Usually a racecar has to be a total pig before a driver will say in public and on-air what he really thinks of the car he’s fought all day to a less than grand finish. Dale Jr. didn’t throw his guys under the white-hot glare of the big TV eye (got them close enough to be singed though), but it was obvious that they “lost the handle” a few times and couldn’t find it again. In today’s Cup format, you can’t have very many off-days, because there is plenty of competition that isn’t.
When he was coming up at various short tracks, I remember seeing Jr. working on his car in Late Model infields (sometimes dirt and muddy) -- there wasn’t a bunch of Cup crew guys on “vacation” helping him set it up or tuning the engine. He turned the wrenches all over the car. He’s a throwback driver in that respect because his dad didn’t just hand him the keys to a Cup career. He knows what makes his car work and what doesn’t.
Yet, I ask myself – “What if Jr. were driving for Hendrick Motorsports and had Chad Knaus for his crew chief?” I have minimal doubt the mechanical consistency would improve. It looks like he and crew chief Tony Eury Jr. have regained some of the chemistry they had earlier in their union. But that was last year, before there were so many strong external distractions and forces yanking on them this coming season.
Looming on the horizon is the Car of Tomorrow (COT) which has forced the Cup teams to build two fleets of different cars for 2007 and extend their resources (spend more money, work people harder). Apart from the jacked up cost of building and switching rides in the middle of this season, how well are Jr. and his guys going to adapt it to the tracks – they have to basically instantly – they haven’t had time to really know this car on-track. “Well all the teams will have to do that,” you’re saying to me.
Sure they will, and I think that is one advantage that Jr. and Eury Jr. can bring if they can get focused: they have had to respond to extreme change before. Can they respond well enough? We’ll see. I’m thinking they will.
But only if they resolve that other condition grinding in the back of everyone’s minds -- getting Jr. re-signed with DEI. Everything else for the #8 and potentially for the survival of DEI hinges on this. There’s a half a million square feet of racecar shop space near Mooresville, NC, that could become a giant museum to the past and not a vital place for the future.
 Why is this man so intent? This is DEI new-hire Max Siegel, President of Global Operations and The Negotiator. He is the fulcrum point between both sides to get to “Yes.” (Kevin Thorne photo) |
The negotiations turned public and ugly when Teresa Earnhardt essentially said in the national press that Dale Jr. better decide whether he wants to be a celebrity or a racer. Dale Jr. acknowledged before the Daytona 500 this year that those words had cut deep. He has always been a racer, but now he is a star – and he knows it and doesn’t need to have his dedication questioned.
Kevin Harvick (not a good Southern boy) threw high octane Sunoco on the smoldering words when he called Teresa a “deadbeat owner” because she didn’t come to the track (like his owner Richard Childress). Gentlemanly Dale Jr. came to her defense and mentioned how much she has done with charity work and running the teams in very trying circumstances.
It’s easy to forget that some people thought that DEI would evaporate when Dale Sr. died. But it had Jr. (and Theresa) to keep it on track. And for it to continue to do so, it will require both of them again. As one long-time NASCAR participant told me: “We’re going to see just how smart Theresa is.”
She was smart enough to bring Max Seigel on board to get everyone on the same page. He’s going to earn every bit of his pay if he brings this off.
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