’s and crew chiefs is a change that happens quite frequently throughout the NASCAR garages, but when it happens to Earnhardt Jr., everyone has to chime in with an opinion, particularly Kyle Busch, who was booted from Hendrick Motorsports at the end of the 2007 season to make room for Earnhardt. Judging from his recent comments, he still harbors a little resentment toward NASCAR’s most popular driver.
“To be honest with you, he's got his hands full, I guess, having to deal with what's going on. And if Junior doesn't run well, then he's going to be the problem again. It's never Junior, it's always the crew chief,” Busch was quoted as saying in a David Caraviello article on nascar.com when speaking of the 88 team’s new interim crew chief, Lance McGrew.
Lance McGrew is a crew chief who has won races in that capacity in all three of NASCAR’s top series. So although he is a relative unknown to many fans, he has been around the sport for quite some time, is well respected in the garage, and knows how to win. Hopefully, his new pairing with Dale Earnhardt Jr. will prove victorious.
However, NASCAR’s most popular driver knows that the pressure to win now rests solely on his shoulders and hopes that he can live up to the unrealistic expectations placed upon him by his fans and by the media. People should realize that he is not his father and never will be; he should be judged based on his own accomplishments.
“Most of the people have always been on Tony Jr.'s case and never really pointed the finger at me throughout the season,” Earnhardt said. “Eventually, the only person that will have to answer to my success is me.”
If you would like to learn more about Matthew, please check out his web site at matthew-pizzolato.com.
The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.
You can contact Matthew Pizzolato at ..