DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- The former crew chief for Dale Earnhardt Jr. acknowledges that the team made a costly mistake by swapping crews and cars with teammate Michael Waltrip during the offseason.
Tony Eury Sr., now the director of competition at Dale Earnhardt Inc., said Thursday that the somewhat-surprising move turned out to be detrimental for both teams in Nextel Cup competition. He was the first team member to call the changes an error.
Earnhardt, driving the No. 8 Chevrolet, has no wins, just one top-10 finish in the last eight races and sits 18th in the points. Waltrip rebounded from a rough start and has three top-10 finishes in the last six races, but is 15th in the standings.
"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," Eury said. "When you got something good I guess you should leave it alone. We won six races with him (Earnhardt) last year."
Some might believe Saturday night's Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway would offer DEI a perfect chance to turn around its disappointing season. But after winning 11 of 16 restrictor-plate races at Daytona and Talladega between 2001 and 2004, Earnhardt and Waltrip haven't been nearly as dominant this year.
Earnhardt finished third at Daytona in February and 15th at Talladega in May. Waltrip was 37th at Daytona and third at Talladega.
The crew swaps might have prompted the slide.
Earnhardt's crew, including car chief Tony Eury Jr., took all of his cars and moved to Waltrip's shop, while Pete Rondeau, who finished 2004 as Waltrip's crew chief, took his crew and cars and went to Earnhardt's shop. Rondeau was fired in May and replaced on an interim basis by Steve Hmiel, the longtime technical director at DEI.
The idea was to raise everyone's game.
Instead, it backfired.
"We know we have problems we have to fix," Eury Sr. said. "We don't want to make problems somewhere else trying to fix one problem.
"We don't need to make quick decisions. We made a quick decision and we paid for it. We're not going to make that mistake again."
