This just in: The guitar is not broken

THATSRACIN.COM OPINION

Saturday, Jun. 27, 2009

Some weekends you don't know if 88 is the number on Dale Earnhardt Junior's Chevrolet or his position on the track.

He's 20th in the Sprint Cup standings, 724 points out of first place and 277 out of the 12-car playoff chase. Although he is by far NASCAR's most popular driver, he has become beloved for who he is and not what he does.

But why isn't he successful?

To try to find out, I drive to the pristine Hendrick Motorsports complex in Concord, get off the secret elevator and am led into the War Room. Greeting me in an impeccable blue shirt with his always impeccable manners is Rick Hendrick.

Leaning against a window behind him is a guitar autographed by country star Kenny Chesney.

The guitar is not broken.

"I won't smash any of mine," Hendrick says, referring to driver Kyle Busch's guitar-smashing celebration after a Nationwide Series win.

Along with owning the team for which Junior drives, Hendrick was a great friend of Junior's grandfather, a good friend of Junior's father and has become a good fishing buddy of Junior's.

So I'm not expecting objectivity.

But Hendrick, more than anybody, knows how to put a driver in position to be successful. His three other drivers are Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Mark Martin. Check the standings: Gordon is in second place, Johnson, the three-time defending champion, is third and Martin, who is in his first season with Hendrick, is 11th.

If Hendrick knows why drivers succeed, he also knows why they don't.

Hendrick hired Junior last season. With Junior came Tony Eury Jr., who has been Junior's crew chief almost as long as he has been his cousin. But after a mediocre 2008 and a 38th-place finish in Charlotte last month, Hendrick split up the juniors.

He sent Eury Jr. to work with Johnson and made Lance McGrew - who only sounds like an action star - Junior's crew chief.

"I haven't said this to anybody, but I think Tony Jr. and Dale needed that separation probably a year ago," Hendrick says.

All Junior knew was Eury and all Eury knew was Junior. They had not been exposed to new methods or ideas; when in doubt they went with what had worked in the past. But the Car of Tomorrow is not like the cars in which Earnhardt and Eury won races.

"When you're struggling, the natural thing is to revert back to what you used to use and what worked in the past," says Hendrick. "And in this sport you can go back to the same car that worked 90 days ago and it's like riding a mule in the Kentucky Derby.

"Tony and Dale care about each other just like family does. They kind of know how the other one acts. But I would say things to my brother I wouldn't say to anybody else. I'd snap. Snapping doesn't work toward a solution. You just kind of bite at each other.

"So all the media and the fans are listening to (Junior and Eury communicate by radio during a race) and there wasn't any conversation_just Junior screaming and Tony Jr. saying, 'Oh, OK, uh-huh.' "

Since the switch, Earnhardt has finished 12th, 27th, 14th and 26th.

Hendrick says Junior has made other changes.

Most drivers take care of their bodies. Martin is legendary for his diet and fitness regimen. Johnson rides a mountain bike hard and eats carefully. Junior? Maybe he watched Martin lift and Johnson eat.

Hendrick introduced him to workouts and nutrition. Love at first sight it was not.

"He just cleaned out his bus (a few weeks ago) and got rid of the junk food and he's trying to eat healthier," Hendrick says.

"Kelley (Earnhardt Elledge, Dale's sister) and his mom (Brenda) went over to his house and took all the junk food. And he's been running and we're trying to come up with a program where we give him some stuff during the week.

"But the biggest thing is the time he and Lance have together," says Hendrick." I don't think he and Tony really talked after the race about what adjustments were made and what didn't work and why they didn't work. Now they're looking at, this is what we did and this is what we'll do differently next time."

But where does Junior find time? He owns a race team and a bar called Whisky River and he endorses more products than some people own.

The bar is in the EpiCentre. I walked past the EpiCentre a few weeks ago and on the front was a poster promoting a VIP function in which contest winners could spend time with Junior! On the gate in the EpiCentre's parking garage was a sticker that said lucky winners could spend time with Junior!

And when Junior is not with lucky winners or shaking hands with sponsors or promoting a product for a TV or magazine campaign he spends time with his lucky race team!

"Dale has a lot of sponsor obligations," says Hendrick. "All you have to do is turn on the TV to see that. We've tried to narrow his responsibilities and eliminate as much as we can. If you've got to be in Tupelo Tuesday and Washington Wednesday and Sonoma Thursday then you've got to be out of the race car. All the sponsors want him as much as they can get him.

"In times like these you do as much as you can for sponsors. But we're trying to see what's more important to him."

But Rick, does Junior want to be a champion? Does he have the talent and desire?

"I think Junior has all the talent and desire," says Hendrick. "He's got a lot of things that are pulling him in a lot of other directions. He has not been sensitive to recommendations of eating better and working out, which he's (now) doing. And were going to increase all that.

"As much as anything at this point in his career is understanding that you know you got to study what the engineers are telling you and understand how everything works."

Some drivers are perfectionists, Johnson among them. If there's an edge_improving late-race endurance by riding a mountain bike, learning to speak the language of the engineers or developing a private language with crew chief Chad Knaus ... he'll find it.

Johnson is 33, a year younger than Junior. But it's as if Junior comes from a different time. Start the race and here I come, fast as I can, until the wheels fall off or I skid into Victory Lane.

That style has worked for decades. But the racers for whom it worked did not drive the Car of Tomorrow. Push the COT hard all the time and you spend so much time fighting it that you can't fight the track or the competition. And you finish 20th.

"You have to finesse it," says Hendrick.

I offer my hand and thank Hendrick for the hour he gives me.

But he's not finished. It's important to him that the rest of us see the same kid (his word) that he does.

"If you try to sum it up, he wants to do well," says Hendrick. "But the pressure that's on him trying to live up to_I would like for him to not feel all that pressure.

"He's not responsible for the success of NASCAR, he's not responsible for the legacy of his dad or his dad's company. He's a young, fun-loving, good kid and he's got a really good heart and he wants to be Dale Jr. and that's what he needs to be.

"And when he starts winning, the whole world will be happy."

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