Pops Eury understands pain involved with split

Think about it -- a race track should be a fountain of joy, not a puddle of pain.

For a couple family members at Dover, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his uncle, Tony Eury, there was too much of the latter.

For all the working stiffs, hanging around race tracks might be a literal steaming cauldron of pressure, deceit and devious backstabbing balanced by beautifully-executed teamwork and benevolent helping hands. But in the end you have to understand this is a darned sight better than having a real job.

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And if you're a fan "on vacation," different versions of the same scenarios apply if you have to deal with big mouths, people who might smell bad or take up too much space or who smoke or drink to excess and don't act right balanced by a fascinating cornucopia of sights, sounds and events.

And then, last weekend at Dover, we had the Earnhardt and Eury families.

Just to clarify, we're not talking about the littlest member of the families here, as painful as fourth generation driver Jeffrey Earnhardt's Nationwide Series qualifying shortfall was.

The resilience of youth is a wonderful thing. In the immediate aftermath of qualifying, in which Kerry Earnhardt's son was the only driver sent home, the youngster was nowhere to be found.

It caused a smile and brought to mind the seeming continuation of a family tradition made infamous by his grandfather, Dale Earnhardt, for whom evacuating the premises in a hurry following any result -- good, bad or indifferent -- was a given.

But according to his former DEI teammate Trevor Bayne who -- speaking of pure joy, was floating on a cloud all weekend in anticipation of his eight-race Nationwide program with Michael Waltrip that was announced Monday -- little Earnhardt was still somewhere in the Dover infield Saturday afternoon and was planning to be there Sunday, as well.

But we digress. In a lot of ways, what was mostly in evidence was just pure pain, and somehow that's not right.

And I don't wanna hear about income and getting paid well and how it comes with the territory. That doesn't cut it. No one deserves to live under a microscope, no matter how much they're getting paid.

For Earnhardt Jr., who was told by team owner Rick Hendrick on Wednesday evening that his direct working relationship with his cousin and crew chief, Tony Eury Jr., was over, the weekend was difficult at best.

At his Friday media briefing, Earnhardt Jr. looked like he had been bled nearly colorless with a demeanor as if he was attending a funeral for a dear friend.

It just wasn't fair that on Saturday, for both of them, the disconnection of the two cousins overshadowed what should have been pure joy -- a victory for the JR Motorsports Nationwide car that Junior owns with Hendrick and that Eury crew chiefs.

Instead, Eury had to talk philosophy, and give a health update on his son.

"Tony Jr. will be fine -- he's just beat down, he's worn out," the father told PRN's Steve Richards on Saturday morning. "Everything that happened on that [No. 88] team is magnified four or five times from what any other team is and he's a guy that races to win and they haven't been able to do that. It's just dragged him down, beat him down.

"They got to trying so much different stuff and everybody's pullin' this way and pullin' that way and I think he just got totally confused and off his game ... knowing that the pressure is on him, and everybody's lookin' at him. You can't turn the TV on, you can't turn the Internet on but everybody's blasting him. They tried everything in the world to make Dale Jr. happy and they haven't found it."

And so it came to this. Within the greater Hendrick Motorsports family, everyone's been hugely supportive of Eury Jr. This week he's doing a critical road course test with three-time defending Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson's team that everyone hopes might provide a missing link to Johnson's otherwise overall threat at dominance.

Pops Eury claimed his son is virtually a self-taught engineer, being unique among Hendrick's crew chiefs in that he can run simulation programs, typically the domain of engineers. Hendrick's vice president of competition, Ken Howes, said Eury Jr. wasn't their only crew chief capable of that, but that there was no debating Tony Jr.'s work ethic or ability.

It's particularly hard for Pops, because virtually his entire racing career has been spent racing with the Earnhardts -- particularly with Earnhardt Jr. at DEI when Junior won most of his 18 Cup victories. But this latest firestorm has overwhelmed bloodlines, and while that's tragic, performance still rules.

"Well, you know, I'm kind of in the middle here," Eury said with a chuckle. "I work for the guy [Earnhardt Jr.] that [Eury Jr.] was working for. I love both of them like a son -- I've got two sons there, Tony and Dale Jr. -- but I'm telling you this business is a cutthroat business.

"You've gotta stay on your game and if you're not on top of your game, they're gonna make a change. That's what makes it harder when you're family or are related in a way, so that's why I honestly think they'll be better off apart. Family is hard to work with in this business [and] if you don't perform, you're gone and the crew chief is always the first one gone.

"[Eury Jr.] will bounce back from it, I guarantee you. He's a strong guy, a smart guy -- somebody in this garage needs him, whether it's Hendrick Motorsports or whoever. He'll be back, he'll be strong and he'll win races."

But in the end, bloodlines or not, personal relationships or not -- the juniors' time as driver and crew chief in Cup is probably gone forever. Whether that's good or bad remains to be seen.

"I don't think that will ever happen," Eury said. "I don't think they have any hard feelings between each other -- they knew something had to be done, and definitely we knew who it had to be. I just don't think Tony Jr. will ever put himself in that situation again and I don't think Dale Jr. would want him in that situation either.

"It's just tough when you work for family. My whole racing career I've been involved in this Earnhardt deal and never had to really work anywhere else. It's a tough deal and when you're not running good, it's hard to fix when it's blood."

"It was no better, no worse," Earnhardt Jr. said of hearing a new voice on his radio during the Dover race. "I'm going to miss working with Tony Jr. that closely, hopefully we get to work together indirectly throughout the rest of our careers, some way, some how."

Virtually everyone at Hendrick Motorsports, including, we've been led to believe Eury Jr., wants and intends for him to stay. Pops isn't so sure, and if the father truly knows his son, one thing will be critical.

"I don't know what's going to happen," Eury said. "He's beat down pretty bad right now. When I brought him along, I had a fire in me -- he saw that fire and I worked him like a dog. That's no lie. But nobody worked harder than he did.

"My advice was to get a breath of air, stay there, but build yourself back up because he's worn out. The media has worn him out, everybody's worn him out. He's beat himself to death. You know, he stood up there for awhile -- took it pretty good -- but then it started getting to him. And when it started getting to him, it really went bad, then. It was getting to Dale Jr.

"I don't see Tony Jr. staying at an R&D team where they just race five, six or seven times a year. He's a racer and he wants to be at the race track every week and he's a winner. I think he fits in good over there, but I'm not sure he wants to be on the R&D team."

Whatever answers appear over the next few months, there's no doubt this family needs to stockpile plenty of emotions.

Busch

Kyle Busch Victory Watch

Dover was probably the low point of Busch's entire season, which suddenly has the look of his 2008 Chase swoon, marked even more by the fact he'd won Dover's spring Cup race last season; and led the most laps in both the Truck and Nationwide races at Dover and failed to win either. Given Busch's stunning 2008 NASCAR record for victories in a season, this was the first weekend that makes me think Busch in '09 won't eclipse his total of 21 wins (eight Cup, 10 Nationwide, three Truck).

As the Shrub continues to battle his post-disappointment emotional issues -- just maddening because the tire troubles that derailed both secondary series' effort were out of his control -- and it would be no less great to get his insight, it's still eight down, 14 to go.

His 2008 win total at this point was 10, so now the crunch intensifies, as three consecutive commuter weekends begin with Busch this weekend flying between Pocono and Nashville, a place where Busch's frustration boiled over last season.