Dale Earnhardt Jr.: Does He Need To Call His Own Shots To Be Successful?

Is it fair to say Dale Earhardt Jr. has had a big say on how his career has played out?

Would it be safe to say he hasn’t had as much control over that since joining Hendrick Motorsports?

Do you think he was very unhappy with the firing of his crew chief Tony Eury Jr.?

Do you think he fought until the end to keep that from happening?

If you answered "yes" to all of those questions, well then read on.

If your answers were "no," then just stay with me on this, and help me understand what’s going on with Jr.

Let's first look at some of his cup stats:

Wins: 18

Top 5: 88 (for real!)

Top 10: 142

Starts: 363 in cup

From 2000 to 2007, Jr. finished in the top 10 about 42 percent of the time.

From 2008 to present, Jr. finished in the top 10 about 29 percent of the time.

OK, those are not Jimmie Johnson stats, but you must agree, those non-Hendrick years are the stats of a very successful race car driver.

So what happened? Where did this go wrong?

This is going to be a readership participation article; we are going to comment and get to the bottom of this problem.

Let's start with the most obvious factor—equipment.

Does Hendrick Motorsports have the best racecar/power plant that NASCAR has to offer?

Do they have the best facilities to work on their equipment?

Do they have the best engineering support staff in NASCAR?

Do they have the best technicians and pit crews in NASCAR?

Do the have the best drivers in NASCAR and are able to share the best racing information?

Again, if your answer was "yes" to each of those questions, then please read on.

If your answers were all "no," well, I’ll be honest with you, you might be on the wrong site...maybe you got confused and thought you were in the B/R cooking section.

Either way, let's continue.

There were nine questions I put out for you to analyze; I answered all of them with a big fat “yes.”

How about you?

How many yes or nos did you have and why?

Hopefully you can comment and we can all know how you feel; meanwhile, here is my take.

Again, all my answers to the questions were "yes"—it is undeniable, Hendrick teams have the best NASCAR has to offer.

If we can agree that all the appropriate answers are “yes,” the only conclusion has to be the obvious one!

The blame lies squarely between Jr.’s ears. I say this because there can’t be any other explanation for a driver with a 40-plus percent top 10 finish rate in cup races to have such a terrible last few seasons.

If I was to make a guess, I say Dale Earnhardt Jr. is not happy at Hendrick Motorsports, and that might be the reason why he is not doing well there.

There is no other explanation.

Can you think of another?

So how do you fix this?

I think he should start his own team as he has in the Nationwide series, get himself aligned with a Chevy team like Tony Stewart, and have a real go at it.

Jr. has to have more clout than Stewart, so getting a team started in cup should not be a problem.

This would solve all his problems; he can run the team just like he wants, he can have the crew chief he wants, and maybe he can start running top 10s week in and week out like he wants (or, at least, like we assume he wants).

All that would be good for the JR nation and for NASCAR.

Everybody wins, and, most important of all, Dale Jr. will be happy.