Dale Earnhardt Jr. Knows 2009 Was the Pits

(By Sarah Farlee Managing Editor, CupScene.com)

Posted: Thursday,January 28th, 2010

CONCORD, N.C. - The mentality of a driver in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series can make or break a season. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. found that out the hard way as he struggled through one of the worst seasons of his ten year Sprint Cup career.

The lack of mental sharpness is something Earnhardt owns up to, and is ready to fix. The 35 year-old Hendrick Motorsports driver says last season’s demise started in Daytona, and never got better. In fact the poor performance gave Earnhardt a complex.

Nothing is easy. But coming down at Daytona and getting into your stall is like breathing, it’s like shifting. You don’t think about it when you’re doing it. You just do it. - Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Getty Images)

“Missin my pit stall and sliding through pit stalls,” said Earnhardt, of his early season miscues. “Then it gave me a complex so all the rest of the year, as soon as I hit pit road I was like a fiend looking for my pit stall.”

The pit road mistake was something Earnhardt would have never anticipated.

“That was kind of the beginning of it,” said Earnhardt, of the lackluster year. “Who knew that would be the little straw that broke the camels back?”

 “Nothing is easy,” said Earnhardt. “But coming down at Daytona and getting into your stall is like breathing, it’s like shifting. You don’t think about it when you’re doing it. You just do it. But it made me start thinking about it and I started to back track and I didn’t progress and fix it.” 

“I tried to shake it off,” Earnhardt added.

One attempt to fix the pit road issue was a new pit board, the signage used to mark a driver’s spot on pit road. The change in signage, Earnhardt says, was something he and Tony Eury, Jr. tried. It was an attempt to make missing the pit stall impossible. The sign change was something he tried to make light of.

“We made that ridiculously large looking pit board sign,” said Earnhardt, who took credit for the bold design. “Tony, Jr. said I’m going to change this pit board, should we change it, and do you want me to change the color of the numbers?”

“I was like why don’t we just make this really ridiculous one because everybody’s already going to give us shit about it,” added Earnhardt. “I said everybody’s making jokes about how we can’t get in the pit box so let’s make this sign and give them some more ammunition. It was a good looking sign so we kept it.”

The sign might have stayed, but the confidence was long gone. Earnhardt admits to making mental mistakes, and admits that he wasn’t as sharp as he needed to be.

“I just felt disoriented,” said Earnhardt. “Once I lost my confidence when I was making those mistakes just made it worse, more difficult.”

“You definitely get tired of trying to explain what happened,” said Earnhardt of the attention surrounding his performance. “When things go bad you don’t really feel like sitting in front of everybody and trying to tell them why it went bad or what you might be doing to make it not go bad anymore.”

The poor performance sparked owner Rick Hendrick to make changes to Earnhardt’s team. The most notable, was atop the pit box where Lance McGrew took over calling the shots from Tony Eury, Jr. Since that mid season change Earnhardt’s performance slowly started to improve.

(Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

Kansas was the most noticeable improvement, with an outside pole and leading several laps early in the race, but a pit road mistake ruined any chance of a solid finish. Since the season ended McGrew, along with the No. 5 crew chief Alan Gustafson, have made changes to not only the cars – but the culture of the shop.

Teammate, Mark Martin agrees with the changes that are being made and says the No. 5 five team is behind the organization 100 percent.

“It’s our intention to raise the performance levels of both cars,” said Martin. “We moved our head engineer to the 88 and one of our mechanics over there as well.”

“We brought some people into the organization to bring the whole organization up,” added Martin.

Martin has total confidence in the moves McGrew and Gustafson, along with Rick Hendrick, have made.

“I’m old, I’ve been doing this a long time and I know what I’m talking about,” said Martin. “It won’t fail, it will work.”

Earnhardt has that same confidence in McGrew and feels the changes McGrew has made are a move in the right direction. Earnhardt says McGrew has been very open and informative when it comes to decisions made in regards to the team.

“I trust him, 100 percent, absolutely,” said Earnhardt. “I trust him 100 percent.”

That trust will be put to the test as Earnhardt embarks on his 11th season in NASCAR’s elite series. With 18 wins and a Daytona 500 under his belt, Earnhardt says he is far from completing his bucket list of accomplishments in racing. Earnhardt says a championship is obviously at the top of the list, as well as winning at Bristol again – because driving onto a roof is ‘pretty cool’. There is also the daydream of returning to the Rock and North Wilkesboro, but one item he could scratch of the list in the coming weeks is the Great American Race.

“I’d like to win the Daytona 500 again,” said Earnhardt.

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