Notes: Eury ready to hand over 8 car reins to Gibson

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- Dale Earnhardt Inc. crew chief Tony Eury Jr. is down to his last two races working for the "family team" with cousin Dale Earnhardt Jr.

But Saturday afternoon at Kansas Speedway, Eury said his departure from the No. 8 Chevrolet team after next weekend's UAW-Ford 500 at Talladega Superspeedway would be an opportunity for him and his replacement, the current No. 8 car chief, Tony Gibson.

"We'd basically said if we didn't make the Chase, it might be an opportunity for Gibson to do his deal with our boys and for me to do it with Hendrick," Eury said. "I just felt like I'd be halfway comfortable if I could get to where Dale Jr. would only have to run five or six races until the end of the year.

"And all of them are like [Kansas] -- similar to here, Charlotte, Texas, Atlanta -- and those are like the places where Gibson took over when I was out [in May and June, a six-race suspension for a COT violation at Darlington]. [Gibson] knows what to do there, and it's all laid out for him, so he just needs to go to the racetrack.

"It gives me a big chance to get over there and be with [Hendrick competition director] Ken Howes and Rex [Stump, lead Hendrick engineer] and all those guys and just learn their procedures and go with [Darian] Grubb and the 25 car each week and just kind of analyze guys and see what's happening.

"I'll be [at the racetrack] every week and from what I hear I've got a lot of testing that I'll be doing early in the week and then I'll go to the racetrack. It's a pretty full plate, but that's what I told them: I've got two-and-a-half months until the biggest exam of my life, [the Daytona 500] so I've got to be ready."

Eury said he had no doubt Gibson, who won a Cup championship as Jeff Gordon's car chief at Hendrick Motorsports in 2001 before moving to DEI for the first of his two stints there, will do well -- though it pains Eury to leave a man he's close friends with.

"It's gonna be tough," Eury said. "Gibson's a great person and I really enjoyed working with him, but pretty much the way I looked at it is he came to DEI to be a crew chief, and I'm happy that he's going to get the chance to do it again.

"He kind of got in a bad situation the first time he come [in 2002 with the No. 1 car] and this is going to be a really good one. He's accustomed to all the guys and I think he's going to do great. Hopefully Regan [Smith, Gibson's planned driver] comes in and picks up on it pretty quick."

Stewart drops 'f-bomb' on live TV

Tony Stewart, who's in second place in the Chase for the Nextel Cup standings heading into Sunday's LifeLock 400 at Kansas Speedway, drew attention for a different reason Saturday morning, at the end of morning practice, which was broadcast live on ESPN2.

An ESPN camera operator, capturing general video footage with a live microphone open, caught Stewart uttering a curse word after Stewart finished a private conversation with Robby Gordon. (Continued)