Crew chief Ryan Pemberton said philosophical differences led him to leave Dale Earnhardt Inc. and join Michael Waltrip Racing in December.

Pemberton had been crew chief for Mark Martin, and the driver often said last season that as long as he was driving “Ryan’s cars,” he’d be happy. But Pemberton said he never felt as if he fit in at DEI and was looking for a clean start with MWR and driver David Reutimann.

“It was some of the highest highs and the lowest lows,” Pemberton said of last season, which included a merger between Ginn Racing and DEI, layoffs of former Ginn employees and a peak of leading the points early in the season to blowing several motors near the end. “It was just one of those things where it’s just: Start over. … I was more in sync with what [MWR] were trying to do than maybe with what DEI was trying to do.”

Martin said he did “everything that I could possibly do to keep that race team together, believe me wholeheartedly.”

It’s just that Pemberton was never happy after the merger.

“I fought to make that work for him and make that right for him, but at the end of the day, I don’t know that he was going to be satisfied with the structure that was there,” Martin said. “I’m disappointed that I couldn’t get a smile on my race team’s faces. I never managed to get a smile on their faces from the merger until the end. … I tried my guts out. I did everything I could do.”

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