Crew chief Tony Eury Jr. (center) said the post-race complaints by Dale Earnhardt Jr. have hurt the team at times. Credit: CIA Stock Photo

Junior's complaints don't bother team like old days

Eury says driver's post-race comments often part of his emotion

TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. wasn't happy with his car after the first practice at Talladega Superspeedway this weekend, and as often is the case he let his team know it.

"As soon as we got our car running so much better in the second practice I said this is way better than the piece of crap I was driving earlier in the day," he said with a laugh.

	Dale Earnhardt Jr. has led 500 laps at Talladega. Credit: Autostock
	Inside the Numbers Dale Jr.'s Talladega statistics Year Start Finish Status 2000 6 42 engine   3 14 running 2001 19 8 running   6 1 running 2002 4 1 running   13 1 running 2003 13 1 running   38 2 running 2004 3 2 running   10 1 running 2005 36 15 running   20 40 crash 2006 27 31 engine

His teammates don't always laugh with him on such comments.

Earnhardt has bashed them several times over the past few months after races, leaving their feelings hurt and him to apologize a day or so later.

For example:

• After the first race of the Chase at New Hampshire, Earnhardt said, "Just frustrating. I am a good driver, and when I get decent equipment and we can work on it and do right, we will go to the front. We just didn't do right today."

• After a late pit decision saved a sixth-place finish at Indianapolis in August, he said, "We can't make the Chase with 30th-place racecars."

He was equally critical after a 21st-place finish at Dover two weeks ago that dropped him to seventh in points where he is entering Sunday's race.

"These last 10 races, we went at it as we want to win as much as we can and we've come up short," crew chief Tony Eury Jr. said. "At [New Hampshire] and Dover we didn't run as good as we thought we could. He was pretty anal about it. He was going at it as he was trying to pump us up.

"Instead, he was kind of getting the guys down. They were like, 'OK, here comes the old Junior again.' We kind of had to talk to him and last week he was chilled out and we ran good all day."

Earnhardt, who was 10th last week at Kansas, understands.

"It hurts them because I go back to the shop and they say, 'Man, don't be calling my cars junk,'" he said. "It's just a word in my vocabulary I need to get used to not using so much when I'm trying to discuss my racecar.

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"They're my friends, and that's just my temperament. I have to control myself, because the guys that are sitting at home listening, they don't get it. They don't think it's that funny. They don't appreciate it."

Eury certainly doesn't because he's often left to handle the damage control.

"Those guys sit at home and listen to it ... and hear some of the comments he's got," he said. "I tell them every Monday morning take it with a grain of salt."

"All of us have been around him long enough that we know when to take him seriously."

Eury can say that now. He couldn't in 2004 when tensions were so high between him and Earnhardt that they split after the season.

Conversations often got so volatile on the radio, leading to hurt feelings that took several months to heal.

"We saved all of our tests for the end of the year," Eury recalled. "Your schedule is bad enough as it is. Then we do 10 tests in the middle of that. The whole team was pretty burnt out. We were trying to do things right, and it seemed like the harder we tried the more they went backwards.

"We were actually counting the weeks down to when it was going to be over so we could get away from it. This year we're a lot more relaxed."

Eury said he now ignores most of what Earnhardt says after a race until the two have time to talk.

"Sometimes I'll fly home with him after the race and he'll tell me what the problem was and I kind of explain things to him and he's, 'Oh, OK,'" he said.

"At Pocono he said something about how we hadn't had any motor problems all year. Well, we'd done blown up two. He was, 'Oh, I forgot about them.'"

That doesn't mean the two don't still get feisty on the radio.

"You have to," Eury said. "There's not anybody in the garage that doesn't fire off every now and then. You're only going to take so much, and some days he needs it. Some days he wants it."

Eury doesn't anticipate such problems on Sunday because Earnhardt typically is strong at Talladega, winning four consecutive and five of six at Talladega between 2001 and 2004.

He also understands DEI's restrictor-plate program isn't as strong as it was a few years ago because of changes in the motor department. Earnhardt has finished 31st, 40th and 15th in his last three starts at the 2.66-mile track. He qualified 33rd for Sunday's race.

"We're a little bit down," he said. "We've been spending most of our time trying to get our downforce motors up to par. They're there now. This is the next goal.

"But we're still one of the top cars in GM. Dale Jr. makes a lot of that happen."

And if things don't go well on Sunday, Eury is sure Earnhardt will let the team know.

"It used to frustrate me," Eury said. "You kind of overlook his personality. He'll get out and say what's right on the top of his mind. Then he'll come to the shop and say, 'Y'all take that stuff too personal.'

"You know what it is. It's just his emotion. You just have to overlook it and go on."