March 16, 2005

By Rebecca Gladden

Both Tony Eury Sr. and Dale Earnhardt Jr. expressed their feelings in pre-season practice in February at Daytona -- about the team's switch between the No. 8 and the No. 15 cars.

"It's just something they thought they needed to do. That 8 car was awfully close to winning a championship. Now, they've turned everything around." - Tony Eury, Sr.

"I wasn't necessarily the guy who spoke first." - Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Prior to the start of the 2005 Nextel Cup season, the powers-that-be at Dale Earnhardt, Incorporated, made an unprecedented move: At the direction of company Vice President Richie Gilmore, DEI's top two drivers traded places.

The driver swap between the 8 team of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the 15 team of Michael Waltrip was comprehensive. Along with trading crews and cars, Tony Eury Sr., who was Dale Junior's 2004 Crew Chief, became Director of Competition at DEI, while his son, Tony Eury Jr., was named Waltrip's new crew chief; Pete Rondeau took over as Earnhardt Junior's new Crew Chief.

There was tremendous speculation in the off season regarding the shakeup and the effect it would have on the DEI teams. As the above quotes indicate, neither Earnhardt Jr. nor Eury Sr. was particularly sanguine about the exchange.

Pundits quickly labeled the move surprising, misguided, perplexing, even dangerous.

Now, DEI is off to a shaky start. After three races, Junior ranks 27th in Nextel Cup points, while Waltrip is 35th. The off-season moves at DEI, coupled with Earnhardt's undeniable popularity, bring an extra degree of scrutiny to both teams. At this point in the '04 season, Junior had won the Daytona 500 and was 7th in the point standings. That's twenty places higher than his standing now.

In fairness, other prominent Cup drivers have had a bumpy ride in the first three races this year. Jeremy Mayfield, one of the Chase contenders last year, is currently 26th in points; 2003 series champ Matt Kenseth is 28th; Bobby Labonte, who finished 12th in '04, ranks 37th.

The season started off well for Junior. Although he struggled at Daytona, falling as far back as 30th, he mounted a late charge that briefly placed him in the lead before finishing a respectable 3rd. The following week in California, however, he battled tire problems all day and came in 32nd. In Vegas, his day ended early when a mistake heading into Turn 1 wrecked his car and three others on Lap 12. Earnhardt never came back out on the track and ended the race in 42nd place, his worst finish in three years.

Earnhardt Junior has indicated that, with the exception of Daytona, the early schedule does not feature his best tracks; in fact, he had a DNF last year at Las Vegas as well, with his '04 car and team. This weekend, he will be returning to Atlanta as the defending champion of the Golden Corral 500. But with six of the current top-ten drivers representing the Hendrick and Roush organizations, Atlanta will be a crucial test for Dale Junior and company.

While he would rather not be in 27th place right now, Earnhardt Junior is careful not to blame anyone but himself: "I can tell you this," he said in his Vegas post-race interview, "I feel better about my situation now than I did a year ago, and that's the truth … Pete (Rondeau) is real calm, cool, and collected, and that's what I need to become a better driver. He gave me a good car today and I made a mistake, and I'm really upset about that. I'm even more upset for Pete and the guys, because I know how hard they're working. It'll come to us. I've had harder times than this. I mean, we'll just try to turn it around. I've had a pretty good car the last couple of weeks, just ain't made the best of it."

It may be too early for the final risk-benefit analysis on the DEI shakeup, but at this point in the season, the scales are heavily favoring the former.

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. Although we may not always agree with what is said, we do feel it's our duty to give a voice to those who have something relevant to say about the sport of auto racing.