TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Eury And Earnhardt: All Doubt Dissolved

AP Photo

Tony Eury Jr. and Dale Earnhardt Jr. are a formidable team, as evidenced by the Sprint Cup standings this year.

ADVERTISEMENT

By TONY FABRIZIO | The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 21, 2008

When Dale Earnhardt Jr. couldn't get to Victory Lane in a points race with high-powered Hendrick Motorsports early in the year, some fingers pointed at his cousin and crew chief, Tony Eury Jr.

Eury made a suspect call or two on the pit box, Earnhardt's cars never seemed strong enough at the end of a race. It seemed reasonable to question whether Eury was holding his cousin back.

Well, no.

It's easy to see now Earnhardt and Eury were getting the most out of their equipment. Nearly halfway through the season, they've been the top-performing pair for an organization that dominated NASCAR last year, finishing 1-2 in the points with Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon and winning half of the races.

They're third in points, and they broke through with a victory Sunday at Michigan.

Earnhardt never paid attention to the doubts about Eury.

"I would go do something else if I didn't believe in my crew chief and didn't have faith in what kind of race car he built," he says now. "And if I didn't have that option and opportunity, I don't feel like this would be very enjoyable."

Hendrick isn't as strong as last year. Earnhardt, Johnson and Gordon all rank in the top nine of the standings, but the organization has only two victories: Earnhardt's at Michigan and Johnson's at Phoenix in April.

Given that the Toyotas of Joe Gibbs Racing, the Fords of Roush Fenway Racing and the Chevrolets of Richard Childress Racing all have been faster than the Hendrick cars most of this year, Earnhardt and Eury have done well to rack up 11 top-10 finishes and lead 541 laps.

Team owner Rick Hendrick suggests his team fell behind with NASCAR's new car because it was still focused on the old one last year while trying to win the championship with Johnson or Gordon.

"Everybody else was ahead of us with the new car, and nobody waited," he says.

Earnhardt and Eury weren't a package deal for Hendrick. Eury wasn't hired from Dale Earnhardt Inc. until three months after Earnhardt signed.

But it always made sense that the cousins would move over together. Eury - as crew chief or car chief - had been with Earnhardt every year of his Sprint Cup career except one, and they'd had considerable success together.

The cousins bicker and snap at each other like brothers. But they also swear by each other and push each other.

"If I feel like he's not going down the right path on any given Friday or Saturday with the car setup, we talk about it, and we talk about it in our own way," Earnhardt says. "There are times when we get together in a room, close the door and just go at it. It's great, because I don't want to go stand around the garage biting my tongue and getting angry."

Earnhardt says the fighting between the two is overblown.

"You should have heard 'Suitcase' Jake Elder and my daddy Dale Earnhardt Sr. when they were together on the Busch team in the mid '80s," Earnhardt said. "I don't remember what Jake was like when he was with Daddy on the Cup side in '79, but in the mid '80s, they went to work on the Busch car, and that lasted a week.

"So we ain't nowhere near as bad as they were."

Before Michigan, Earnhardt and Eury went more than two years without a victory. They were winless in their final 62 races at DEI and failed to make the Chase, while teammate Martin Truex Jr. did get in.

Eury says he never got too worked up about a winless streak that stretched to 76 races.

"The winless streak has not really bothered me, because I've seen him lead laps, I've seen what he's capable of doing, and we've run up front, and we've had fast, fast race cars and got caught up in accidents and stuff like that," Eury said.

Earnhardt believes in his cousin, says he'll be remembered as one of the best of all time when his career is done, and vows the two will stay together.

"There are a lot of things that you can do as a driver as you get better and older in the sport, and you become more professional in the way you talk and how you handle things," Earnhardt said. "But there's one thing that I'll never change, and that's how me and Tony Jr. work together.

"People have just got to get used to it. That is that, and we ain't going anywhere."

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT