A dysfunctional DEI gets hit hard by driver and sponsor transfers

Teresa Earnhardt has often been criticized for DEI's woes, but has stayed in the background this season. Getty Images

It's been a tumultuous week for Dale Earnhardt, Inc. In the past 72 hours alone, it has lost two primary sponsors, a driver and been forced to deny rumors of an outrageous comeback. But no amount of crazy news off the track will mask the fact DEI is headed for its worst season in nearly a decade. And that proves to be the center of DEI's current crisis far more than money, betrayal or the oft-criticized Teresa Earnhardt. It's the drivers's poor performances that have left DEI on the verge of becoming a catastrophe far worse than when Dale Earnhardt, Jr. left a little over one year ago.

Of course, losing a little cash never helps. Financial problems are front and center these days, so plenty of eyes were opened when a company this big lost two multi-million dollar backers in the course of three days. And while neither sponsorship departure came as a big surprise, the truth still hurts. The U.S. Army, which replaced Budweiser as the backer of DEI's No. 8 Chevrolet this season, informed the team Monday it wouldn't return in '09.

The lone financial holdover from the Ginn Racing merger had been looking elsewhere for months, now on the verge of inking a deal with Tony Stewart's second team. For the Army, linking up with veteran Ryan Newman proved far more lucrative than taking chances with unproven Aric Almirola, set to take the reins full-time in the No. 8 next season. That leaves the car once driven by Earnhardt, Jr. with no sponsorship, although Almirola has impressed enough as a rookie -- he's one of two first-year drivers to score a Top 10 -- that he should have the funding in place come February.

As far as the organization's other two cars, things aren't looking quite so rosy. Second-year driver Paul Menard announced he was jumping ship to Yates Racing on Tuesday, making official a move that's been well-known in insider circles for weeks. Taking his father's company with him as a primary sponsor, Menard gives the type of stability to the cash-strapped Yates team he ripped right out of DEI's financial coffers. The team he leaves behind (No. 15) now has no substantial funding beyond this season, joining the plight of the No. 01 currently driven by rookie Regan Smith. Smith's car has already been running unsponsored for two-thirds of the season, with the company footing the bill simply to keep four cars on the track.

In all likelihood, one or both of those cars won't appear in 2009, with Smith's No. 01 likely the first to go (sources have linked the team to anything from a potential sale to its owner points being sold off to Richard Childress' new No. 33 car). The failure to maintain financial stability has quickly put the focus back on owner Teresa Earnhardt, who's kept a low profile since the pledge to rebuild her operation in the wake of her stepson's departure last year. When that happened, Teresa claimed the company would grow to be bigger and better in spite of losing NASCAR's most popular driver; instead, it's about to go bust.

But while legions of Junior fans think their driver would solve all the problems at DEI, they're sorely mistaken. Even if Junior put up Hendrick-style numbers with DEI's No. 8, there are still three other cars to worry about -- and none of them have shown signs of life.

Since the end of '06, the organization has won just once while failing to put any car in the Top 10 in points. This season, their four cars have combined for just 19 Top 10 finishes -- three fewer than Carl Edwards has by himself. Unless there's a miracle over these final seven weeks, the organization will go winless for the first time since 1999. Back then, the company's founding father was alive (Dale Sr.) while his son was busy winning a championship ... in the Busch Series.

Junior's departure also left Martin Truex, Jr. as the returning star of the program, and the company was supposed to build around him. But it's Truex who's had the most disappointing season of all. One year removed from making the Chase, he's winless and 16th in points, with just three Top 5 finishes and eight Top 10s on the year. In comparison, teammate and part-time driver Mark Martin has more Top 10s (10) despite nine fewer starts in the No. 8 Chevy.

Things are so bad that at Kansas, Truex led more laps (27) than the previous 28 races combined. That race ended early with a broken shifter, the third DNF for this team this season and typical for the way the year has gone. But with Truex and crew chief Kevin Manion in their third season together, you'd expect better out of a pairing like that. The third year is supposed to be the breakout season in NASCAR: think championship for Jeff Gordon in 1995 or former teammate Dale Jr.'s 2002 success story. Instead, Truex's team made the news for cheating, a template violation at Daytona robbing the team of 150 points and his crew chief for six weeks.

That type of news doesn't help when you're trying to bring the other three teams up by your bootstraps. And that's what is just as disturbing about DEI's lack of success -- its failure to integrate additional support into a unified front. As SI.com's Brant James' interview with Tony Eury Jr. revealed, DEI never really was the biggest team with the most resources. However, a midsummer purchase of Ginn Racing in '07 added plenty of cars and personnel to an operation that had previously been small-scale. With enough equipment to run six full-time Cup teams, DEI trimmed some of the fat but retained the resources to keep it at four. At the time, only Hendrick and Roush had that many teams on the Cup tour, as many new CoTs built that gave the team a baseline upon which to build.

But bigger didn't wind up better, and DEI is paying for some personnel choices made following the merger. When Ginn Racing's and DEI's style failed to mesh, it was the Ginn Racing employees who many times got the boot; and now, they've gone on to successful seasons elsewhere. Number one on that list is former Ginn Racing exec Jay Frye, who's gotten busy building Team Red Bull into the powerhouse he could very well have achieved with double the cars and drivers at Dale Earnhardt, Inc. Ryan Pemberton was also adored by Mark Martin in '07, but the lovable crew chief is now turning heads with David Reutimann in '08. Instead, Martin was paired with Tony Gibson at DEI, a marriage that was slow to craft and will never have time to fully develop -- Martin's signed a deal with Hendrick and will leave following the season.

Martin's the latest in a revolving door of famous drivers who've chosen to go elsewhere. Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Michael Waltrip, and now Menard have left an ugly stain of negative press around an organization just looking for some basic loyalty these days. That's why a bogus rumor surrounding a comeback by 1989 champ Rusty Wallace -- squashed as quickly as it began Tuesday night -- would have been a boon for DEI. They need a veteran with a successful past to come in and lead this organization through the tough times.

But a comeback for Wallace is out of the question -- or so he says -- and with most drivers already settled for '09, that leaves the future of the organization in peril. DEI needs cash, but to get it, it needs drivers capable of taking those resources and putting their cars in position to win. And in what is a performance-based business, DEI's struggled to do that consistently in '08 -- and that's the problem no amount of money can overcome.