Dale Earnhardt Jr. doesn't blame media for slow start to season
Hendrick Motorsports' Dale Earnhardt Jr. has just one top-five this season in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. // Jim Fluharty, NASCAR Scene
JOLIET, Ill. - Dale Earnhardt Jr., responding to comments made by his former crew chief, Tony Eury Jr., earlier Thursday, refused to blame the media for his slow start this season in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. The sport’s most popular driver agreed he took some heat in the media, but said that’s to be expected given his status.
“Well, I got a lot of flack. Any time I messed up on pit road, everybody beats that drum and beats that drum,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Everybody else is missing stalls and messing up. …That’s just the way it is, that’s part of being the most popular driver in the sport.”
Eury, who was replaced by Lance McGrew as Earnhardt Jr.’s interim crew chief in late May, said the media’s negative coverage of the driver after a couple of bad races early in the year created unrealistic pressure.
“My personal opinion … is that you guys put so much pressure on him after Daytona that Dale Jr. just basically had had enough,” Eury said. “We went to Daytona and had a shot at winning that race, had some problems on pit road … [then] we went to California and blew up so there’s two negative weeks.
“You guys were all over him and it just brought him down. I don’t think we had a strong enough finish to bring him back up, so every week the hole gets deeper and deeper and deeper. …”
Earnhardt Jr. said that regardless of the media coverage, the team wasn’t getting the job done.
“I don’t think anything that happens outside the car affects performance,” he said. “So how good we ran is really how good we were, as a team. Not very good.
“Look at Kyle [Busch]. He has a lot of bad things written about him, but he performs.”
