Making car better is more than just crew chief's job

Maybe it's because he looks comfortable in a camouflage ball cap and speaks with a good-'ol-boy twang. Maybe it's because he doesn't have an engineering degree or a reputation as a mechanical genius. Maybe it's because he calls the shots for NASCAR's most popular driver, representative of a fan base for whom nothing is ever enough.

Regardless, the pit box must seem like anything but a pedestal these days for Tony Eury Jr. A botched call that might have cost the No. 88 team a shot to win at Watkins Glen, cars that seem to be great early but rarely get better, a middling position in a Chase filled with other drivers making more dramatic moves -- it all adds up to heat for Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s crew chief. Sure, he helped snap that ugly two-year winless streak, got his driver into the Chase, and has Junior lined up for his best points finish since 2006. But the masses want more. There isn't another person in NASCAR who catches such criticism for performing consistently well.

Because really, that's what Eury has done. The ill-informed out there like to dismiss him as the weak link in the chain, when in actuality Eury's touch with the new car has set the stage for everything Earnhardt has accomplished this year. Remember, it was the crew chief who made the move from Dale Earnhardt Inc. to Hendrick Motorsports weeks before last season ended, allowing him to learn the ways of his new organization and lay the groundwork for a season that would see Earnhardt return to his place among the sport's elite.

Yet still he's a pariah, the one blamed for every shortcoming, the one faulted every time a car that was in first place midway through a race winds up sixth or seventh. Here he is, with a driver running for the championship, and based on public perception you'd think he was struggling to stay inside the top 35. There's a sizable segment of Junior Nation out there that wants a risk-taker, wants a mechanical mastermind, wants someone else. It's as if Eury is the coach of a college football program that's winning, but not winning quite enough to satisfy a booster club whose aspirations don't quite mesh with reality.

Well, reality settled in Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, and it came in the form of car owner Rick Hendrick -- who in so many words told Earnhardt to quit complaining and start giving his crew chief better information over the radio. He did it in his own way, of course, that genteel, fatherly manner that made it sound less like an order and more like advice. In radio conversations with Earnhardt and comments made later to the media, Hendrick mentioned Eury's name only sparingly. But it all came across as a tacit endorsement of a crew chief whose shortcomings may stem from the fact that he's not getting enough help.

"I know Tony will be better, and can help him more if [Earnhardt] is calmer when he is giving him information," Hendrick said. "When you say, 'I am so loose, I am so loose,' but you have to talk a little bit about your drive off and your entry so you know if you are going to fix one, are you going to hurt something else? I have had the benefit of listening to a lot of drivers over the years."

Seven championship rings carry a certain degree of clout. "To my knowledge," Hendrick said, "I have never had [a driver] that gave us good information when he was on the chip."

And Earnhardt was certainly on the chip Sunday, unhinged by the way his car reacted to a set of tires. Predictably, a car that led 79 laps wound up fifth. "If you let things get to you, you will not win this Chase," Hendrick said. "If you turn all the negatives into positives, if you have a bad race, if you go back and say, how can we be a little bit better in every category, whether it is chassis, motor, pit crew, whatever. Those are the guys that are going to win it. It is just like a basketball game, guys lead, lead, lead and choke. You can't choke, and that is what I am trying to get them not to do, is choke."

Calming voice

Rick Hendrick talked Dale Earnhardt Jr. off the ledge Sunday at New Hampshire, but he also reminded his driver to stop complaining and relay a little more information.

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That means providing useful information over the radio rather than complaining. After all, no crew chief can make a car better if a driver can't accurately convey what's wrong with it. "It's extremely tough for a crew chief," said Robbie Loomis, now vice president at Petty Enterprises, and formerly a championship crew chief at Hendrick. "You can watch the lap times of a driver in a race, and it's almost like watching a heart monitor. When their heart rate gets up, and they start telling you the thing's messed up and cussing and ranting and raving, their lap times are going slower, slower, slower. As soon as they settle down a little bit in the car, they'll come back. They might not get all the way back to where the car was right."

Now, none of this is to be taken as in indictment of Earnhardt as a driver; there's a reason the guy has won 18 times on the Sprint Cup circuit, and has a chance at his fourth career finish inside the top five in final points. But among the faithful, the burden has always seemed to be on Eury to push all the right buttons, to make it happen, to provide Earnhardt with all the tools the driver needs to win. Sunday's events served as a reminder that, when it comes to making the car better, the driver bears a degree of responsibility as well.

"That should serve as definitely a wake-up call to Dale to approach things a little bit different. He might not want to admit it, but I'm sure that's a big part of why Dale went there, the respect he has for Mr. Hendrick. When he speaks, everyone takes notice," Loomis said.

"I'm sure Rick followed up this week with him in the right way. They're all after the same thing, and I'm sure that's the important thing. Nobody wants that championship more than Dale Jr., and nobody wants it more for Dale Jr. than Rick Hendrick. He can change now. Can he come all the way to the person that I would like to see him or Rick would like to see him? Probably not. But if he just gets 10 percent better, that might be the difference in that extra three points they need to win the championship."

So let's ease off Tony Jr. a little bit here. No question, he's a little conservative by nature, and the one instance this season where he really tried to roll the dice -- at Watkins Glen -- completely backfired. But he's smarter than people give him credit for. He knows his driver, having been associated in some way with all but one of Earnhardt's career race wins. And most importantly, he has the faith and backing of the man behind the wheel.

"He is a really, really good crew chief, and he has done a lot for me and other drivers in this sport," Earnhardt said recently. "He has helped a lot of crew members and taught a lot of things to a lot of different guys as he has come up. He is not a real volatile personality, and he is not the kind of personality that you probably expect to have on this type of team, with this magnitude of a team. He is just a good 'ol guy, you know? I wish it was different for him, but oh well. He is pretty tough, and I feel like when it comes down to it, he will prove to everybody, yeah, we are human, we make mistakes. But he is damn sure the guy for the job in my opinion."

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.