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Eury returns as a new man
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| Though Tony Eury Jr. had a bad split from his cousin, he still plans to go hunting with him later in the year. (Nam Y. Huh / Associated Press) |
"Welcome to dark side," joked team owner Tommy Baldwin as he passed by to his trailer in the back end of the Cup garage, where the media spotlight seldom shines.
And after nearly a dozen seasons of carrying the pressure of Junior's performance on his shoulders, returning to the racetrack with racing up-and-comer Brad Keselowski is a relief both professionally and personally for Eury.
Still, he misses the experience of working with Earnhardt, his cousin, but admits their professional relationship deteriorated to the point of no return.
"In no way shape or form was I going to let this racing deal get between us," Eury said. "It was a job, I enjoyed being around Dale Jr. — still do. He's family and we go deeper than this racing deal.
"I've always wanted him to have the opportunity, if he has to be with somebody else, if that brings him up a scale then I've always been for that."
The late Dale Earnhardt and Eury's father, Tony Sr., who is Keselowski's crew chief at JR Motorsports in the Nationwide Series, dreamed of the next generation carrying on the family's racing legacy.
After Earnhardt died in 2001, there was no one left to steer that vision — and no one to protect his son from the off-track demands and distractions.
"Losing Dale Sr. was a big hit on all three of us and we were trying everything we could to make Dale Jr. successful and it just wasn't enough," Eury said.
For the next two seasons, Earnhardt fought to come to terms with the loss of his father. After all, attracting Senior's attention through racing had initially been at the center of Junior's motivation.
By 2003, Earnhardt was back on track. He finished a career-high third in the standings. In 2004, Earnhardt scored three victories in the first 18 races before enduring second-degree burns during an American Le Mans Series race at Sonoma. Through perseverance, Earnhardt soldiered back to finish fifth in the championship. Despite that successful campaign, which also included six wins and an average finish of 12.1, Teresa Earnhardt separated the cousins at the end of the season.
Once again, Earnhardt was surrounded in a sea of drama.
Pete Rondeau was named crew chief for the 2005 season. Junior finished third in the Daytona 500 — but it was downhill from there. Rondeau was replaced by Steve Hmiel in May. Although he would go on to win six weeks later at Chicagoland, Earnhardt's season was in a tailspin and led to a reunion with Eury by September. Still, he never overcame his point deficit and finished a career low 19th in the standings.
Earnhardt returned to the Chase in 2006 and finished fifth with one win, 10 top-fives and 17 top-10 finishes, but with a contract year approaching, his boss/stepmom questioned her marquee driver's commitment to racing.
"Right now the ball's in his court to decide on whether he wants to be a NASCAR driver or whether he wants to be a public personality," Teresa Earnhardt said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
While the stepmother/stepson dynamic had never been warm and fuzzy between the Earnhardts, the comments stung. Junior's focus turned toward his future, not the present. And who could blame him? At Dale Earnhardt Inc. his engines were blowing up at the rate of every sixth race that season.
A new contract with Hendrick Motorsports — for Earnhardt and Eury in 2008 — was a chance for a new start and independence.
After winning the 2008 Bud Shootout and the Gatorade Duel qualifier for the Daytona 500, the bar was set high. Still, the question loomed, when will the No. 88 win a points race? The answer came at Michigan on Father's Day. Earnhardt was fourth entering the Chase. He finished the season 12th in the standings following a crash at Talladega and a parts failure at Homestead.
Instead of the 2009 season offering promise for the Juniors, the expectations simply mounted. The criticism followed after a crash in the Daytona 500 and an engine failure at Auto Club Speedway dropped the team to 35th in the points standings.
Rick Hendrick sat the cousins down at Las Vegas. Earnhardt responded with a top-10 result in Sin City and finishes of 14th or better in the next three races. Earnhardt delivered a season-high — and predictable — second-place finish at Talladega followed by a season-low 40th in front of the hometown stands at Charlotte.
That's when the decision was made to bring Lance McGrew in as crew chief.
At the time, Eury said his feelings were mixed. The weight and responsibility of being crew chief for a guy that won Most Popular Driver seven years straight had been lifted. The selfless side of Eury, who feels more like a brother to Earnhardt than a cousin, was disappointed in himself for not being able to do more.
"I think a lot of people put him on a pedestal that he doesn't need to be on," Eury said. "They put a lot of pressure on him to be somebody that he's not going to be. Dale Jr. is a great race car driver, but I just think that he's got so much pressure on him that he doesn't enjoy it right now. That's what I told him, 'Man, you just need to start enjoying yourself more,' and that's kind of where I was at.
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"You get blasted in the media and you have to go home and my wife wouldn't even watch the race. You would come home and she would ask where we finished because she doesn't want to sit there and hear the negativity on it. I fought it for a long time and at some point in time you have to weigh it and ask if it's worth it. It wasn't and it took me a couple weeks to figure that out."
Tony Gibson, who is the crew chief for Ryan Newman on the No. 39 and was the car chief for Eury, considers his friend a great crew chief.
"When those two were focused on racing, there was nobody better in the sport," Gibson said. "Any time you mix family together, there's going to be issues. I know that first hand (from racing with his brother Mark in ARCA).
"They're with a winning organization. Getting those two out of their comfort zone will make both of them stronger. It was better to separate them now than ruining them in the long run."
Eury admits the relationship had just run its course. Since Dover he's been "chillin'" atop his John Deere tractor on the farm. He lightened his honey-do list which had been neglected over the last 16 years. And last Sunday before the Daytona race, he texted Junior to wish him well.
"There are definitely some things that happened and evolved that brought us to this point," Eury said. "It was time. There is no other way to put it. We just needed to try something different.
"Dale Jr. is not getting any younger, so let's give him the opportunity to work with somebody else. Definitely the road we were going down, it wasn't a bed of roses so let's try something different."
The cousins haven't spent considerable time together over the last six weeks since Eury has worked a more traditional schedule and Earnhardt is away at the track. But the cousins plan to catch up during hunting trips planned for November and December.
For now, Eury is content to work with Keselowski. He's grateful to Hendrick for giving him a position where he can "have a little bit more fun and do a little bit more" in the research and development department.
"He's going to do great things," Earnhardt said of Eury. "A lot of people know what a great crew chief he is and he's going to prove that to everybody — probably in a very short period of time.
"I'm glad he's back at the racetrack. Hopefully, he gets him a steady job and a motor coach and we get to spend some more time together. All kidding aside, he's handled the personal pressure very well."
Despite years of ridicule from a segment of fans and the media, Eury is proud of what he's been able to accomplish in racing. The encouragement he's received from his peers in the garage has helped the healing process tremendously.
"These guys in here know what I'm about and what I can do — that means more to me than anything else that will ever go on in my life," Eury said. "I'm satisfied with everything that I've done and the way it went down and just looking forward to something new, just to try something different."
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