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Man at work: Hendrick Motorsports' Lance McGrew learning about Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Dover
By Bob Pockrass - Associate Editor
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Hendrick Motorsports' Lance McGrew will be Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s interim crew chief next weekend at Pocono Raceway.
David Griffin
NASCAR Scene
DOVER, Del. – Lance McGrew’s job for the Autism Speaks 400 weekend at Dover International Speedway changed a little bit Friday night.
Brad Keselowski failed to qualify for the race, so McGrew will work the rest of the weekend preparing for his new job as crew chief for Hendrick Motorsports’ Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Team manager Brian Whitesell remains as crew chief for the remainder of the Dover weekend because he helped set up the Earnhardt Jr. car while McGrew had concentrated on the one for Keselowski. McGrew takes over as interim crew chief Monday heading into the race at Pocono Raceway.
“We had a little unfortunate luck yesterday, got a little too free in qualifying,” McGrew said Saturday morning at Dover. “So I get to hang out, I get to listen. That’s an advantage, just getting to hear conversations on the radio – look and listen to the changes.”
The learning process of what Earnhardt Jr. wants in a car began in earnest Saturday morning. Even though McGrew has worked with him a couple of times in the Nationwide Series, he still will need to learn what Earnhardt Jr. wants. McGrew has worked with several drivers in the last few years, including Mark Martin and Tony Stewart, but it still takes time to learn the driver.
“It’s a learning curve every time,” said McGrew, who is replacing Earnhardt Jr.’s cousin, Tony Eury Jr. “Working with Mark at Vegas, he wanted something different than what Tony wanted in Daytona, Kyle [Busch] wanted in the past. Everybody likes certain things. There are some things that I don’t care how you do it, they don’t like it.
Everybody else can be doing it and they hate it. You have to have the ability to cycle through those things rapidly or you’re going to be behind the eight-ball.”
McGrew plans to use the typical system of asking a driver to grade the car from 1 to 10 as far as how it feels.
“I need to understand what his 5 is – that 5 is different for everybody,” McGrew said. “[The car] is finicky. Fortunately for us, I’ve got crew members to lean on, crew chiefs to leave on, a fantastic engineering department, one that I’ve been pretty heavily involved with the last few years. It’s not like I’m without the ability or without the knowledge or without the guidance to make that decision.”
While he could not have anticipated that he would be Earnhardt Jr.’s crew chief, McGrew said he has watched races at home and wondered what changes he could make.
“All of us like to armchair quarterback,” McGrew said. “I do the same thing to the 48, like, ‘Chad [Knaus] what are you thinking?’ Given the opportunity at that point and place at that time, I may have made the entire opposite decision or I might have made exactly the same one and on Monday look at it and say, ‘What was I thinking?’ ”
Starting next week it will be up to him. He has two days left before he takes charge of the No. 88 team.
“I’ve gotten together with some of the guys at the shop and talked about doing some things just a little different way,” McGrew said. “I don’t think this thing is broken by any means. Sometimes it just takes a little different perspective.”
Mentioned Drivers: Dale Earnhardt Jr.
2009 Sprint Cup Race for the Chase Standings
Driver Standings after the Checker O'Reilly Auto Parts 500
| 1 | Jimmie Johnson | 6492 |
| 2 | Mark Martin | -108 |
| 3 | Jeff Gordon | -169 |
| 4 | Kurt Busch | -211 |
| 5 | Tony Stewart | -285 |
| 6 | Juan Pablo Montoya | -289 |
| 7 | Greg Biffle | -321 |
| 8 | Denny Hamlin | -352 |
| 9 | Ryan Newman | -411 |
| 10 | Kasey Kahne | -476 |
| 11 | Carl Edwards | -520 |
| 12 | Brian Vickers | -666 |
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7 responses to "Man at work: Hendrick Motorsports' Lance McGrew learning about Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Dover". Post a Comment.
matthewallenhughes said:
May 30, 2009 at 5:46 PMLance McGrew is a great crew chief. He's the one I wanted to see with Junior.
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» Confirm Abuse Reportanonymous said:
May 30, 2009 at 6:04 PMIt still wont help him. OVERRATED
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» Confirm Abuse Reporthwe said:
May 30, 2009 at 8:23 PMGood luck to the new crew chief and the entire 88 team tomorrow and the rest of the year.
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» Confirm Abuse Reportbuckshot88 said:
May 30, 2009 at 9:43 PM#2. lighten up a little, it's understood by everyone you don't like jr.
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» Confirm Abuse Reporttrtruckin said:
May 31, 2009 at 9:04 AMJust wonder if Brad's problems were team induced? That way they can concentrate on their Money Boy and get an earlier jump on fixing Jr.s problems. I wish them well and hope this cure's the problems. Things should get better for Jr. as the communications between him and Lance get better. For right now I pity Lance as he's now got the hardest job in NASCAR, but if anyone can do it, he can.
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» Confirm Abuse Reportkeith308 said:
May 31, 2009 at 11:48 AM#2 will eat his words with Jr. wins again. He has no guts to put his real name so whatever he says means absolutely nothing in my book.
Report as AbuseBy the way I am not a Jr. fan so don't lose your you know what and respond to this email.
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» Confirm Abuse Reportjbbigrod said:
Jun 1, 2009 at 2:06 AMAt least Jr did a little better today.
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