| | I'D SAY SO | Eury believes early move to Hendrick is paying off for Jr. | |
| | By Rea White / SceneDaily.com Tony Eury Jr. sees it as a huge asset. Last season, instead of finishing the year with driver Dale Earnhardt Jr., he moved over to Hendrick Motorsports in October.
He started learning the ropes at the company, preparing himself for the adjustment and getting ready for the team's debut this season.
Now, after six races, Earnhardt Jr. has more top-10 finishes than any other driver this season and his team is fourth in the standings.
Apparently, the move is paying off.
“It was a huge deal for me to come over here early,” Eury says.
He said that he got to watch how the crew chiefs at Hendrick interact with their engineers, to learn the way things at Hendrick work and all the people there. Before this season even started, he’d developed a strong relationship with the engineers at Hendrick, giving him an advantage.
He says he now has some of the same types of relationships he had with the men he worked with at Dale Earnhardt Inc., where he worked with Earnhardt Jr. in various roles for eight seasons.
“All the guys, I think I got their confidence level just knowing who they are, what they’re looking for, what kind of people they are,” he says. “It opened my eyes to a whole different way of approaching this deal before I got here. There’s no way I could have come over here in December and learned in a month’s time what I’ve learned in three months. It’s been a pretty huge deal and we went through it and changed some things.”
When Earnhardt Jr. arrived at Hendrick, he had a team ready for him.
Still, the group is a bit surprised to have started the year as well as it has. Earnhardt Jr. has not yet won a points race, he has a top-10
finish in five of the opening six races, three of them top-fives. He’s led laps in four of the races and, excepting an early crash at California Speedway, has consistently been among the leaders week to week.
While the team had high hopes for the year, Eury Jr. says that he’s been surprised by this level of competitiveness.
“I wanted to be this good. I can’t say that I expected to be this good, but I was wanting to be this good,” he says. “… It’s kind of like I told Dale last year, if we go to Hendrick Motorspors and we just do what we’ve always done, we’re going to be competitive, but if we go over there and let them teach us and we do processes and we’ve got stronger people around us, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be a better race team. And that’s what I
told him.
"… Honestly, you just went into it thinking I’ve got to go over there and do exactly what I’ve been doing because I was competitive, but
I’ve got to step up and take what these guys give me and make it better and that’s why we’re in the position we’re in now.”
Although only six races have passed, they’re already thinking about a championship run. Earnhardt Jr. spoke earlier this season about his desire to be in the top-12 in the standings – the group that will make the Chase For The NASCAR Sprint Cup – all season. Eury Jr. is eyeing it as well. While he doesn’t feel additional pressure to make the championship field, Eury Jr. sees making the Chase as simply a part of his job.
“I feel like if we don’t make the Chase, I haven’t done my job,” Eury Jr. says. “Honestly. That’s what your job is to make the Chase and run for a championship, so if we don’t make the Chase, we feel like we haven’t done our jobs. There’s no reason, with Dale Jr.’s talent and the stuff that we have, there’s no reason we should not be in the Chase. … What kept us positive is we were running top-five, top-10 every week.”
Through the years, Earnhardt Jr. and Eury have learned a lot about one another. Although they've worked closely together for years, they’ve adapted and evolved in the way they understand one another. No matter how well they know one another, the relationship still grows.
“I think you’re always learning,” Eury says. “You’re always learning and we’re both maturing, you’re seeing more, you’re understanding each other better, and that comes with every team in the garage. The more you’re around people, the more you understand them … the more you know how they’re going to think."
Unfortunately, fans sometimes do not. From time to time, fans have questioned calls the team has made, even gone so far as to question whether Eury and Earnhardt Jr. should remain together. The driver plans to end that type of speculation with an online question and answer forum on his Web site – one that will feature Eury in its first appearance.
“The fans are real hard on Tony Jr.,” Earnhardt Jr. says. “He doesn’t really have a voice. He doesn’t get to come in here and get the chance of having that question asked so he can answer it and so [media] can print it and the fans can read it.
"He doesn’t have that voice, you know? … He understands and he’s experienced it before, but it’s definitely magnified moreso now, either due to the press we’ve gained from making our change and whatnot and how much everybody has focused in on what we’re doing and how we’re doing. Even though there are bigger stories throughout the year, people do keep an eye on us.”
So Earnhardt Jr. asked his crew chief how he was handling that, saying that Eury has “pretty thick skin. He knows the drill. He took the blunt of a lot of blows when we were wearing red uniforms.
“I feel bad for him because like you say, he’s up there on top of that box and he’s got to make the call and he knows either way that he’s going to have some people that are going to be critical of his choice. But he’s my crew chief and I need him to be clear-minded when he’s up there making those calls.”
Earnhardt Jr. believes that he is. And to any fans that might question their relationship, he has one response: Eury is just what he needs.
“What it comes down to is, as long as it’s my choice, he’s my crew chief. That’s my cousin,” Earnhardt Jr. says. “I enjoy racing with him and winning races and poles and getting top fives with him. I enjoy helping him be happier and get things he wants; material things in life, whether it’s land, his house, tractors and bobcats; whatever he enjoys. I enjoy helping him accumulate those things.
“And I enjoy working with him on the weekends. We’ve gone too far to learn that and gain that with someone else. I don’t think I would ever have that close relationship with someone else. So as long as it’s up to me, that will be the way it is. I think we’re a great team and I don’t want to race against him, ‘cause he’ll whip you. He’s good. I don’t want him taking some other guy and running circles around me.”
Right now, though, no one is running circles around this team. Part of the reason for that is the relationship between the driver and the
crew chief. But another key element may be that Eury opted to head over to Hendrick a little early last year.
“I would say at least, it would have probably took twice as long, I’d say at race 10 we would be running like we are now," Eury says. "It just takes that little bit of time. … I’ve run across some things that have helped us out quite a bit and it’s just got us on the right track to be consistent.”
| | Posted April 06, 2008 , 10:26 pm EST
Last Updated April 07, 2008 , 9:55 pm EST | | | | | | |
