AUTO RACING
Earnhardt replaces crew chief
Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s deep slump this season reached the breaking point Thursday as team owner Rick Hendrick replaced Tony Eury Jr., chew chief and cousin of NASCAR’s most popular driver.
Hendrick named Lance McGrew, who has worked with several NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series drivers over the years, as Earnhardt’s interim crew chief starting with the Cup race at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway on June 7.
Brian Whitesell, manager of Earnhardt’s No. 88 Chevrolet team, will call the race this weekend in Dover, Del., Hendrick said. Eury was reassigned to Hendrick Motorsports’ research and development group.
Pressure on Hendrick to make the change had been building in recent weeks, but he didn’t act until after Earnhardt finished 40th in the 43-car field Monday in the rain-delayed Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway near Charlotte, N. C.
“The frustration after Charlotte just reached a point with all of us that we said, ‘Let’s try something different,’ ” Hendrick said in a teleconference with reporters.
While praising the work by Earnhardt and Eury, “I just didn’t feel like it was fair to our sponsors, to the fans and to those two guys to show up any more changing nothing.”
Earnhardt and Eury moved to Hendrick from Earnhardt’s family team with great fanfare at the start of the 2008 season.
Hendrick is arguably NASCAR’s premier team, with eight Cup championships over the last 25 years, and his other drivers are four-time champion Jeff Gordon, three-time title winner and reigning champ Jimmie Johnson and veteran Mark Martin.
But since joining Hendrick, Earnhardt and Eury struggled to perform well with NASCAR’s new Car of Tomorrow.
Earnhardt and Eury won only once in 48 races with Hendrick and, before last weekend’s Coca-Cola 600, Earnhardt had placed 27th in each of the prior two races.
In NASCAR’s Chase for the Cup, in which the top dozen drivers in points after 26 races compete for the title over the final 10 races, Earnhardt is currently 19th, 203 points behind the 12th and final spot in the Chase.
Earnhardt made the Chase last season in hopes of winning his first championship, but finished the season 12th in points.
This year, “our goal is to make the Chase and we think we can do it,” Hendrick said. “Some guys are going to have to have some bad luck and we’re going to have to run a ton better.”
Hendrick said Eury has “tremendous talent” and that “we want him to be part of our organization for a long time.”
But Earnhardt’s struggle created “probably the most pressure that I’ve felt in racing since I don’t know when,” Hendrick said. “Hopefully we’re going to ease some of that. We just need a fresh start.”
Earnhardt, 34, was scheduled to comment on the change today at Dover International Speedway.
Eury said in a statement that although he had “mixed feelings” about the change, he would “do whatever I can to help all of our teams and try to be a part of another championship.”
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