Alittle Dale Jr News..

[muggle not]

actually, Hoss's numbers show why Jr is one of the top 5 or as a minimum top 10 driver. Non Jr fans can criticize all they want but the numbers are there for everyone to see.

[Sparky1329]

Bowyer, Harvick, and Burton have consistently good equipment. DEI (more like TEI at this stage) is at best backmarker team without junior. Teresa has pretty much dismantled everything that Dale Sr. tried so hard to build.

This is just my opinion but I think Dale Jr wants to get control of the racing side of things more than the whole company, The race shop needs some well-directed bucks channeled in for personnel and equipment and Teresa holds the purse strings very tightly. Speed costs money.

[Hoss Ghoul]

Thats what I love about you Hoss.... can always count on you to tell it like it is.

Thanks Cindy, good to see you around.

[muggle not]

This is just my opinion but I think Dale Jr wants to get control of the racing side of things more than the whole company, The race shop needs some well-directed bucks channeled in for personnel and equipment and Teresa holds the purse strings very tightly. Speed costs money.

Yeah, I think I agree. She is a little like King Richard. Tight with the pennies.

[Mark in Oshawa]

It is really simple. Those who don't like Jr. resent his fight for control with Teresa, who many Earnhardt Sr. Fans think can do no wrong, and they also don't think he is that good a driver that does too many commercials. Those who like Earnhardt Jr. think he can do no wrong and should own a piece of the team.

Ok, put me in the latter. I like the guy, and if he had been with Gibbs or Hendrick, he would have won a championship by now. Lets be blunt here, the only place DEI ever was dominent in was for about 3 years on the superspeedways. That is 4 races a year, yet Jr. has stayed in or about the top 10 every year save one in the last 5. I would have to say he belongs. Now does he deserve to own a piece of the team? Well, he didn't ask to be as popular as he has become, but he will use it to get as much as he can, the same every other driver would if opportunity presented itself. He is tired of not having what he needs to win that championship that he feels he can win, and if one looks at the history of DEI, one will find mismanagment, and mistakes that have hurt the organization over and over again. Some of them you can lay at the feet of fate, but a lot at Theresa not knowing what she is doing. She is a smart lady, good at business, but she isn't her late husband when it comes to assessing talent and people have steered her wrong. For DEI to have done as well as they have is a tribute to Dale Jr., and if he wants control, she has to decide just how bad she wants to have an empty shell when he takes the Bud money down the road. One thing is for sure, RCR could build a fourth car really quick...

[MD24]

http://www.maxchevy.com/columns/gris...grissom-2.html

Teresa already has agreed to 51% of DEI for Dale Jr.? The Dale [Earnhardt] Jr. / DEI contract negotiations continue and the influence of ace negotiator Max Siegel may be bearing success. One contact told me [MaxChevy's Glen Grissom] on the down-low that the 51% (or majority ownership) that Dale Jr. requires to stay with DEI has essentially been negotiated – agreed to by Teresa Earnhardt. But that she, in turn, is requesting that an independent, impartial review board be set up within DEI that would take into consideration and review any major operational changes that Dale Jr. would want to take place – acting like a board of directors it seems to me [MaxChevy's Glen Grissom], with Dale Jr. basically reporting to it. So far, this has been balked at – but stranger management structures have survived in the business world. All parties say they want to have the contract resolved by May, so with April half-over, it’s crunch time .

[Sparky1329]

I'll be surprised if Jr agrees to a "board".

[Mark in Oshawa]

Jr. wants control because for all his career at DEI, he has had no control. When his dad was alive, I am sure he was ok with that. Dad knew enough about people he hired to run things to ensure to Dale Jr. that they knew their jobs and the right decisions would be made. Since Teresa has been the boss, over time DEI has not replaced people that move on (lets face it, most organizations turn over a lot of people as people climb the ladder) with the same quality of people, and R and D maybe has not been looked after. Many of Jr's poorest finishes have come from blown motors, so one might want to look at the engine department. The move of crew chiefs that was much ballyhooed tore up the morale at DEI (even though it did prove to Jr. to appreciate the Eury's) and the team never really recovered that season. There are numerous instances where bad management decisions (not malicious or decisions made to hurt Jr, just bad ones) have been the story for the last 4 years at DEI. Jr. wants control because he has had his fate in the hands of others and he has seen that DEI is going down; and he is man enough to know he is willing to take on the responsiblity of steering the ship that his dad founded. He feels no need to buy a team from anyone else, nor does he want to own any team BUT DEI.

In his own way, he wants what Teresa wants, that is a legacy based on Sr.'s name in the form of this team. For this to work however for Jr., he HAS to either have competant managers running the show, or run the show himself. He obviously feels Teresa cant do it, and this management committee that he would answer to just wont work if he owns 51% of the team. Teresa will give up a large chunk of ownership but wants a say in running things and THAT would not work. No one owns the majority of any business and just leaves others to run it blindly. Dale Jr. will hire the people to run the team based on his instincts from being around the garage, and the help of others I am sure, and if he hires wrong, well then he will be the guy he has to answer for, and knowing Jr. he will be a man and admit his faults.

The reason I like this guy is because you never hear him bad mouth anyone when he feels he may have had a fault in the outcome, whether it be a motor blowing up, or a wreck. He admits fault, he tells it as it is, and he is willing to buy a majority stake in keeping his Dad's legacy alive. For Teresa, it is pride, and the love her husband's dream, but she has to know that Dale Jr. isn't going to do something there that is malicious or nasty to what his Dad wanted, and he has a greater knowledge about where this team needs to go.

If Jr. never signs with DEI, I predict the team is gone from the landscape of Cup racing within 5 years as we see it now. It may be bought out by another team or buyer down the road or not have any success and limp along into obscurity like the Wood's have done and until recently, the Petty's. To stay on top requires hiring the right people, spending the money and letting them run it. Results should be what counts...and DEI is having one year after another on a slow decline...

[Mark in Oshawa]

Of course, what I said is opinion....I am sure someone will dispute it....but it wont change the fact that I doubt highly that Jr. would want to buy the team just to cut Teresa out and kill any legacy of his dad.....

[ms0362]

I agree with Hoss. I don't follow Jr, but he is building consistant numbers. He does commercials because GM and Budweiser contract it, and because he's marketable.