Thursday morning’s announcement that said Tony Eury Jr was going to be replaced as the crew chief for Dale Earnahardt Jr’s #88 team came as no surprise to anyone. We all knew this move was coming and it was just a matter of when team owner Rick Hendrick was going to make the change.
The official announcement states that Lance McGrew will be the interim crew chief and will take over Earnhardt’s pit box effective June 6th at the Pocono race. Team Manager Brian Whitesell will lead the team during next Sunday’s race at Dover.
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From a prepared statement team owner Rick Hendrick said “our performance hasn’t been where it should be. 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.”
Hendrick’s comment on the performance levels of the #88 team is actually a major understatement. Earnhardt’s best finish, in the past six races, is a 20th. The decision to replace Eury likely came following an extremely poor outing in last weekend’s Coca Cola 600, at the Lowes Motor Speedway, where the team finished an extremely disappointing 40th two laps down. The handling of the car was so bad that it was described as being “evil loose.”
Racing is about performance and the numbers that are compiled with it. At the beginning of the 2009 season Earnhardt and company was expected to be major players in the NASCAR championship picture. But the numbers associated with the #88 team so far has been dismal at best.
In 12 Sprint Cup starts Earnhardt is ranked 19th in the driver’s points standings. So far this the team in win less with only one top five finish and three top ten finishes. Earnhardt has only led a total of 90 laps so far. In those 12 starts the team has an average starting position of 23d with an average finish ratio of 21.333.
These are not the numbers expected from such a high profile team. These not the numbers expected from a would be champion. They’re certainly not the numbers expected from Hendrick Motorsports which is one of most potent racing organizations in the world.
It’s not what the sponsors expected either and that was another important factor Hendrick had to consider. The primary sponsorship from the National Guard and the Pepsi Corporation, manufacturers of the Mountain Dew and Amp Energy brands on the car, were reported to be $28 million per year. Factor in the revenue provided by associate sponsors and you have a team that generates a massive amount of revenue from sponsors who are looking for results and not excuses.
Throughout the current season it was becoming increasingly evident that Earnhardt and Eury were no longer reading from the same page. There were a lot of arguments regarding what adjustments the car needed during the course of a race. This was especially true during yellow caution laps prior to a pit stop. There were also several miscues on pit road that raised the level of frustration even higher. All of this was not speculation. There was plenty of video tape to support the stories that were being reported. It was also being heard by the media and the fans on race scanners and computer programs. More importantly, Rick Hendrick was listening and quickly realized that the communication between his driver and crew chief just wasn’t there any more.
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This of course is not the first time we’ve witnessed this situation. That lack of communication, along with the in car radio fighting, raised its ugly head a few years ago when Earnhardt and Eury were together during the Dale Earnhardt Incorporated-Budweiser Chevy days. That too resulted in a separation followed by a reunion a year later. In 2007 when Earnhardt announced that he was moving to Hendrick Motorsports and was bringing his cousin/crew chief with him a lot of observers wondered if this was a good idea. Apparently it wasn’t.
However Eury will emerge from all of this just fine. It was also announced Thursday morning that he will be playing a key role in the Hendrick Motorsports Research and Development Department. That’s already being heralded as a good move for him. It will allow Eury to participate in ground breaking innovations that will play a role in the future of the company.
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