Dale Jr.’s silence would ease Eury criticism
Quote selected text Published April 24th, 2008 in NASCAR News
By Josh Stewart-At first, I thought Dale Earnhardt Jr. was kidding during Tuesday’s teleconference. The guy isn’t naïve enough to be at a complete loss as to why, despite sitting third in the Cup standings, crew chief Tony Eury Jr. has been characterized as shakier than Barney Fife, right? But he was dead serious.
“He has just as many critics as he does people that want to praise him. So I feel that it’s happening more this year than it ever had before, and I really don’t know,” Junior said. “I can’t put my finger on why he’s taken just as much heat as he’s taken this season.”
Doesn’t seem that hard to me, though. Although Junior has never intentionally tried to undercut Eury through their now-infamous radio banter, this season it was bound to have an effect like never before. At DEI, Junior Nation had plenty to stay angry about thanks to the lack of top-fight equipment. So the soap opera between the cousins the last two years was little more than an amusing sideshow.
But these days, Eury has no cover. Junior is never going to be blamed for much of anything because he is NASCAR’s version of the Pope. The No. 88 is housed at the sport’s Mecca, Hendrick Motorsports, so it wants for nothing in preparing to go to battle.
So everything is going to be Eury’s fault, and I’m sure he was prepared for that. But if Junior is throwing up his hands, despondent that he can’t do anything to make Eury’s life easier, he needs to understand that he can do something about it.
It pains me to suggest that any driver make it a point to keep his opinions to himself while in the car. First of all, drivers provide a great deal of needed information. Secondly, when talking with those who are nervous about dipping their toes into NASCAR’s waters, I sell it to a large degree on the level of “inside baseball” fans are privy to that are off-limits in other sports.
But for now, at least while Eury is getting established at Hendrick, if he makes a decision late in the race maybe Junior’s input should begin and end with “Yep.”
His thoughts on what should’ve happened can wait for the debrief, away from all of our ears. Because if Junior questions Eury at all for public consumption and this points-race drought continues, whether Junior likes it or not it will be used as ammunition to hammer a guy he loves like a brother.
More at Long Island Press
- Eury Sr. staying on as JR Motorsports crew chief
- Tony Eury, Sr leaves DEI for JR Motorsports
- Eury, Jr will be Dale Earnhardt, Jr’s crew chief at Hendrick
- Eury, Jr steps down as Dale Earnhardt, Jr’s crew chief to start Hendrick job
- Eury Jr. could follow Dale Jr out of DEI
If Tony did not want to chief for jr he would not have left DEI to be with DJR.
DJR ? I thought it was JRM.
I would like to see a crewchief swap between the 88 and 48 for 6 races just to see how much better Dale JR could run with a real crewchief…
Oh don’t worry given Hendricks past I’m sure Jr will have a different crewchief for 6 races at some point during this season…. l0l
Fisha695 wrote:
I think they means “DJR” as in Dale Jr not JR Motorsports. lol
gonesouthern wrote:
Johnson would still have more top 10’s, top 5’s and wins than Jr. if that were to happen.
Fisha695 wrote:
OMG I just about spit my drink out onto my keyboard! LOL
I personally think Tony Jr. is doing a great job all things considered. I mean they are not the only team having a problem getting a handle on the car, every team is!!!! It’s a new car they are still trying to figure out how to make it work just right!!! That’s the way things go when you get a new car, Duh! Also they just switched teams at the beginning of the year they probably aren’t completely settled in at their new home, granted they should be pretty settled by this time in the season, but a lot of it is still new to them. I really think if you put most other drivers in the same position as Dale Jr. and Tony Jr. are in, you would probably get the same results or possibly even worse results. Let the comments begin!
Fisha695 wrote:
Dale Jr.
Andy wrote:
You are correct.
Fisha695 wrote:
LMAO that was a good one.
tony jr can’t be to bad at making the call’s jr is in 3rd better than last year
Humm, Well, Jr is running better than J. Gordon this year, so what’s up with the crew chiefs ????????????????????
It just may be the CAR !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fisha695 wrote:
Wow a Zinger from Fisha, Im impressed, I didn’t think you had a funny bone in you. You do deserve you 15 sec. of fame for that one but now I will expect a lot more ha ha verbage tossed in with your Fart dry, long winded stuff just to lighten it up a little.
In reality you probably didn’t miss the mark by to much and that would be ONE way of getting a crew-chief rotation. I still think Couz Tony Jr. could be a area of improvement for the 88 team.
Yes Jr. is in 3rd the best HMS cars and yes it is much better than the last few years but Tony Jr. has his limits and it would be interesting to see if a better crew-chief could fill in the missing blanks for JR.
OMG if Eury Jr gets in trouble again I bet it would be double the 6 weeks and Chad and Letarte the same. I think this explains why only one HMS win this season and it was fuel mileage. They are all too afraid to push the envelope and went back to good old testing. Lets see if they can get it done this weekend in Talladega or if the Smoke finally gets a win at Talladega. He’s trying to market himself nothing would be better than a fence climbing win.
No input from the driver during the race, eh. Well there are now officially as many people writing about motorsports as there are watching it that really don’t have a clue what’s going on. Comparing Danica to Jr? Give me a break.
Any chance this writer might switch to basketball coverage?
wrote:
NO PROOF of that, so-far this year your boy is a dud in the points trailing BEHIND DALE JR…