Dale Earnhardt Jr.: Things fine with crew chief Lance McGrew

(Article from today's USA Today, thanks to Mike Davis for link via Twitter update)

By Nate Ryan, USA TODAY


A testy exchange between Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Lance McGrew during Monday's Sprint Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway concluded with the driver lightly chiding his crew chief.

"Don't take so much offense," Earnhardt said. "Just jot the (stuff) down and be done with it."

The short transmission spoke volumes about their relationship.

Ranked seventh in points heading into Sunday's Aaron's 499 at Talladega Superspeedway, NASCAR's most popular star says a major key to his rebound from a career-worst 2009 is the realization of separating the professional from the personal.


"We don't have to be best friends," Earnhardt said of McGrew. "We actually get along really good. But there's not that urge to be friends first.


"With (former crew chief) Tony (Eury) Jr., the No. 1 thing was the personal relationship, way ahead of the crew chief success. That's not there anymore, and I don't have to worry."

A good example was Wednesday night. Though McGrew was invited to the grand opening of Earnhardt's new Whisky River bar in Jacksonville, Fla., the crew chief stayed in North Carolina to prepare the No. 88 Chevrolet for next week's race at Richmond.

Though they've gone to dinner, McGrew said hanging out isn't necessary to performing well.

"That's a lot of extra stress," McGrew said. "It's business. I listen to what he tells me, and I react accordingly. I don't want the fact we're going deer hunting or fishing to cloud that."

The partnership with Eury Jr. was different. Earnhardt was in almost daily contact with his cousin (who remains a best friend, confidante and business partner as a co-owner of JR Motorsports), and they shared outside interests (such as attending boxing matches together).

With McGrew, who replaced Eury 10 months ago, Earnhardt said "we talk out of necessity" in between being at the track.

"That can be it," Earnhardt said. "We don't have to call and see what we thought about the Bobcats in the playoffs, none of that (baloney). It makes it easy."

Not that he doesn't enjoy the Baton Rouge, native's company.

"I have a lot of fun being around him in the truck and during practices," Earnhardt said. "We get to joking around so (darn) much, that's about all we do. He's never done anything that's gotten under my skin."

That might surprise fans who heard him unleash a vulgarity-laden stream of invective at Bristol after McGrew pleaded with his driver "not to lay down." Earnhardt said such a conversation would have taken weeks to heal with Eury.

"We would have had to call each other all week to make sure everything was cool," Earnhardt said. "People have to just believe me when I say that things are as good as ever."

He knows firsthand because of McGrew's encouragement to take a vested interest in the team's fleet of Impalas. While working with Eury, Earnhardt says he "didn't give a (flip) if a car was new or not. I knew it was going to be great. When that was gone, now I've got to care."

Earnhardt recently began e-mailing an evaluation after every race to McGrew, who is building a database his driver can study for each track (a practice embraced by Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson).

McGrew said the duo's communication on preparing for a race still needs improvement, but he cited Texas, where Earnhardt led 46 laps and placed eighth, as an example of where Earnhardt's prior input made a difference. Earnhardt, though, gave as much credit to McGrew's offseason restructuring.

"He made a lot of tough calls within the shop of moving people around," Earnhardt said. "He's doing everything I could ever ask. I have a ton of respect for that."