Earnhardt Jr.'s slow start to '07 add to drama at DEI

	Wrecks and engine troubles have left Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Martin Truex, Jr. looking for solutions to the team's slow start. AP
	MAILBAG Submit a comment or question for Tom. Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:

After weeks of scrutiny surrounding his negotiations to take on majority ownership of DEI for 2008 and beyond, all Dale Earnhardt, Jr. wanted was the focus to be shifted off his private life and onto his on-track performance.

Two races in, he's gotten what he's wished for. Unfortunately, the attention he's getting is for all the wrong reasons.

The three Nextel Cup teams at Dale Earnhardt, Incorporated come to the first off-week of the season lost deep in the standings, as none of them rates higher than 38th. Martin Truex, Jr. takes that honor, while Dale Jr. sits 41st and rookie Paul Menard 43rd after he missed the Daytona 500. Things have gotten off to such a rough start that fellow Nextel Cup part-timer Mike Wallace skipped the race at California, but he still has at least 40 points more than all three drivers at DEI.

What's been the problem? Bad luck has been part of it; both Junior and Truex were caught up in the same late-race wreck at Daytona, and at California, engines were the culprit.

"I was really, really worried about the engines [at California] because we blew two motors at the test in Las Vegas [in January]," Earnhardt said. "We're lucky to have next weekend off so we can spend that extra week figuring it out and be ready to race at Vegas."

"Everybody needs to keep their heads up and we'll figure it out."

One of Junior's teammates wasn't so forgiving.

"Something in the engine broke, that's all I know," Truex said. "This is getting old, I can tell you that. We've had good cars the last 25 races, but something always seems to happen to us."

You've got to feel for Truex just as much as for Junior. The sophomore driver entered the season with momentum on his side following a second-place finish at Homestead to close out '06. Instead of capitalizing on that, he's watched '07 get torn to shreds early on, falling apart in the midst of a flurry of gossip and controversy over whether his famous teammate will even be around this time next year. That's got to put him in a tougher spot than most people realize; the man that's responsible for getting his career to where it is today has now become the biggest distraction from getting it to move forward.

As for Junior, his comments this week were a far cry from Daytona, in which he all but pointed the finger at the engine department for not having enough horsepower to get him running up front like he had in restrictor plate races of old. Now, the driver of the No. 8 Chevrolet finds himself a clear straggler already in terms of making the Chase; he's 122 points and 29 spots behind 12th place Matt Kenseth. Ironically, Kenseth is the only driver in the three-year history of the playoff system who's turned around such an early deficit to come back and make the Chase, and there's admittedly plenty of time for Junior to follow suit.

But turning things around starting at Las Vegas will be tough, especially for Junior. In his last three races at the Speedway, he's pulled together two DNFs and a best finish of merely 27th. Things have been so bad for Junior in Vegas, the No. 8 even had to pull itself behind the wall in '05 simply because the team couldn't make the car go fast enough to meet minimum speed. Add in the comments above about engines blowing in DEI's Vegas test, and the casino capital of the world doesn't sound like the place the No. 8 team wants to go to when it needs to put all its chips on the table.

Of course, with every bad finish comes more speculation as to whether or the DEI contract negotiations are about to fall apart. Despite Junior's claim last week that he would like nothing more than to spend the rest of his career there, he gains greater leverage each week the organization struggles to simply finish races. If you're claiming a team isn't run correctly, what better proof to have in your back pocket than a handful of mechanical DNFs to start off the season? Using that as the backbone of your negotiations, though, is a dangerous thing; when you're accusing your stepmother and team owner Teresa of not having the company in order, that's the type of statement that can filter down to every member of the team, calling confidence and credibility into question.

Well, if there's any bright spot for Junior's legions of fans to cling to, it's that their driver tends to bounce back of two consecutive poor finishes. Three other times in his career, Junior's had two straight Cup DNFs, and he's followed up each occurrence with finishes of 6th or better, including two wins. No doubt, he's going to need that type of history on his side after the worst start of his eight-year Cup career.

When asked about his racing life in an interview with SI earlier the month, Junior said, "It will never get to the point where the bad will outweigh the good."

One more bad finish at Vegas, and that theory will surely be put to the test.