Outside pressure didn’t force Tony Eury Jr. out
Bob Pockrass
Bob Pockrass began covering NASCAR in 1992, primarily covering short-track racing and events. He has worked for Street & Smith's Motorsports Group since 2003.
DOVER, Del. – A couple of months ago, a team executive told me that media was “going to get Tony Eury Jr. fired” if it kept writing that he should be fired.
Well the reassignment of Eury was announced Thursday, and while it’s easy to wonder if the swirl of questions from the outside pressured what happened on the inside, it’s hard to believe that in this situation.
Team owner Rick Hendrick isn’t going to be pushed around by anybody, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Eury never seemed to take themselves too seriously or their world too seriously. That’s what allowed them to handle the pressure in the first place. The pressure didn’t come from the media but from their desire to meet the expectations of their peers in the garage, especially when every other Hendrick Motorsports team was performing so well. And to a lesser extent, they wanted to do well for their fans.
If the pressure was getting to them, then they would be accused of trying too hard. That was never the case with Earnhardt Jr., whose problems seem to stem from a lack of focus and, more recently, the inability to work with Eury to make the car better through a race.
These guys could handle the spotlight. But the frustration of not leading laps and not being one of the top teams in the sport just couldn’t be overcome.
