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Hendrick Staying With Earnhardt-Eury Team

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 28, 2009

Team owner Rick Hendrick won't split Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his embattled crew chief despite their slow start to the season.

Tony Eury Jr. has always been under intense scrutiny as the crew chief for NASCAR's most popular driver, but it has hit a new level this year as the No. 88 team has just one top-10 finish through five races. Earnhardt heads to Martinsville Speedway this weekend ranked 19th in the standings.

Earnhardt and Eury, who are cousins, have worked together in some form for all but a portion of the 2005 season.

Because the two bickered so much at the end of 2004, they were split the next season by Earnhardt's stepmother, Teresa. The results were disastrous for Earnhardt, who had the worst season of his nine-year career, and they were reunited with 10 races left in the year.

Earnhardt decided in 2007 to leave Dale Earnhardt Inc. for Hendrick Motorsports, and Eury negotiated a release from his contract to leave with him. But results have been mixed: they've combined for one victory, and despite running strong all of last season, they faded during the Chase for the Sprint Cup and finished last in the 12-driver field.

The disappointing close to their first season with Hendrick reignited the simmering Eury debate among Earnhardt's enormous fan base, and it has escalated early in this season.

BERNSTEIN SEARCHES FOR SPONSORSHIP

The world looks a little different to Kenny Bernstein these days.

After 30 years banking on Budweiser as the sponsor of his National Hot Rod Association team, the longtime drag racing star and team owner is sponsor hunting.

And he couldn't have found a tougher time to do it.

"We'll go hard at trying to find a major sponsor," Bernstein said. "Everybody knows what the business climate is right now, but the thing will keep going."

Bernstein, a six-time champion, remains the only driver to have won multiple titles in both Funny Cars and Top Fuel dragsters, and he was the first driver to exceed 300 mph in competition. But this is a different challenge than he has faced before.

Bernstein, who also owned teams in NASCAR and Champ Car in the late 1980s and early 1990s, said the decision announced last week by the St. Louis division of Anheuser-Busch InBev, which makes Budweiser beer, to end its NHRA sponsorship was not the shock that some people thought.

"Look at the economy," Bernstein said. "And a new company Belgian brewer InBev bought Anheuser-Busch. So it didn't surprise me."

IRS: CASTRONEVES OWES $2.3M IN TAXES

Brazilian race car driver and "Dancing With the Stars" winner Helio Castroneves owes more than $2.3 million in U.S. taxes because of unreported income and improper deductions over a five-year period, an Internal Revenue Service agent testified Friday at his tax evasion trial.

The total, IRS agent Joann Levitt said, "is everything that should have been on the tax returns but wasn't."

Defense lawyers are expected to begin their case early next week but have not said whether Castroneves will testify. The two-time Indianapolis 500 winner has previously said he paid little attention to his financial affairs and relied on professionals to handle them.

BOSS EXPECTS 26 CARS FOR F1 IN 2010

Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone says 26 cars will be on the starting grid next year, and a medals system will determine the championship.

Ecclestone said at least three new teams, including American entry USF1, are confirmed for the 2010 season.

There are 10 teams and 20 cars on the grid for this week's season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.

Ecclestone declined to divulge any information about the teams he has contacted.

Tribune wires

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