Dale Earnhardt Jr. believes Lance McGrew can restore his confidence behind the wheel

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TALLADEGA, Ala. – Dale Earnhardt Jr. said that while his confidence in himself has been shaken, he believes that Lance McGrew is the guy to lead the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports team as they work to get Earnhardt Jr.’s confidence back by the end of the season.

McGrew was named the full-time crew chief of the Earnhardt Jr. car Friday, five months after he was named interim crew chief as a replacement for Earnhardt Jr.’s cousin, Tony Eury Jr.

Since that announcement, Earnhardt Jr. has dropped from 19th to 24th in points and remained winless in 2009.

“He tells me sincerely that he believes in my talent as a driver and with the right situation, we can have a lot of success,” Earnhardt Jr. said Friday before practice for the Amp Energy 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. “Being a crew chief is a very, very tough job and very thankless and Lance understands that as well as anyone. I feel confident that he can handle the pressures of the job, and I feel confident with him in the box. I feel like he is going to make the right calls.”

Earnhardt Jr. said that McGrew has overseen the building of some new cars and each of those cars has been fast on the track.

“Without looking at the statistics and the luck that we’ve had lately, I can see a lot of improvements in the team and I can see the impact that Lance is making,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “So I’m really excited about this chance for me and him to come together and understand what our future is and see how we can improve upon that. … We just have to change our luck, which is a cheap excuse, but we have to change our opportunities and our mentality as a team, build our confidence in our ability to perform.”

Confidence is a key word for Earnhardt Jr., who a few weeks ago sounded like he was lacking in confidence and said he was at the end of his rope with running poorly.

“I’ve had a relationship with Dale for a long time, all the way back to Ricky [Hendrick] and his friendship with Dale in that circle,” McGrew said. “I was really surprised when I first started working with Dale [that] his confidence was beat down as much as it was. I expected him to be a lot more positive and a lot more understanding of the situation.

“Since then I’ve definitely seen a light in his eye and a strut in his step as he comes to the car. We don’t have the bottom-line finishes to back up what I feel like we’ve started to achieve on that team, but I feel like the steps are in place to get there. I’m excited about that.”

It’s not surprising that Earnhardt Jr. would battle confidence issues. He has 18 career wins and he was the best Hendrick Motorsports car for the first half of 2008. Since then he has fallen off that pace and this season he not only missed the Chase For The Sprint Cup, but is 24th in the standings.

“I can’t speak for everybody on the team, but my confidence was pretty down earlier,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “It’s gotten better. It’s still nowhere near where I want it to be. But every week we seem to improve on that.

“I’m really impatient about it, it’s just a matter of time. If we can string one or two solid, serious runs together before the end of the season, I think it would do a world of good for us. One top-five for this team - there’s no telling how much that could do for us confidence-wise.”

The potential for the top-five is there, Earnhardt Jr. said.

“That’s hard to really put into words what I think we need to accomplish to get from where we are now to running up front,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Obviously, if you’ve watched our team closely, you’ll see that we’ve been more competitive on the race track in practices, more competitive in particular points in the race where we struggled in the past. I see the individual pieces of the puzzle that we’re missing coming together and starting to work.

“But we aren’t finishing the races or we’re having problems or issues. I think that’s more of a mentality, a confidence thing than anything you can put your hands on. It’s not like we’re failing on the basic mechanics of building the cars – or setting them up for that matter. I think it comes down to the right attitude and showing up feeling like you’re the team to beat or there’s no reason to feel like you’re a long shot.”

The 41-year-old McGrew guided Brian Vickers to the 2003 Busch Series title and also was a Sprint Cup crew chief for Vickers. McGrew said there will be some changes to the structure of the shop that the No. 88 and the No. 5 team of Mark Martin share.

“I’m not 100 percent sure what’s going to change, who’s going to change, how’s it going to change, but … we’re going to do some restructuring in that shop,” McGrew said. “We’re going to change the dynamic of that shop, and that’s something I’m looking forward to, that’s something [5 crew chief Alan Gustafson is] looking forward to and something both of us are going to benefit from.”

Some Earnhardt Jr. fans have put together a petition to ask team owner Rick Hendrick for changes to Earnhardt Jr.’s crew and the driver said he understands the fans’ passion and wanting to have a voice in the matter.

“Behind the scenes and behind the doors, I do get asked by the right people what my opinion is and me and Lance have had many heart-to-heart conversations about our future, his future, my future, what we should do, what’s best for us, [and] the company,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Me and Rick have sat down many, many times and talked about it. The right things are being done and being talked about and being discussed with the right people inside the gate at HMS.

“There’s always a lot of speculation outside the gates, and that’s just the way the world is and that’s the way it works. I do the same thing with my [NFL Washington] Redskins, whether they’re going to turn their deal around, so I can kind of relate to everybody’s interest in the topic.”