Rick Hendrick and Dale Earnhardt Jr. -- Just what went wrong...and do they have a good game plan to fix it?

  
Rick Hendrick's men: (L-R) Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmie Johnson, Hendrick, Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)

  
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   DOVER, Del.
   So the most popular driver in NASCAR isn't performing, isn't winning, isn't even in the game.
   What do you do?
   Well, naturally you fire his crew chief.
   It's the old NFL game – you can't fire the quarterback, you can't fire the team, so you fire the coach.
   Now Rick Hendrick's decision Thursday to give Dale Earnhardt Jr. a new crew chief and "reassign" Tony Eury Jr. doesn't come as much of a surprise. After all Earnhardt's only win over the last three-plus years was a gas mileage win at Michigan last summer, where he and Eury turned a 24th place car into a winner by a judicious pit stop.
   Hendrick built two of the best teams in NASCAR – Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus, and Jeff Gordon and Steve Letarte. The pressure, he said, was on him to make this thing work.
   But it's not.
   And it hasn't for a long time.
   Dale Earnhardt Jr. may be a great guy, a really good guy, in a sport where good guys are few and far between.
  But suddenly Earnhardt appears to have lost confidence…confidence that his buddy Eury Jr. hasn't been able to rebuild.
   Earnhardt could have taken a ride with Richard Childress, which in retrospect might have been the better option.
   But he wanted to measure himself against the best in the business, and he's got the best equipment in the business.
   Lance McGrew is now in the unenviable position of having to make Junior a winner.
   It's a no-win proposition.
   "It just seems the harder we work, the further off we get," Hendrick said Thursday. "It became very obvious we just needed to make a change."
  

  Crew chief Tony Eury Jr. (L) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  
  

In the last few weeks something suddenly seemed to fail.
   Maybe Earnhardt gave up on himself – NASCAR drivers are notoriously hard on themselves when thing don't go right. Even his old man had moments, months even, of self-doubt.
   But Earnhardt happens to be the most popular driver in the sport.
   Even Tony Stewart has had rough times in this sport, times when his entire team turned against him.
   This is a tough business.
   Right how the burden is on Earnhardt to get back in the game.
  And the burden is on Hendrick to put Tony Eury Jr. in the right situation.
   "I do want to emphasize one thing," Hendrick says. "I've read, and heard some stories, that Tony Eury Jr. was fired. That’s not true.
    "The guy’s got tremendous talent. I think a lot of him. I wanted him to be a part of our organization for a long, long time.
   "He has accepted a new role in the R&D department. His job now is to try and help us win a championship…with all the teams."
   Whether that works out is yet to be seen.
   Hendrick has put a good man in the role: Lance McGrew will be the "interim crew chief," whatever that means.
   "And Lance has done a super job," Hendrick says. "He has worked with Dale, and they've had success together in the Nationwide car.
   "He won this year with Tony Stewart at Daytona.
    "Lance is a super-strong crew chief, really a field general who does a great job calling a race.
     "We're pulling out all the stops. We're going to do everything we can to get this team to where it needs to be."
   Uh, but just what was the problem?
   Gordon is leading the points, Johnson has won three straight championships….and newcomer Mark Martin has already won two races this season.
   Equipment is not the issue, or engineering.
   "It's hard to put your fingers on what the problem is," Hendrick said. "We just feel with all the frustration, we just need a fresh start."
   Nothing wrong with that.
   But the question is not Tony Eury Jr. The question is Dale Earnhardt Jr.
   Earnhardt will turn 35 this fall. His dedication to this sport and his job is not questioned….though in recent weeks things have just gone downhill too fast.
   "Dale is plenty tough enough, he has done everything I've asked him to do," Hendrick says.
   "He's on a workout program now. He's engaged with the engineers.
    "It is just the simple fact that we're showing up and not able to run like we think we should.
    "For whatever reason we just missed it somewhere.
    "He knows how to drive a race car. He's mentally tough enough to get the job done."
   It's just the mounting frustration, Hendrick says, that he is trying to address.
   "That's why we're going through this change -- to see if we can't spark some magic," Hendrick says.
   "The load that Dale Earnhardt carries on his shoulders I would not want. Not for all the publicity, for all the "most popular," or all the money, or whatever. I would not want that much heat on me.
    "The same for Tony Eury Jr.
   "Tony has had some of the toughest skin, to take some of the things he's taken from fans, media, everybody.
    "You've got all that pressure on you, and you've gotten frustrated, and you've got to handle it in front of the world.
    "You just get wound up so tight it's hard to do your job."
     Just giving Earnhardt a new crew chief will probably not resolve the issues, Hendrick realizes.
     Perhaps Hendrick should have done with Earnhardt what he's done with Tony Stewart – give him the tools, and let him see what he can do…without all the pressure of being teammate with Gordon and Johnson.
    Maybe Hendrick has been too sidetracked with all the General Motors issues, the dealership issues and all that, to pay enough attention to the game at hand. Hendrick missed Gordon's breakthrough win at Texas, he missed Mark Martin's breakthrough win at Phoenix….
    "I was convinced a few weeks ago that we were going to be fine," Hendrick said.
    "I was convinced we were going to have a good Charlotte…."
    And yet last weekend's Charlotte race was nothing but a disaster.
    Hendrick concedes "Now I've got a new kind of pressure -- whether I made a mistake.
    "I feel relieved because I feel we've got a new direction.
    "…but this is a professional sport, and we're supposed to be pros, and we're supposed to be the best when you get this level.
    "We're supposed to be able to handle a certain amount of pressure.
    "We're big boys, and we've just got to go get it done."
   
   

   
Dale Earnhardt Jr. and car owner Rick Hendrick (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)