The Jr Move Thoughts So Far

[Sifty]

With the off week things have been a little on the slow side... O.K. almost dead.

With the NCAA tourny going on some of our thoughts may have turned to Basketball even the not so into it fan has already filled out there bracket and will most likely spend a little time in front of the tube watching a some of the games.

So to get a little somthing going here I was wondering how you would grade Jr. move over to HMS.

I would give him a B plus. He has been a top five finisher in the past few races and is easly in the chase.

He has had a car that could have won a race or two and the pressure that we all thought may get to him seems to have not.

Now if his teammates could get somthing going.......

I think I hear some fingers on the Keyboards out Arlington way

Sifty

[harvey lee]

Agreed. Jr is going to have a great season, one that should be better than any at DEI and maybe he will finish better than the other HMS drivers. I guess that goes to show so far that Jr is a good driver and that just maybe DEI was not offering the same equipment as HMS has to offer. Granted, he now has better support and better teammates.

[PierBridge]

Agreed!

I give him an A so far!

[LMITOUT]

Yep, I guess all those naysayers who said Jr. couldn't drive and only had a job because of his dad can fill their pipes up and start smoking. If his teammate wouldn't have taken him out at California he may even be leading this thing already. Not too shabby for the first few weeks with a new team.

As I said during Daytona, I wonder what Mears is thinking. He's been at the team for a while and can only win when everyone runs out of gas. Now he's on the verge of falling out of the top 35. Ouch.

[Iron Cowboy]

I know what Im thinking of mears...can you imagine the dominant team HMS could of had if they would of just dumped casey and kept Bush

[L_Cappo]

agree

[lawdog]

Mears started about the same way last year and finished like 14th in points. He'll be fine. Kyle had too much "busch" in him to fit in at Hendrick. Raw talent yes, but a disruption that Rick wouldn't tolerate i think.

[yaggie]

Jr. is definately doing much better than I expected. As for the other Hendrich drivers, no need to worry. This early in the season it just takes one DNF caused by a so-so driver to drop a driver out of the top 12 and move the others up. Kyle is the one to beat now but I will be surprised if he does not crash in the 3 or 4 races. I'll just pick him for one week and he will crash!

[ricbak]

Jr. is doing much better with HMS than he was at this time last year. I was disappointed to see him leave DEI (the family thing I guess) but it looks as though this was a move in the right direction for his career. I am not a Kyle Busch fan but he has been on fire so-far this season in all 3 divisions.

[candiru]

He is doing well on the track, however, I think the ball was dropped in terms of marketing. I think that the cars look kind of lame (like field fillers) and they don't stand out on the track. It is disappointing that the most popular driver does not have one sponsor on the car for at least the vast majority of the races.

[LMITOUT]

I agree on the multiple sponsors. I'd rather see a car with a primary sponsor on the track every week, but that's just me. I believe they had an obligation to the National Guard from the previous season so that may be part of it also. I'd rather see a Mountain Dew car every week, but at least they will be having a retro MD scheme for one race this season.

[lawdog]

 Originally Posted By: candiru

I think the ball was dropped in terms of marketing.

Actually, it has been one of the biggest marketing success stories out there. My brother (who is still in the family Pepsi businesss) was in Daytona and he said he saw more green 88 shirts than he thought they could have made yet. He couldn't believe how well it went over.

[HOF#13]

I agree. I would bet that both Pepsi and the National Guard are simply ecstatic with the marketing of Jr. and the visibility of their product. In addition, Jr. / Hendrick have to be be pretty happy also. Instead of a lot of fans buying one shirt, alot will now buy at least 2...so they can have the Amp design and the National Guard design. There are a lot of fanatics that will not be happy with just having Dale Jr. Amp gear and not National Guard gear, or vice versa.

[bassNspear]

law, im sure your right, being that bud is no longer with him. I think it was a great situation for him to move to HMS. There taking care of him, and i believe he is having a good time there.

[TNFL]

3 in-laws had New JR gear on at Easter. YUCK

[HOF#13]

So, then it was a good Easter!

[PikeBayCommanche]

Yep, I guess all those naysayers who said Jr. couldn't drive and only had a job because of his dad can fill their pipes up and start smoking. If his teammate wouldn't have taken him out at California he may even be leading this thing already. Not too shabby for the first few weeks with a new team.

As I said during Daytona, I wonder what Mears is thinking. He's been at the team for a while and can only win when everyone runs out of gas. Now he's on the verge of falling out of the top 35. Ouch.

How is everyone feeling about JR now? Can he rebound?

Think he wishes he would have fired Eury Jr. and kept Darien Grubb as crew chief?

[fishingMN4eyes]

I know Jr makes some bone-head moves as a driver, but he has to somehow get a better crew than what he has now. You can only come back from so many crew mistakes. I really honestly don't believe that Hendrick has total control over that team or else something would have been done by now. That kind of stuff NEVER or rarely happens to the 48 or 24 teams. And I have a feeling if it did happen to them, Hendrick would be on their case or they would make some changes immediately.

[Longline]

I completely agree, something needs to change. I liked the move to not pit and get track position, but then they screwed the car up again!

[LMITOUT]

I'm not sure why my post was quoted, but anyway. Let's see, so far this season of the races he hasn't had an engine blow or wrecked by someone, he has finished in the top 15 three times and four times in the top 20. He's been competitive at times but hasn't been dominating, and poor pit stops have killed him. That doesn't mean he can't wheel a car and that's what my quoted post above was referring to. It seems like the past few seasons they've had issues the first 1/4 of the schedule and the slow starts out of the gate aren't helping their run to the end.

I don't know what to think of the crew chief situation. I think he'll sink or swim with Eury. Personally I'd rather see Eury Sr. on the box than Eury Jr, but it's been said now and again that Eury Jr. is actually pretty smart guy when it comes to cars. Earnhardt needs to try some different set-ups instead of working on the ones they're currently running that apparently aren't doing the job. Martin said that Henricks has long list of car set-ups and they finally found one that he can drive, so maybe Eury and Earnhardt needs to do some looking too.

[harvey lee]

Both Jr and his pit crew need to improve. Je and Eury need to also be able to read each other better for set up changes during the race.

Mr Hendrick will see that the team improves as Jr has proven he is better than what he is doing at this time.

In a interview earlier with Rick H and another, they asked about this same question and Rick said they will get it.

[CPRJoe]

I agree the 48 and 24 cars improve with the adjustments during a race? There cars generally "get better" as the race progresses. Not the case with Jr! Don't blame the pit crew though...IT'S ON THE CREW CHIEF AND DRIVER!!

[harvey lee]

I AGREE BUT HIS PIT CREW IS TERRIBLE. JR LOSES SPOTS FROM HIS PIT STOPS EVERY RACE. ONE CANNOT DO WELL WHEN AT THE END OF THE RACE YOU ARE MINUS 4-10 POSITIONS FROM YOUR PIT STOPS ALMOST EVERY RACE.

[spearchucker]

I AGREE BUT HIS PIT CREW IS TERRIBLE. JR LOSES SPOTS FROM HIS PIT STOPS EVERY RACE. ONE CANNOT DO WELL WHEN AT THE END OF THE RACE YOU ARE MINUS 4-10 POSITIONS FROM YOUR PIT STOPS ALMOST EVERY RACE.

Or when he drives through the pits and can't find his spot or pits out of the box. Not all his crews fault.

[harvey lee]

Thats exactly what I stated above, both Jr and his pit crew.