Tony Eury Jr. Fired as Dale Earnhardt Jr.‘s Crew Chief
Brian Whitesell will serve as Junior’s crew chief this weekend at Dover International Speedway. Lance McGrew will become the interim crew chief beginning the following week at Pocono.
“Our performance hasn’t been where it should be,” Rick Hendrick said in a statement. “It’s impossible to pin that on any one factor, but change is the right decision at this point. We have a plan in place, and we’re going to move forward with it.
Is Tony Eury Jr.’s Ouster Also Dale Jr.’s Last Chance?
“We’re going to put our full resources toward improving the situation and winning races,” Hendrick continued. “It’s going to be a collective effort that includes all of our drivers, all of our crew chiefs, all of our engineers. Everyone in our company will be involved on some level.”
There’s been plenty of blame to go around—driver, car, crew, chief—but since Junior himself isn’t going anywhere, something had to give, and it was Eury. The crew chief had borne an enormous share of the criticism of the #88 team, with critics charging that Eury was overmatched or too close to his cousin Junior to be able to keep a necessary professional distance. Yahoo! Sports
Earnhardt knew the situation had become “delicate.” After weeks of meeting with management to create a solution “without results,” the eventual outcome did not surprise him. As distraught as Earnhardt was over the move, he trusted Rick Hendrick to make the right decision.
“Whenever you decide that something needs to happen, you just make the change you want to make,” Earnhardt said. “I told Rick that whatever he wanted to do, to do it, and that meant whatever.
“If he thought I wasn’t able to get the job done, then I would be fine if he wanted to change who was in the seat, if he wanted to change certain particulars on the team — whatever — to not necessarily involve me in it.
“They run race teams. That’s their business. They put together champions. I want ‘em to just do whatever it takes, and that’s the way Tony Jr. felt, too.”
Still, for Earnhardt, it was like losing his brother — again. The cousins hit a similar impasse with the No. 8 team after the 2004 season at Dale Earnhardt Inc. Eury went on to have success as the crew chief for Michael Waltrip, but Earnhardt finished the season a career-worst 19th in the point standings.
Earnhardt now finds himself in that same position again.
“This year we’re not even mediocre, and in the last two weeks, possibly, quite arguably, have been one of the worst teams on the track,” Earnhardt said. Fox Sports
“Tony Jr. is a good crew chief,” Earnhardt said. “We’ve had success, but this year we aren’t even mediocre. And the last couple weeks, we’ve arguably been one of the worst teams on the track. He’s really, really talented, and I feel a lot of disappointment and failure for not being able to take advantage of that. Maybe the truth is that we just aren’t meant to do it together. That’s tough to admit and even tougher to believe.”
“I like Lance. He’s going to tell me like it is, and that’s what I want,” Earnhardt said. “I’ve worked with him in the past, and I also have a whole lot of trust in Brian. He’s going to make sure I’ve got what I need every week. I’m not worried at all about that. And who knows? This combination could be amazing.” Washington Times
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