Motorsports

Junior's boss admits mistake

Switching the crews of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Michael Waltrip was a "bad move," Tony Eury Sr. says.

By BRANT JAMES
Published July 1, 2005

DAYTONA BEACH - Millions of NASCAR fans and scores of competitors in the garage have been thinking it for months. On Thursday, Tony Eury Sr. finally said it.

The director of competition for Dale Earnhardt Inc. became the first team executive to suggest the switching of Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s and Michael Waltrip's teams this offseason was "a bad move."

Earnhardt has slumped from a six-time winner and fifth in points last season to well out of the Chase for the Championship field. Waltrip has improved from 20th in points to within reach of the 400-points-from-the-leader line but has not won and DEI appears adrift.

"When you've got something good, I guess you should leave it alone, you know," said Eury, Earnhardt's uncle and crew chief from the beginning of his NASCAR career until 2004. "We won six races with him last year. Maybe it should have been left alone. I don't know."

Earnhardt and Waltrip's entire fleet of cars were swapped, with Earnhardt's former car chief, Tony Eury Jr., becoming Waltrip's crew chief. Pete Rondeau replaced Eury Sr. as crew chief for Earnhardt but was fired after 11 races. Eury Sr. said he bears as much responsibility for Earnhardt's poor start as anyone, including overestimating the quality of the No.8 Chevrolet fleet. That said, Eury Sr. suggested Earnhardt's team was probably "led wrong a little while" and suggested Rondeau, who served as Waltrip's crew chief when "Slugger" Labbe left late last year, hurt the program.

"In our place, we let the crew chiefs build their cars. They're responsible for them," Eury Sr. said. "When Slugger left in the middle of the year last year, it went down from there and we never recovered from it."

Earnhardt was not available for comment Thursday as the first practices for Saturday's Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway were rained out.

Eury Sr., Earnhardt's racing mentor at the behest of Dale Earnhardt Sr., said there was no in-fighting between DEI's drivers, though tensions appeared to arise at Charlotte. In Earnhardt's first race with interim crew chief Steve Hmiel, he started an accident midway through the race by bumping Waltrip from behind.

"It was not in-fighting. We were disappointed," Eury Sr. said. "Dale Jr. took two cars out we were trying to get in the Chase. It wasn't we were mad for him taking out Michael, we were mad we had two cars taken out of the Chase and that was just something that didn't need to happen. He apologized for it. Guys make mistakes, drivers make mistakes and it happens every race. It's harder when it happens in-house, as hard as we worked to get them back in the 400-point range and to take ourselves out of it."

Waltrip is in 15th place, 23 points from the playoff points cutoff. Earnhardt is 18th, 143 points out with 10 races left until the Sept.10 regular season finale at Richmond.

"(Earnhardt) has to win some races if he's going to get in it," Eury Sr. said of the Chase.

Eury Sr. said though Hmiel has performed well as interim crew chief - though Earnhardt has finished 33rd or worse three times in five races since the switch - he would best serve the company returning to his job as technical director next season.

"I don't think Steve will be back," he said. "The problem we have with Steve running that race team is Steve's job is not getting done at the shop. We took a person here and a person there and spread his job out between a number of people, and I don't think his job is getting done at the capacity it needs to, either. We took a lot away from the company moving him down there, but at the time we really didn't have a choice."

Eury Sr. said team owner Teresa Earnhardt has a strong say in daily running of the team, meeting regularly with director of motorsports Richie Gilmore and "is there at the shop every day, like everybody else."

Eury Sr. said he was not sure who concocted the switching of teams, but was told Teresa Earnhardt requested he change jobs.

"All I know is I was called in the office the Monday after Homestead (the final race of the 2004 season) and was told Teresa wanted me to be (director of competition)," he said. "I've been there 20 years and I work for her, so whatever she wants, I will do."

[Last modified July 1, 2005, 01:24:21]