DEI executive John Story admits that the team has received inquiries from a couple of manufacturers about their plans for 2008 and beyond, but he insists that they have been honest with these other manufacturers in telling them that they want to exhaust every option with Chevrolet first before even considering another offer.

He added that at this point, they have not seen anything in writing from anyone else. Toyota has already released an official statement saying basically that they’re not nearly ready for a deal of that caliber, so I guess that leaves Dodge and Ford. That is unless the folks at Kia are positioning themselves to enter Cup racing.

Rather than being a distraction from the Dale Earnhardt Jr contract negotiation stories that have flooded racing news lately, this story only makes them more complicated. Would Junior support a change from Chevy to Ford? Or have negotiations with Earnhardt Jr. already broken down?

It’s hard to believe that he would be in favor of switching to any manufacturer. And even though DEI’s contract with Chevrolet is up for renewal after 2007, does JR Motorsports have a contractual agreement with Chevrolet? How would this be affected? Or is DEI’s public admission of overtures from other manufacturers simply an effort to get Chevrolet to pony up some more engineering support?

I could see how, being an executive at DEI, you might look at Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing and Richard Childress Racing and wonder why they have ‘it’ and you don’t. But I don’t think that disparity has anything to do with favoritism or handouts from Chevrolet. Those organizations have their eye on the ball. They have spent the past several years fortifying their engineering departments.

What has DEI done? They’ve fired good, loyal DEI visionaries like Ty Norris and developed a global entertainment division. An entertainment division? How about a finding horsepower and winning races division?? That’s why it was so laughable when Teresa Earnhardt made that comment about Junior needing to concentrate less on entertaining (or something like that) and more on racing. Maybe she should apply that philosophy to her RACING organization as well.

It’s no secret that Chevrolet will probably go to great lengths to keep Dale Earnhardt Jr. We all know this. But do you think they would piddle around with DEI to do it if they know that he could go somewhere like Gibbs or Childress? Hell no. Let’s say that Junior knows that he won’t be able to work anything out with DEI, and we know with 100% certainty that he will be moving on.

Now, let’s say that you’re on the Chevrolet side of the negotiating table. Would you even waste your time with DEI?? In terms of racing, would renewing with a racing organization whose first priority is releasing R&B records in Asia seem like an attractive deal? Or would you rather focus your efforts on keeping one of your superstars and helping them to hit the ground (or track) running with their next team? He could land at RCR or JGR and already start out being more competitive than when he left DEI.

One thing is for sure….things should get very, very interesting over the next month or so.

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