New and improved DEI looks like an instant force

With a promise of money and top-flight equipment, Kyle Busch might end up driving the fourth car on the new DEI team? Ray Grabowski/Icon SMI

The longtime team member was defiant, upset, and already looking toward the future just hours after Dale Earnhardt said he was leaving Dale Earnhardt Inc. (DEI) at the end of the 2007 season.

"We're all really, really ... mad that this happened," the DEI official told me over my cell on May 10. "But Teresa [Earnhardt] isn't going to take this sitting down. You never want to piss off a millionaire, and I'm betting that you'll soon see bulldozers at DEI and concrete being poured as they expand the shop."

Over the last month, and especially over the last few days, that statement -- I'm betting that you'll soon see bulldozers at DEI -- has proven to be abundantly true. On Wednesday DEI announced that it was merging immediately with Ginn Racing to create a four-car team.

The long-term ramifications of this merger are profound. Suddenly, with the infusion of Bobby Ginn's cash (which is substantial; he's a real-estate magnate, after all) and equipment (he recently had built a costly seven-post shaker rig, which enables teams to test race cars in the shop and is the machine du jour of all the top teams), it seems certain that DEI is destined to join the ranks of Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing and Roush Racing as one of NASCAR's superpower organizations.

Starting next season, the new and improved DEI (and it will still be called DEI) will move its operation to Ginn's mammoth race shop, which is located just five miles away from the Garage Mahal -- the space in Mooresville, N.C., that DEI currently calls home.

Also, DEI's driver lineup for '08 could be as impressive as any team outside of Hendrick and Gibbs. If all goes according to plan, the four DEI Chevys will be driven by Martin Truex Jr. (who, in my book, is a rapidly emerging talent), Paul Menard (who will finally have a chance to show his skills now that he'll have top-of-the-line equipment), Mark Martin (who will share his ride in '08 with rookie Aric Amirola), and ... Kyle Busch. Busch, of course, hasn't yet decided which team he's going to drive for in '08, but from what I hear DEI has offered him the most money and is promising him that his equipment will be second to none.

But even if Busch doesn't sign with DEI -- though, for the record, I think he will --it's clear that the organization has reinvented itself since Little E said he was leaving the team. Along with the Ginn merger, DEI has added a full-time test team of about 15 personnel, they've forged an engine development alliance with Richard Childress Racing, and they've made a statement by bringing cars to the racetrack for Truex Jr. nearly ever week since Earnhardt's stunning announcement that have been capable of winning.

Would all of this have happened if Earnhardt had decided to stay at DEI? I would say that it's highly unlikely. About 30 minutes after Little E's news conference back in May, I was chatting with him when he told me, "You know what, I think me leaving could actually be good for my relationship with Teresa ... In a weird way, it could actually be good for DEI."

Improbably, it's sure starting to look like Junior's words were prescient.