Nick Laham/Getty Images for NASCAR
Dale Earnhardt Jr.‘s debut with Lance McGrew as his new crew chief – although McGrew is officially listed only as “interim” crew chief for now – went reasonably well in Sunday’s Autism Speaks 400 at Dover Raceway.
Junior wound up with a decent 12th-place finish, his fifth-best performance of the season – and a tremendous improvement over his finishes in the previous three races (27th, 27th and 40th).
He even moved up one place in the Sprint Cup standings, to boot, too, improving from 19th to 18th.
But let’s not get too carried away. Junior used pit strategy to go from mid-pack midway through the race to the top-10, eventually getting as high as third before finishing 12th.
Had it not been for that savvy pit strategy, it’s likely Earnhardt would have finished probably closer to 20th or worse than 12th.
But give credit where it’s due – although Junior still displayed some of the same behavior with McGrew that he had with previous crew chief Tony Eury Jr., questioning a few calls and also complaining about how the No. 88 Chevrolet was running.
Yet at the same time, Junior’s complaining was substantially less with McGrew than it was with Eury. That could be a good sign, that Junior is prepared to be the consummate team player. Or, it could be a bad sign, that he just needs to get more familiar and comfortable with McGrew before he starts biting his head off in much the same fashion as he did with Eury.
Either way, Junior wasn’t lost in the back of the pack when the checkered flag fell Sunday, he didn’t get into another war of words as we had grown so accustomed to during his tenure with Eury, and he wound up with a decent finish to boot.
Not a bad start, indeed.
Catch you Tuesday.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 06/01 at 03:42 AMWith fairness to Junior, *every* driver complains about how his car is running. Junior’s problem is that he (and TE Jr.) never could figure out how to fix what was wrong with his car throughout the course of the race.
Junior needs to look no further than his own teammate, Jimmie Johnson, who on any given day can start out with one of the worst cars in the field but through constant communication with Chad Knaus keeps tweaking his car throughout the race and eventually winds up at the front of the pack.
Pit strategy is a part of the game, but if Junior wants to reach the next level, he’s going to HAVE to figure out how to communicate car problems to his crew chief and crew so that they can help him out.
For those keeping score, mark this one in the column where Jerry wrote a column that included positive remarks about Dale Jr.
Since everyone thinks he’s a hater….and tend to forget the columns like these.
—From a Jr. fan that has Jerry’s back
.jpg)
| 
|