JOLIET, Ill. -- When the decision was made for Tony Eury Jr. to follow Dale Earnhardt Jr. to Hendrick Motorsports as Earnhardt's crew chief late in the 2007 Cup season, Eury couldn't wait to get to the race track and start his new job.

The sky seemed the limit.

Check that. There didn't seem to be a limit to what the pair were going to be able to accomplish for their new employer.

Eury told team owner Rick Hendrick he was coming into his new job "with all the confidence in the world."

Former driving champion-turned-television announcer Darrell Waltrip predicted the Eury-Earnhardt tandem would win the season-opening 2008 Daytona 500 and "at least six more races" during their first season together under the Hendrick banner. When asked about this lofty prognostication, neither Hendrick nor Earnhardt blanched. They agreed, in fact, that it sounded about right.

Like most everyone else, they were wrong.

The Eury-Earnhardt team won one race at Hendrick, in June of '08, at Michigan. When they matched their struggles at the end of last season from the outset this season, Hendrick eventually felt he had to pull the plug on the long-time, on-track partnership between cousins.

And when Eury was relieved of his duties as crew chief for Earnhardt six weeks ago, he couldn't get away from the race track fast enough or far enough at first.

"You know, I've just been chillin' a lot, kind of spending some time with the wife," Eury Jr. said. "I haven't done that in a real long time, so I'm kind of enjoying that.

"Basically, I would say the first two or three weeks, I didn't even watch a race." (Continued)