June 1, 2005

By Rebecca Gladden

I don't think anyone knows what Dale Earnhardt Jr. wants or needs right now.

Not the fans, not the media, not his inner circle of friends and advisors.

Especially not Earnhardt himself.

If this premise is true, then all of us who write about Junior and DEI can do little more than speculate, based on things we read and hear - even if the information comes from those closest to the situation, or from Junior's own mouth.

For what it's worth, my observation is that Dale Earnhardt Jr. is just plain confused.

Case in point: Two Crew Chief changes in six months.

Last August, months before the big DEI team swap, Earnhardt Junior made it clear that family was more important to him than winning races or championships. "I don't really know what it would be like to go to the race track with anybody but Tony Jr. and Tony Sr.," Earnhardt said of the cousin and uncle who had been on his team since his early days as a racer. "I don't know if I'd want to, really. They're family. It's hard for a lot of people in this business to understand, but how much I care about them overrides even the worst season you can have."

"It's more important to me that me and Tony Jr. and me and Tony Sr. have a good relationship. I've always felt like I would race with them forever."

"Forever" would last just four more months.

By the end of the 2004 season, the Eury's were gone from the #8 team, moved to positions elsewhere in the DEI organization. In fairness, the personnel changes were not necessarily Dale's idea. "The situation wasn't so bad where I said, 'I have to get out of here,'" said Junior of his conflicts with the Eury's. "I wasn't necessarily the guy who spoke first."

Nevertheless, Earnhardt explained that contentious radio communications and endless family bickering between himself and the Eury's were the main reasons for the DEI shakeup. By the time Daytona testing rolled around in January, Junior seemed genuinely enthusiastic about calmer seas ahead with new Crew Chief Pete Rondeau: "I could talk to Tony Jr. however the hell I wanted. I could say anything to him, because I knew the next day we were still cousins. I put myself in this situation (with Rondeau) to try to be a better person and a little more of a professional. I was a good race car driver, but I wasn't necessarily a professional on the radio all the time. That will be a good situation for me."

Now, only 11 races into the 2005 season, Rondeau is gone, too.

As recently as the Las Vegas race in March, Earnhardt Jr. was singing the praises of his new Crew Chief. "I can tell you this," Junior said in a Vegas post-race interview. "I feel better about my situation now than I did a year ago, and that's the truth … Pete is real calm, cool and collected, and that's what I need to become a better driver."

But last week, Junior again cited a lack of compatible radio communications as the reason for Rondeau's abrupt dismissal. "What I'd like to do, personally, is find somebody that I work with really well at the race track ... I thought a lot of (Pete) and we got along really well, but we didn't really click on the radio on Sunday. During practice we struggled a little bit, and so I want to find somebody who is a good match for me as far as my terminology or whatever it takes where we can get our cars where we're running fast."

Rondeau, caught completely off guard by the change, saw things differently. "What he got during the race was what he asked for. During the first two races, I was giving too much (information). He didn't want to know the changes (to the car). He just wanted to be the driver and let me be the crew chief, so I backed off. The latest thing I heard was he wasn't getting enough (information). I'm not sure he knew what he wanted. Maybe he just wanted somebody to argue with on the radio, and I wasn't interested."

Even Tony "Pops" Eury had at times been frustrated with Junior's apparent running off at the mouth on race day. Perhaps half-jokingly, he gave Dale Junior a muzzle for his 30th birthday, not long after a race in which Junior admitted on the radio that he had intentionally spun his own car to bring out a caution. "It's something that Pete's team will have to learn to handle, because it's on them now," said Eury Sr. after the first Crew Chief change. "You know Dale Junior's not going to keep his mouth shut."

Last season, Earnhardt was asked whether the mid-season slump he experienced after suffering burn injuries in an American Le Mans racing accident would bring about changes in his crew. "We try not to get crazy and move people, and change things and make rash decisions," Earnhardt asserted. "Teresa (Earnhardt) and I both believe you don't change partners in the middle of the dance.

Actions speak louder than words, however, and Rondeau was unceremoniously dumped after just 11 races. This time, Earnhardt was in on the decision, along with DEI Vice President of Motorsports Richie Gilmore.

In fact, Junior had previously seemed almost resigned to periodic struggles on the track. "We've had these slumps. We've always had them," he said last August. "If you look back in our Busch Series years, we've had something in the middle of the year where we had a span of eight or 10 weeks where we just couldn't do anything much."

But with the 2005 season kind of one big slump, Earnhardt apparently could no longer afford to wax philosophic. "We were just kind of flatlined there a little bit with the team, and we felt like we could be a lot better race team," he said at last week's press conference, adding, "And who's to say what we do next?"

Indeed.

Following Sunday's disastrous Coca-Cola 600, in which he wrecked both himself and teammate Michael Waltrip out of the race, Earnhardt's attitude was uncharacteristically defeatist. "Win or lose, with the focus from the fans and the media on me and on this team, we've had some sort of drama or controversy every other week for five or six years.''

There are times when Dale Earnhardt Jr. sounds like a guy who wants to run up front and win races. He has stated that a Cup championship is one of his main career goals.

But there are other times when it seems like he would happily settle for much less. "I enjoy the buses and the race cars and the fast lane and living it up and going here and going there, and being on this show and doing that," Junior told Mike Wallace in last year's 60 Minutes interview. "I love those things. It's fun. But still, inside, I mean I could go back to working in a dealership as a service mechanic tomorrow if I had to. I really could. I mean, I really, really could."

Okay. I believe you.

And that's the problem.

In order to be truly happy, Dale Junior first needs to be clear in his own mind about his definition of success.

Change cars, change crews, change whatever. It doesn't really matter.

If the goal is to "drive racecars and make a living doing it," then all the drama and controversy can end today. Mission accomplished.

But if Earnhardt truly desires more - and right now, I'm not sure he does - he needs to first admit that to himself, and then make it his mission in life.

Pinpoint the objective and the path to get there will suddenly be illuminated as never before.

Until the internal conflict is resolved, external confusion will reign supreme.

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.