The Cool Down Lap: Is 2011 the last hurrah for Earnhardt?

The Cool Down Lap: Is 2011 the last hurrah for Earnhardt?


By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

During a week that honored NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson and the other 11 drivers in the Chase, Dale Earnhardt Jr. made his inevitable cameo appearance in Las Vegas.
Inevitable? Of course. For the eighth straight year, Earnhardt was named NASCAR’s most popular driver, garnering the lion’s share of more than 1.5 million votes cast online by fans of the sport.
Earnhardt’s popularity rendered his appearance at Thursday’s Myers Brothers Luncheon at Bellagio more than a mere sideshow to Johnson’s coronation as the winner of five straight Cup championships.
Can Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus find a way to win a sixth title in 2011? Who knows? The more pressing question is whether a change of crew chiefs can help return Earnhardt to victory lane for the first time since 2008—and what will happen if it doesn’t.
Earnhardt won his only points race with Hendrick Motorsports at Michigan in June 2008, his first year withthe organization. In May 2009, he changed crew chiefs, from cousin Tony Eury Jr. to Hendrick stalwart Lance McGrew.
Winless since then, Earnhardt will start 2011 with Steve Letarte on his pit box, the result of a massive shakeup at Hendrick that left only the combination of Johnson and Knaus intact. Letarte has been Jeff Gordon’s crew chief since late 2005, and in fairness, Gordon has won exactly as many races as Earnhardt has in the past three years—one.
The difference is that Gordon has been in position to win on a far more frequent basis.
As Christmas approaches, however, Earnhardt looks at the coming season with anticipation.
“It’s a real good feeling at the very beginning,” he said after receiving the most popular driver award. “You look at it as a clean slate and a chance to see if this new package, new chemistry will produce better results. The anticipation to get to the track is more, and you’re ready to go to work and want to go run laps and see speed and see lap times and see adjustments and feel new cars and what they’re doing and how their reacting to changes that the new crew chief is making and the new engineer if producing.
“You want to be able to go see—it’s like knowing what you’re getting for Christmas and not being able to mess with it until that morning. It’s a lot of anticipation. I think it’s healthy. We needed this to happen, and I needed this to happen, and hopefully this is a good position. Hopefully this will get me back to winning races, running in the top five and running in the top 10.”
From a numbers standpoint, Earnhardt likely will have a better chance to make the Chase in 2011—but so will everyone else. NASCAR is leaning toward expanding the Chase from 12 drivers to 15, with subsequent eliminations paring the field over the final 10 races.
The numbers aside, perhaps Letarte can be the tonic Earnhardt needs in order to recover a sense of confidence eroded by repeated lack of success. NASCAR chairman and CEO Brian France certainly hopes so. He’s on record saying how important a few Earnhardt victories would be to the sport.
Earnhardt has two years left on his current contract at Hendrick Motorsports, but next year is critical to his career there. He’ll have his third crew chief in four years, and at some point, the driver has to step forward. After all, team owner Rick Hendrick isn’t likely to pair Earnhardt with Knaus.
At some point—preferably in the new year—the level of Earnhardt’s performance must intersect with the level of his popularity.
Absent that, it might be time to try something different.