Letarte not afraid to push Dale Jr.

CONCORD, N.C.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. wishes the 2011 season had never ended.

Statistically it wasn’t the best year for Earnhardt, but he finally found the first crew chief since Tony Eury Sr. that he could respect — Steve Letarte.

Earnhardt needs discipline, and Letarte is insistent on providing it.

“I never really had anyone ask much of me as far as a crew chief goes — just be there with your helmet and be ready to drive when it's time to drive,” Earnhardt said. “But he’s asked me to do other things separate of the driving job itself. And I think that helps him to do his job better. He’s got expectations of me as a driver and things I need to do to help him become a better crew chief for the team.”

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Certainly, Earnhardt had never experienced early-morning meetings. Neither had he spent the entire day inside of the transporter with his team. In past years, once practice ended, Earnhardt could not wait to return to his motor coach, which had become his sanctuary at the track. But the more time he spent with Letarte and the team, the more he “found that place to be enjoyable and I wanted to be there."

Earnhardt knew as early as last March, when he finished eighth at Las Vegas, that team owner Rick Hendrick had made the right decision pairing him with Letarte. The cars were solid and he felt instantly he could depend on Letarte and the team. But the regimen was different than anything Earnhardt had been accustomed to.

“He had different expectations of his drivers,” Earnhardt said. “He wanted you on time, he wanted you early — here, there, doing things. He expected you to give back feedback, written forms of how you thought the race went and such, and I’d never done those things before. I was glad to conform, to do whatever he needed me to do.

“Hopefully, this year, his expectations of me don’t change — and he’s vocal about it.”

Letarte thoroughly believes in his driver. He entered last season with an open mind and drew his own conclusions. Since the project began at the end of November 2010, Letarte has embraced rebuilding Earnhardt's program — and his confidence. And he insists, “The day I back off from him and don’t demand what I need to win races is the day I’m not his crew chief.

“In the 14 months that I’ve been his crew chief, there’s never been a day where I’ve questioned his desire to go to the racetrack and win races,” Letarte said. “As far as what I ask of him — I’m not going to give you the whole list. I guess that’s kind of my job. I ask him to be a part of the team, no different than I’d ask an engineer or a tire changer. He has a responsibility to the race team, no different than I do, and if I feel more interaction with the team would help, then I ask for more interaction. If I feel a post-race form is going to help, then I ask him to do that. I treat him no different than I would critique a tire changer. He’s a superstar. He obviously is Dale Earnhardt Jr. We all know that. But I’ve been raised since a very, very young age by my father that he’s just a race car driver. He’s no different than me. He just drives. I would expect no more or no less from him than I would expect from anyone on the team.

"I’ve noticed that with all great drivers. Jeff (Gordon) used to tell me the same thing: ‘Treat me as you feel I need to be treated; don’t treat me (differently) because I’m Jeff Gordon.’ He gave me that word of advice a long, long time ago when I became his crew chief in ’05. We sat down, and he said, ‘Hey, we’ve been friends for a long time, but you need to push me, because a lot of people in the world don’t. That’s probably some of the best advice Jeff Gordon ever gave me. I’ve used it through my whole crew-chiefing career, and, without a doubt, I push Dale no differently from the way I push any guy I work with. To your point, he never, ever, ever shies away from it. Everything I’ve ever asked him to do, he does."

Hendrick believes the combination of Earnhardt and Letarte will win races and return to the Chase for the Sprint Cup this season. He also expects the No. 88 team to “be better” than they were the first season together.

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“I think the other guys were scared of him, and they would get mad, and Junior would get mad, and we didn’t go anywhere,” Hendrick said. “But now Stevie knows exactly when he can pull that trigger, get him in the trailer or just ride to the races with him and work on him. They haven’t shown their potential yet, but I think you’ll see it this year. The confidence level, the communication — I just wish we had put them together early on. I had no way of knowing it would be as good as it is.

“Stevie is not going to lay down. He’s not going to accept Junior not being there, and Junior needs that confidence that his crew chief is doing what he needs to do and not slacking because Junior’s maybe in a bad mood, or he doesn’t do what he wants him to do that day. That just rolls right off his shoulders. He doesn’t care about. The respect is unbelievable there.”

And Earnhardt’s relationship with Letarte has made racing fun again.

“It’s been good,” Earnhardt said. “He’s an easy guy to be around, too, which helps a lot. None of this works unless he has the right personality, or a good personality. He deserves a lot of credit. He’s a good guy. He took on a tough little job here. This is a tough gig for him, and he’s done well with it so far.”