Tony Eury Jr. and Dale Earnhardt Jr. are back together in 2006. Credit: Autostock

Shop Talk: Tony Eury Jr.

Tony Eury Jr. took a break in his Talladega preparations to talk about where the No. 8 team's season is in relation to its goals, why they have excelled at Talladega and how new NASCAR rules might affect strategy:

Tony, you and Dale Jr. "reacquainted" yourselves with each other, if you will, at the end of last season with some success. So how would you assess your 2006 season, to this point?

	Stats at a Glance Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Talladega Race St. Fin. Laps Status 2000 6 42 113 engine 2000 3 14 188 running 2001 19 8 188 running 2001 6 1 188 running 2002 4 1 188 running 2002 13 1 188 running 2003 13 1 188 running 2003 38 2 188 running 2004 3 2 188 running 2004 10 1 188 running 2005 36 15 193 running 2005 20 40 19 crash

Eury: We've done everything we've wanted to do. We came into the season and we wanted to finish with top 10s at [Las] Vegas and California.

We're coming into a stretch now where we feel like we're really comfortable with the tracks, and that we can possibly get a win -- or get top fives pretty easy.

In our first 10 races this season we really wanted to come out of the box strong, be in the top five in points and we're knocking on the door on every one of our goals.

It's looking back a few weeks, but what did the race at Martinsville -- where your car was involved in a wreck on the second lap but came back with a top-five finish -- mean not only to your team's growth, but Dale Jr.'s growth as well?

Eury: It means the world because it just shows how good the quality of the team that we have, is.

It shows that mixing the two teams from last year [Earnhardt's 8 and Michael Waltrip's 15], together, has worked. At Martinsville, nobody lost their head and everybody did the job that they needed to do.

And that's what it takes to win a championship. You're going to have bad days, and [to win championships] you have to be able to turn those days around and turn them into something positive.

That was just one occurrence when it happened early in the year, and hopefully we can all thrive off of it for the rest of the year.

As well as you've run in the points so far -- and as you say, you're waiting to get through 10 races to see where you stand -- would it be safe to say the best is yet to come for this race team?

Eury: I think so. I think we're getting better and better every week. The pieces of the puzzle are coming together.

We're fine-tuning the motor department, the bodies and our set-ups. I think we're still getting notes together, though.

It's real easy for a team like the 48 [Jimmie Johnson] or the 20 [Tony Stewart] to come in from last year, having all their notes, after being in title contention all year -- and now they're just playing on their notebook, here.

We're still building ours to get reacquainted so the best is yet to come.

Dale Jr. all year has said his cars have been better this year than last year's. So from a crew chief's point of view, where are your cars in relation to where they're going to be, from a development standpoint -- and how much better can you make them?

Eury: We can make them a ton better. I mean, the motor department has got a lot to strive for and I've got a lot to strive for.

For many years, I've concentrated just on speedway cars and not really that much on our downforce stuff, but I've really buckled down on myself and said I was going to get the best downforce cars.

So that's what I'm really working hard to do. Set-up-wise, every day there's a new innovation coming out, and the 9 car [Kasey Kahne] is the perfect example of that.

They've got some real trick stuff going on that looks really good. We've got to figure that out and we've got to catch up to those guys -- but at the same time, we've got to come up with something new.

As far as you and Dale and the team are concerned, is Talladega coming at just the right time in the season?

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Eury: Yeah, I mean, Talladega is pretty cool. You know, we run pretty well there, but speedway racing, you run it only four times a year.

We run good there, and I'd say three-quarters of it is [Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s] driving talent. We've just got to make sure that the cars and the motors are up to the level to perform up to his standards.

Given that, could you run plate racetracks every other week -- or do you not quite want to do that?

Eury: No. As good as we run there, I really don't. The amount of work that goes into a speedway car and just the preparation of every part of it [is intense].

The whole week of getting ready for Talladega is a real pain but we really need to concentrate on the other [32 or 33] races where we can really make up points, and that really shows the difference [between race teams].

With what we saw at Daytona, there appear to be a couple other people to contend with on plate tracks, such as Casey Mears or Clint Bowyer -- or can you not eliminate anyone in the field as a contender?

Eury: Yeah, you have to look at it that way. Everybody is a contender -- but you've got a few of them that can draft. You've got the Jeff Gordons -- guys like that, that know what they're doing.

Those are the guys that you're going to race, no matter what kind of car they have. There are some rookies coming in that have good motors and good bodies and they're starting to show up.

Credit: Autostock

And I think we're off a little bit on our motor program, so if we get our motor program back up to snuff where we need to be -- and I know we're going to get there -- we'll be fine.

Which racecar are you going to take to Talladega, and what's its history? And have you made any refinements to it, since Daytona?

Eury: We're going to take the same car that we had at Daytona. That car blew extremely well in the wind tunnel when we took it down there.

The only thing we've done to it is the modifications that NASCAR wanted to the front bumper -- which shouldn't be that big of a deal.

When you've got a car like that, you fluff and buff on it all year and you pick up a little bit here and there. But the biggest deal is, we're really working hard to get our plate motor program back up.

Exactly what has NASCAR mandated for the front of the car, as you'll implement it?

Eury: A lot of us had steel plates and a lot of reinforcement bars for the front bumpers.

They've actually gone to a two-bar system in the front, and the two bumper bars have got to be six inches apart. I think you can only have, I think it's an inch-and-3/4 diameter tubing, with only three uprights and one main support coming off of the frame, to hold the bumper.

What's it's done is take a lot of support out of the center of it, so if you're going to ram somebody really, really hard you're going to mess up the nose.

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But it shouldn't be a really big difference for a lot of people.

In your opinion, will it fix the issue of bump drafting?

Eury: No, it won't. I mean, if a guy hits way too hard he might cause his car to run a little bit hotter, but you're not going to fix the bump drafting issue.

It's too much of an advantage and I think the rear bumpers have got more to do with the bump drafting incidents than the front bumpers do.

They've made the rear bumpers so stiff that they're like a door bar -- and when you hit them, you're going to move the guy in front of you.

People have just got to learn how to use the technique. There are a lot of rookies that come in here and just see it on television and they just want to knock the person right in front of them.

The people just need to calm down and use it how they know they should.