DEI Director says off season crew swap was a mistake
By Greg Engle
Cup Scene Daily,June 30
Dale Earnhardt Incorporated Director of Motorsports and Dale Earnhardt Junior’s former crew chief, Tony Eury Senior said that the off-season crew swap might have been a mistake.
Tony Eury Senior, Director of Motorsports at Dale Earnhardt Inc. meets with the media at Daytona this afternoon
|
And Eury says identifying the root of the problem may be the first step in turning the number 8 team around.
“We got a lot of bad press at the beginning at the first of the year on why (the 8) was running bad. “ Eury told me.
“I guess we made a bad move over the winter and our cars down there in the 8 shop weren’t as good as we thought they were. When you get behind like that, it takes time to catch up. (But) we’re getting him a fleet of cars now and getting them better.
When you got something good, I guess you should leave it alone. You know we won six races with (Earnhardt Junior) last year maybe it should have been left alone.
But that’s past and we got to get him in that Chase now, so everything’s behind us and we’re going forward from here and building (him) good cars and trying to get in that chase.
He’s got a good race team, I guess they we’re just led wrong for a little while and the cars weren’t as good as we thought they were. We thought there was a lot better equipment in that shop than was there.”
He’s just going to have to run good he’s got to go win some races if we’re going to get in it (The Chase).”
-(Con't'd from front page)But does DEI feel that they’re catching up to the Hendrick motorsports teams when it comes to restrictor plate tracks? Jeff Gordon currently holds the lead at these tracks having won four of the last six outings at both Daytona and Talladega.
“I hope we are, “Eury said, “We worked hard after we left Daytona, and Hendricks got it going on right now. We had it going on for a little while and then they got a little better, we went home and went to work and hopefully we gained on it a little bit.”
Eury admits that he’s a little less than thrilled with the No. 8 car.
“You know we just had a little problem with the 8 last week, and we’ve (been) disappointed over the last couple of weeks because we lost a lot of points on that car.”
Eury seemed to hint that the No. 15 car driven by Michael Waltrip might be the flagship, at least for 2005 when it comes to getting into the 400 point range to qualify for the Chase for the Championship, for DEI.
“Michael’s hanging tough and he had a lot of bad luck at the beginning of the year, (and) we’ve got him close to getting in that 400 point (range), we might need a little help from Jimmie (Johnson) and Greg (Biffle) to get in that 400 range and hopefully we can get him up there.”
During the Coca-Cola 600 a few weeks ago at Lowes Motor Speedway, Dale Earnhardt Junior made a mistake that took both DEI cars out of the race, at the time, Eury Sr. didn’t seem to be too pleased with Dale Junior and let the media know it. Now a few weeks hence his criticism seems to have cooled somewhat and was to quick to point out there was no infighting among the teams after the race.
“We were just disappointed.” Eury said, “Dale Junior took two cars out that we were trying to get in to the Chase.
We had one of them within 310 points and the other one was 350 and his mistake put them over 400.
It wasn’t that we were mad at him for wrecking Michael, we were mad that two cars got (taken) out of the Chase. That was just something that didn’t need to happen.
He apologized for it; guys make mistakes, drivers make mistakes every race. But you know it’s harder when it happens in-house. And as hard we had worked to get them back into that 400-point range and then take ourselves out of it.”
Eury said that the now seem to know what the problem with the 8 team stems from and most importantly, how to correct it.
“We let the crew chiefs build their cars, they’re responsible for them and so when Slugger {Labbe) left in the middle of the year last year it just kind of went downhill from there and (the team) just never recovered from it.” Eury said.
“We put Steve Hmiel in there and he ‘s seen how bad it is and he’s there every day,” Eury pointed out, “He decided that they need new equipment so that’s what they’re doing, working as hard they can to get new cars out there.”
Were last years No. 8 cars so much better that the team swap hurt Junior that much?
“I don’t think that they were that much better, they were just different.” Eury said.
The cars that Michael is driving this year are the ones that Tony Junior and myself built.”
He said,” And that was the reason that the drivers got swapped and the cars didn’t because we wanted the cars that the crew chiefs built to stay with the crew chiefs.
It’s their cars, they know them and that’s why we did that. So we just swapped the seats.
They’re the same brand of cars,” Eury said “ We run Ronnie Hopkins cars at our shop and they’re all the same so they really shouldn’t be any different, it’s just the way the guys put the bodies on them. Slugger had his was way of putting bodies on and Tony Junior (did) most of the “aero” that was done on the 8 last year, and he put bodies on them a certain way.
Now this year we’ve changed and they’re even different than last year. Every car we have has had the body cut off of it so you can’t just say, that car ran good there, because everything’s different.”
As for the number 8 team, Tony Eury Senior is quick to point out,
“I think it’s turned around; they’ve got a bunch of new cars that they’re bringing out now, so they should be turned around.”
BACK TO FRONT PAGE<
|
Front Page
