Earnhardt risks getting lost in shuffle after move

	After years as rivals, Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. will be forced to help each other as teammates next year. AP

Is Hendrick Motorsports the best fit for Dale Earnhardt Jr.?

Am I the only person on the planet who thinks it might not be?

Earnhardt is an A-list talent going to the best NASCAR Nextel Cup operation in the business. Owner Rick Hendrick, a man of his word, has pledged to provide everything needed to win a championship to Earnhardt, and he's got the track record with Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Terry Labonte to back him up.

What could go wrong?

Earnhardt will certainly win races at Hendrick, but the objective is the Cup.

Soon.

With the move, there will be an abnormally high rate of pressure on Earnhardt to perform from the get-go, yet he doesn't even know who his crew chief will be at Daytona next February.

It could be Alan Gustafson, currently with the departing Kyle Busch. Gustafson knows the culture at Hendrick and has worked with the engineering staff, but he hasn't worked with Earnhardt. They would face a critical period of adjustment. How long would it take?

It could be Tony Eury Jr., Earnhardt's crew chief at DEI. Eury and Earnhardt have the chemistry and a family bond, but they'd be working in a new environment that would also take time to learn to function at the highest level.

That's what it would take, too, racing against the well-oiled programs of Gordon and Steve Letarte and Johnson and Chad Knaus. Can Earnhardt expect to beat those teammates, with all the same stuff, in the next year or two? I wonder.

Also consider that Gordon is chasing history; he wants to join Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt Sr. as a seven-time Cup champion. And Johnson is chasing his second crown and undoubtedly wants three or four to make his mark more pronounced.

There may be an open-book policy at Hendrick, but does anybody really think Gordon and Johnson are going to share all their secrets with Earnhardt from the start? Please. In any racing series and on any racing team, nobody does.

Hendrick is on top today and was last year, but that only makes teams like Gibbs, Roush and Childress work that much harder and they don't lack for any resources, either.