Rick Hendrick has made a living because of his decision making and witty fixes to his Nascar owned franchises and car dealerships.When the decision to let Kyle Busch leave his stable after the 2007 campaign where he finished 5th overall a red flag of caution was wandering over his head.
Hendrick decided to let Busch go to the highest bidder which happened to be Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota Motorsports. In the meantime in the back of his head he had a plan to bring in Dale Earnhardt JR,who could sell t-shirts, hats,sun glasses,jackets,etc;but he also hadn't won a race in almost 3 years.
Dale JR, won one race in the 2008 campaign at Michigan due to fuel mileage. Busch, 23, went to victory lane a record-tying 10 times in the Nationwide Series, winning five times after a NASCAR rule change reduced the horsepower of Toyota engines.
With three victories in the truck series to go with eight in Cup and 10 in the Nationwide, Busch racked up an aggregate 21 victories in NASCAR's top three touring series.
Dale Jr is a major hit with the fans being voted driver of the year for 4 consecutive years.Sometimes there is time when you go out and branch out of the shadows(DALE EARNHARDT SR,) of someone else and make your own idenity for your own fans. Two fuel-mileage wins in four years doesnt do that for you!
Earnhardt is 32 years old while Busch is only 23.When you rank drivers on talent alone JR is nowhere in the top 10, while busch 9 years his younger is.Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Carl Edwards,Kyle Busch,Greg Biffle,Kurt Busch,Mark Martin,Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin would rank in the top 10.
Rick Hendrick doesnt make many bad decisons when it comes to the world of stock car racing but this time he may have dropped the ball.
Only time will tell!
Nascar Tidbits
Tony Stewart seems to be picking up great personnel to help run his team. Darian Grubb was brought over from Hendrick Motorsports to be crew chief. Grubb led Jimmie Johnson to two victories in the four races he was atop the box while Johnson's regular crew chief Chad Knauss was suspended during the 2007 campaign.
Also brought in was Jeff Mendering, the other crew chief who filled in for Steve Latarte (Jeff Gordon's crew chief) when he got suspended during the 2007 season and led Gordon to a win in four races.
Mendering will serve a car chief on the Office Depot No. 14 chevy driven by Stewart. Bobby Hutchins will run the day to day operations of Stewart-Hass Motorsports.
Hutchins was a longtime member of Dale Sr.'s team in its hay-day and as of late been the key player in the Childress-DEI motor alliance, serving as the director of competion at RCR.
17 comments Last one added 5 months ago — Leave a Comment
Diane Dale 6 months ago
Junior hater much? The moved worked out well for both drivers.
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Richard Deveau 5 months ago
The move worked out well for both drivers, but not for Rick Hendrick.
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David H 6 months ago
Good call with your article. The Junior fans will only scorn you but got to love them for following a mediocre driver at best. Forever living in Dad's great success with so little ability himself. But always someone else to blame such on his team for his failures as a driver. The absolute worse fans in the grandstands week in and week out.
Gibbs no doubt got the better end of the deal and only fuels the fire within the Junior nation to see the success of young Kyle.
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Ashley McCubbin 5 months ago
It's amazing how you bring his dad into this - that's why the expectations are so high. Why is it that everyone has to compare him to his dad? For a driver - he's done pretty good. Had he not had the last name - everybody would probably reconize that. I think you're taking this one too far, David.
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RW Penland 6 months ago
Come on I thought you knew a little bit about Nascar! If it had been Dale Jr in the #18 Toyota last season he would have just as many wins, Was Kyle Busch hot before Toyota? No, And after the Toyota Change Kyle Busch went backwards in points.If you did not hate #88 Dale Jr so much you would see this too!
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Mark Davis 6 months ago
Why not look at the facts?
Kyle Bush wrecks both his #5 car and the DEI #8 car of Dale Earnhardt Jr. in Texas 2007.
THEN, he stomps off like a BABY, leaving his own team to ASK Dale Earnhardt Jr. to drive.
Who can look at this and say the die was not then cast?
Neither driver signed for a single year, so there is much more to be seen in coming seasons.
Kyle and brother Kurt have huge chips on their shoulders and they are only beginning to learn how to deal with it now.
By the way, the older driver (Earnhardt) has been trying to save his car where the younger driver (Bush) has been wrecklessly running into everything that either can't or won't get out of his way.
Now we go into a new year, and some of those easter eggs won't even be colored.
BOTH of these drivers will have sponsors, even if one or either loses a secondary they will both have a primary sponsor.
If Pepsi can support Michael Jackson (which they dropped by the way), they can handle the #88 team.
AND THAT 32 year old driver; he sounds as if he KNEW what was happening at DEI and he HAD to get out of there and Rick Hendrik has made money on that deal.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. said "a lot of people are going away empty-handed this year."
43 teams compete and only one wins each race.
Jimmy Johnson has proved he can win with or without a "CHASE."
Dale Earhardt SR. said "second is just the first loser."
That's what 42 teams deal with in every race every through out the year!
Teams will race this year without sponsors, without brand names, someone will win each race.
You can have Bush as your savior if you want, but both sides of that deal prospered.
Imagine Nascar without Earnhardt's and Petty's; articles like yours beg for such ignorance.
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Terry McNamara 6 months ago
I'M sorry if I offended anyone! I am not a JR hater quite to the contrary, He's one of my favorites just because of my affixiation of Dale SR, who is my all time favorite.Like the article says only time will tell!
Go Smoke in 09!
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Mark Davis 6 months ago
There is no offense taken, Terry.
It's just that everybody has been calling the thing a raw deal and it wasn't. Hendrick had a car win the championship, three in the top twelve; and now he's got Mark Martin coming in to drive the number 5. I don't hear him complaining about it.
The fact is that everybody from Darrell Waltrip to somebody's momma way over-hyped the whole deal out of proportion. I look at sportsmanship, I think Junior has been a class-act when compared to the Kurts and Kyles that seemingly appear to make nothing but trouble for themselves and every other driver on the track.
Although I don't think it was "right" that Jimmy Spencer popped Kurt in the nose; I understood why he did it and I felt Kurt had it coming. If Kyle hadn't walked away from Texas after destroying 1.5 race cars he would be a bigger man today; instead he's chosen the hard road.
There's nothing wrong with the hard-road if you continue to learn from it; but he needs to quit taking it out on Dale Earnhardt Jr.; who has been anything but an instigator. Kyle may have harvested the lemons, but Junior made lemonade out of them and I think that most pragmatists will see it that way.
Everyone is entitled to their opinions and to voice them; I just encourage those who do to pick their comments carefully and factually with some tact and then it can be "nuff-said" approved. Hendirck did well, Gibbs did well, Kyle won ten races, Junior won one; but I bet Hendrick made more through sponsorship and Junior gear and Diecast that it all came up a fair shake.
Any team running more than one car; with a 3 and 4 time champ on it has already learned that only one guy walks away with the trophy every year.
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Gary Brower 6 months ago
I agree with your top 10, with one exception . . . Kurt Busch? What has he really done since driving for Penske? I would put Junior in the top 10 before Busch.
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Terry McNamara 6 months ago
You have a valid point Gary, Kurt Hasnt done anything at Penske, but he is a cup champion.I m not a JR hater, I guess I am just frustrated because of my worship of Big E hoping Dale JR would rattle a few more cages and get some attitude,but every man is different.
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Mark Davis 6 months ago
I don't think much of the Bush brothers period; that was the point I was trying to convey. They just don't have the level of maturity required at 200 mph. I don't hate them either, it's just that they always seem to be in the thick of some of the most decrepid developments in the sport.
I confess that I grew up on Richard Petty, and it was always easy to root for a winner; moreover I thought he was an excellent role model. Richard was not Lee, Kyle is not Richard, I really think that Adam would have been something but we will never know.
Dale Junior is not his father, but I will allow him to be his own man. I think he races hard, but not agressive as we all might like. I don't ever expect him to brag about incidents like the Fall Race at Richmond, but I'm real excited to watch them come about from time to time. Every once in awhile some nostalgia is like a dose of medicine for those whom forget the royal blood they race against.
It took awhile for Dale Senior to ferment and become the liquid gold he was on the track, I believe that Junior will be a force to recon with. I really believe he already is, its just so hard to win these days and come out of a race with a car in one piece. 42 cars lose every race.
Most people don't realize it but Kyle Petty was one of the most instrumental figures in the newer safer car design. I think when competitors become accustomed to it, we'll see some better racing. I cannot forget the great sportsmen we lost in order to get to the point where we had to make the car and the sport safer.
I don't enjoy seeing them wreck out there. If I wanted that I could go to a demolition derby.
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Jeff Tierney 6 months ago
Hey Gang - I agree and disagree with Terry on the trade, in that, I think it was a bad move for Hendrick in terms of victories, but a great move for the Hendrick Organization financially. Let's face it, Kyle Busch could win all 36 races one season and wouldn't sell anywhere near as much merchandise as Jr. Let's face it, 88 = $$ in Hendrick Motorsports pocket.
Furthermore, with Casey Mears gone at Hendrick and Mark Martin in, Rick Hendrick now has four of the most popular drivers in NASCAR in his stable and the lines at the Hendrick trailers will continue to be the most difficult to navigate our way by on race day. I'm not a Jr. fan, Busch fan or a Hendrick fan - I'm just calling it as I see it.
Mark - Great comments about the Petty Legacy. As a younger fan, I wasn't fortnate enough to be in the bleachers to watch the King race in person. I routed for the #43 from a far. So I was pretty excited to see the ole #43 circling the track while I watched the pre-race ceremonies at Daytona last year.
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Gary Brower 6 months ago
Terry,
You do make a good point about Kurt Busch being a Cup Champion. I guess I wasn't looking at the past as much as the here and now. BTW, I like Junior too and it is frustrating watching him sometimes. It seemed like in all the chase races, he was running well and then at the last pit stop Eury made some adjustments that went totally the other way and he finished poorly.
BTW, I did enjoy your article. It will be interesting to see as time goes on.
Anyone going to Daytona? I'm making my first trip this year.
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Mark Davis 6 months ago
Jeff,
I only got to go to one Richard Petty race at Daytona in 1979 (I think); my Father just didn't support my interest in this sport. He would have liked to have seen me interested in basketball, football, baseball or possibly bowling. I think mostly he worried about the impression it had on me and worried what I might think about cars, driving, racing instead of college and that sort of thing.
Back then, we didn't see much of it on the TV either, I always had to wait for the sports section of the newspaper in a family of 7. I like collecting RP's diecast too, he raced so many different types of cars and when you line his stuff up on a shelf it really is something to see. Even today, I live about 45 miles from Daytona and I'd just about rather see it on TV.
The one time I went, we watched from the infield, and there were pit passes although I can't remember why I couldn't go. I think he won with an Oldsmobile Cutlass that year, I got one from the Franklin Mint. I hate that Kyle probably won't be out there. I hope we will still see the King from time to time.
I think I've hit that 'nuff said Mark.
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mickey gersch 5 months ago
kyle busch wont make the chase this year- JR will finish in the top 3 with that championship a big possibility. dont base ricks move after one year. you can brag about kyles success all year but didnt he finish 9th or 10th in points- watch out for mark the kid martin. matt kenseth and dale earnhardt this year.
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Ashley McCubbin 5 months ago
Terry, not bad job with the article though I have to say that I am a little peeved at it. I think both drivers and owners got a good end to the deal. I don't think Rick necessarly got rid of Kyle for the performance as Kyle was in the chase at the time of the call. I think the reasoning is because of Kyle's attitude. Rick is all about having respectful drivers who do well - that is seen with each of his choices for next year. On the the other side, Gibbs likes drivers who are good and are okay with that edge - seen through Stewart and Kyle. Therefore that's how it works out for both.
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Terry McNamara 5 months ago
Thats true ashley, it did work for both drivers. JR made a move that might have saved his career leaving DEI.What Im trying to get across is the age difference and the immense talent of Kyle Busch.In 7 years JR WILL BE 40 and Busch will be 30 ! do the math.Once again I am not a jr hater or will never will be.Justin Creech a good friend of mine has this same argument with me every other day.You guessed it, he is a JUNIOR NATION MEMBER.
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