Despite gloomy forecast, DEI driver paints pretty picture of future

The future viability of Dale Earnhardt Inc. may depend on young driver Aric Almirola. Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR Tim Tuttle's Mailbag Submit a comment or question for Tim. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND

Dale Earnhardt Inc. has taken on the appearance of the Titanic soon after it hit the iceberg, taking water and heading to the bottom. Mark Martin is leaving following this season. Martin Truex Jr., sources say, is trying to follow him out the door. Paul Menard, rumors say, is talking about switching to Yates Racing, taking his sponsorship with him.

It is a scenario that would transform DEI into a wasteland from the thriving organization it was at the start of the 2007 season. Aric Almirola, who will replace Martin in the No. 8, would become the team's only confirmed and funded driver. From there, DEI would face a crisis of confidence in trying to convince the new sponsors and drivers needed to rebuild a multi-car operation in Sprint Cup.

Stop. As ugly as the future may look for DEI, it hasn't happened yet. And Menard doesn't expect it to. He paints a much prettier picture.

Menard says he has a deal with DEI next season. More than that, he has high hopes for the organization's future.

"I expect to be here," Menard said. "I've been here four and a half years and they welcomed me with open arms when I first went there. It is almost like a big family."

Menard also expects Truex to remain and for Almirola to make a solid contribution in his first full Cup season. Truex's contract contains an ambiguous option clause for 2009 that may or may not be binding, depending upon legal interpretation. Sources say Truex is the frontrunner for the vacancy at Penske Racing. There could be an additional opportunity at Richard Childress Racing and, possibly, Stewart Haas.

"Everybody seems to want Martin Truex to leave," Menard said, "but he's under contract. I don't see him leaving. Aric will be a rookie next year, but he has Cup experience and lots of other racing experience. Aric is living in the area [DEI shop in Mooresville, N.C.] and he's around to talk about things. Mark [Martin] lives in Florida. He never came around the shop or sat in meetings. If he was at the shop every couple of months, that was a lot. I don't see it being a step backwards to have Aric."

After DEI lost Dale Earnhardt Jr. to Hendrick and Budweiser to Gillett Evernham, Menard admits it's been both a rebuilding and transitional year.

"DEI, with Dale Jr. leaving, lost big income from Budweiser," Menard said. "Tony Eury Jr. left [to join Junior at Hendrick] and that was a bigger blow. He's a pretty sharp guy. He thinks outside the box a lot. But overall, we've had some great people coming to DEI. With the new shop, we're all side-by-side and I haven't seen four cars work as closely as we are now.

"There's a lot more sharing of information at the shop and the track. After every practice, all four drivers sit down and we brainstorm with the engineers and crew chiefs. That's never happened before. We have a lot of tools at DEI that we didn't have last year."

DEI merged with Ginn Racing last summer, moving its race teams into Ginn's new race shop, which includes a new seven-post shaker rig. DEI's existing facility, all 200,000 feet of it, are used for administrative and building cars.

With the Car of Today, the seven-post has become vital to making cars go faster. It is a high-tech tool for developing shocks and suspensions, critical to handling.

"The CoTs have less aerodynamic downforce and it has to rely more on mechanical grip, which is what you get from the seven-post," Menard said. "We used to outsource it, renting time, and it wasn't available all the time. We're running our cars on it every day. It's only been functional for the last eight to 10 months and we're learning how to improve our cars."

Menard is learning, too, in his second full Cup season. He's 27th in the points with a best finish of 11th at Michigan. He also was 14th at Talladega, 15th for Daytona II (where he sat on the pole and led the opening 19 laps), 16th at Martinsville, 17th at Texas and 19th at Atlanta.

"We're not where we want to be, but compared to last year, we're way further along," Menard said. "We've had good runs, but not good finishes. We've had good race cars. We sat on the pole at Daytona. We had an incident on pit road that caused some damage, but we drove back to the lead pack. We were about 30th for the [green-white-checkered] last restart and drove to 15th in two laps. It was a fast car.

"We had a top-five car at Bristol and got caught up in an incident with lapped cars. We've definitely made progress. We keep chipping away at it and the season is only half over."

Menard is viewed by some as the son of a wealthy father who bought his way into Cup. Tony Stewart criticized Menard as being "barely qualified" to drive in Cup last year. But the reality is, Menard had to earn his stripes by proving to his father, John, that he could drive at the Cup level.

John is the sole owner of Menards, the nation's third-largest home improvement chain behind Home Depot and Lowe's. He built it from scratch, starting out by selling lumber to contractors on the weekends in the early 1960s. Menard likes racing, of course, but he saw the value of sponsorship in growing his business long before Paul decided to drive.

Menards also sponsors Matt Crafton in the Craftsman Truck Series and Ed Carpenter in the IRL IndyCar Series. It seems certain Menards would be in Cup even without Paul as driver. John wouldn't leave the Cup arena empty to his business competition.

Paul had an in, of course, with his father, but no guarantees of reaching Cup with the family money. He won races in the Grand-Am Sports Car Series, ARCA and Nationwide, where he finished sixth in the 2005 and 2006 seasons to get to Cup.

At 27, Paul Menard is a young driver learning his craft in the most competitive racing series in the world.

"It's what I thought it would be," Menard said. "It's so much more competitive than the Nationwide Series. A top-10 in the Nationwide is comparable to a top-20 in Cup. Instead of 20 really competitive cars every week like there are in Nationwide, there are 40 in Cup."