REPLACING CREW CHIEF HAS NOT IMPROVED EARNHARDT'S PERFORMANCE
Has changing crew chiefs made a difference for Dale Earnhardt Jr.?
Tony Eury Jr. lasted 12 races this season with Earnhardt. Since then, we’ve run another 12 races, making this the perfect time to take a snapshot of replacement Lance McGrew’s performance. Have the driver's results improved at all?
First, consider his performance all year in the table below.
Remember that Watermills, as I determined earlier this week, are the best way to determine the probability of winning a Sprint Cup title, and therefore overall performance. A Watermill is Wins + Top 10s + Lead Lap Finishes + Racing at the Finish.
Let’s take a look at the summary between the two halves of the season so far. My apologies for the size of the print below. You may want View-Zoom In on your browser.
At quick glance, it does not appear there have been any improvements. His main improvement has been the increase in lead lap finishes. He has experienced a marginal gain in Watermills and in his average start.
But in the last 12 races, Earnhardt actually has fewer top 10s, more DNFs, fewer points, fewer laps led and a worse average finish. He has actually scored the 21st most points in this set of 12 races, so he has done worse in the standings compared to earlier this season.
The one bright side is the last two races, where he scored consecutive top 10s for the first time all year. Let’s see if that picks up in the final 12 races of the season. So far there isn’t anything else hopeful to point to.
Is it too early to say that the crew chief was not Earnhardt’s problem?
Take a look at the table below. We see the breakdown of points standings for the first 12 races of the year, as well as the following 12 races. See how Earnhardt has been stuck in the same part of the pack, and has actually dropped down a bit? Guys like Marcos Ambrose, Casey Mears, Joey Logano and Jamie McMurray have leapfrogged him. They all have been able to make adjustments and improve their performance. Earnhardt’s team has not shown that capability.
Finally, the bottom table shows how each driver has improved from the first 12 races to the next 12. See Earnhardt down there in the lower portion of the pack. He is one of the drivers who have actually had a worse performance in this portion of the season compared to the previous.
The evidence suggests that replacing Tony Eury Jr. has not improved Earnhardt’s performance. We will have to wait and see if these two most recent top 10s suggest that a new trend is coming for the final third of the season.
(All Left Turns contributor Dale Watermill is also the editor of the racing statistics blog 36 Races. E-mail him at 36races@gmail.com.)
Related links:
The Watermill Score: How to win a Sprint Cup title
Robby Gordon attempting to defend his FLOPPER award
Busch, Vickers have equal shot at breaking into the Chase
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Lance McGrew was a bad idea. That means they got rid of Tony Eury Jr for nothing. Yea, he got two top 10's in a row, but thats not what he wants. Dale Jr wants wins and a championship. So far he isn't going to do it this year and didn't even make the top 10 last year. That just goes to show that Hendrick can't give Dale Jr the car he needs to win like with Jimmie, Jeff, and Mark. Like for example the race at Atlanta. Dale Jr was 6th and about to finish 6th or 5th, but in 2 laps found himself finishing 17th. What car does that? Dale and Tony need to leave, I don't see anything working there the way they'd want.
"That just goes to show that Hendrick can't give Dale Jr the car he needs to win" < That's the biggest sack of horse crap. Gordon has the same issues with having a sweet car go bad. It can be a bad set of tires, an adjustment, or a combination of both. There's no conspiracy or equipment issues, its driver and crew chief. Dale is too confused with speculations of why he's not getting results, and his crew chief is not qualified to give him the psychological conditioning he needs.
Dale needs completely new set of goals. He's not equal to other drivers because of his name and his lack of results while running with Hendrick, not to mention the best set of peers you could ask for in Martin, Gordon and Johnson. That should be everything any driver needs but Junior isn't any other driver. He shouldn't even attempt to be. I cant imagine there being any reason for him to believe he'll win a race, and I base that solely on his state of mind, not his skill.
I think Dale's biggest issue is not in lacking anything but confidence, and for that, he has to believe. Unfortunately you can't just make somebody believe something, so my 1st idea would be to change his goals. He may not believe he can win a race with 42 other drivers, but I bet if you tell him to beat just 1 specific car, his attitude would change and he probably will succeed at that, and THAT is at least a success, and it would build confidence. He can ladder his way up from top 20 rankers... beat one each race, and move to the next one, with no regard as to where he finishes. By the time he gets to some of those top ranked cars, he'll be mentally conditioned to believe that's a goal he can handle.
Dale -"engines fired, got everything on the checklist, now who we got on our plate for today?"
Crew chief - "Okay, we're at 16th in rank, the double zero, and his average finish here is just so-so."
Dale- "Ol' Rootie? I think I can whip'em but get his crew chief to tell him it's nothing personal." lol
AND how do a bunch of stupid wannabe jocks watch a bunch of hulking brain dead football players run up and down the same 300 ft of dirt for hours at a time. Run 5 seconds, everyone fall down, run 5 seconds, everyone fall down. Now THAT'S Brilliant! The difference is that NASCAR "geeks" don't run over to other people sports blogs and make asinine remarks.
I hate when people point to stats to prove a point. Because stats can be pulled out to prove your point, and the stats that disagree with your point, can just be left out of the story. And then there are the intangibles. You cant use DNF's, for example, as an accurate depiction of performance. An example of that is Kyle Busch at Daytona. In Feb he dominated, and was in a crash, in July, he dominated, and was in a crash. So he has 2 poor finishes, but that doesnt tell the story. That is just one example. Another intangible that cant be measured with stats is the comfort level that Jr had with Tony Jr, compared to the learning process he had with Lance McGrew. And a final concept, is to compare Jrs performance in the final 3rd of the race with Tony Jr, compared to Jr's performance in the last 3rd of a race under McGrew. I dont know how that compares, I am guessing that Jr's final 3rd percent of a race performance, is better under McGrew, and that was the biggest problem with Jr/Jr, they faded at the end. If Jr isnt "fading" at the end of the race, but rather "peaking" at the end, I will take that, because that is an improvement. It really cant get any worse, Jr is at rock bottom right now......
He needs to pull his redneck head out of his redneck ass and grow up.
Quit drinking and carrying on with his buddies. Get on the Mark Martin program. Eat right, get some sleep, hit the gym and do other stuff that's conducive to positive performances.
He's pretty average as driver, to be honest. If his name was Dale Smith, he'd be running short-tracks around the Southeast on his own nickel.
A few more years of this and he'll be retired before he's 35.
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I have never thought of Dale Jr. as champion material. He's a marketing juggernaut because his father died, so he gets the big bucks. He's in his mid 30's already, if something was going to happen if already would have. He should have been knocking down wins the minute he sat in a Hendricks car. I think he's going to slip off the map in the next 4 years.