Dale Earnhardt's aloofness from his teammates and preoccupation
with his business interests have contributed to his downfall as
a racer, according to his former crew chief, Larry McReynolds.
"A driver has to be part of his team today," says McReynolds,
who last week was ordered to work with Earnhardt's teammate,
Mike Skinner, as part of a crew-chief swap that owner Richard
Childress hopes will shake some life into his underachieving
operation. Earnhardt's Daytona 500 victory in February is the
only win in four months for the seven-time Winston Cup champion
and the only win this season for Childress's team.
Since winning Daytona, Earnhardt has one top-five
finish in 13 races.
(George Tiedemann)
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"Talentwise Dale's still there, but the competition has
certainly caught up, and I question his total focus," says
McReynolds. "The days of showing up at a track on Friday, then
hightailing it out of there after the race on Sunday—without
even talking about what the car was doing, and then maybe driver
and crew chief talking to each other once during the week—and
showing up at the next track the next Friday, those days are
gone."
That had become Earnhardt's pattern because he has so much going
on. His 1997 income from various businesses and endorsements was
estimated at $19.1 million by Forbes. Only $3.6 million of that
total came from driving for Childress. Among Earnhardt's
enterprises is a Busch Grand National-Winston Cup team,
employing his son, Dale Jr., as one of the drivers.
"Take Mark Martin," McReynolds says. "As good as he is, and as
many races as he wins, he visits his shop once a week and spends
almost a full day there. People like Mark, Dale Jarrett and Jeff
Burton have tunnel vision about their race cars. They've got
other things going on too, but they know what their bread and
butter is."
Coincidentally, Martin earned his season-leading fourth victory
on Sunday in the Miller Lite 400 at Michigan Speedway. Earnhardt
finished 15th, not bad considering he was forced to start at the
rear of the field in a backup car after having his primary ride
sideswiped and thrown into the wall the day before.
Earnhardt refused to address McReynolds's remarks on Sunday, but
in talking about the crew-chief switch earlier in the week, he
had said, "I don't know that it's chemistry or personalities.
Larry and I have too good a relationship to have had conflict."
The Earnhardt-McReynolds breakup ended 18 months of essential
failure for what had been heralded as a dream pairing. Earnhardt
had sought out McReynolds, hoping to break a slump that began in
March 1996. McReynolds had made regular winners of the late
Davey Allison and then of Ernie Irvan. But try as he did to come
up with winning car setups for Earnhardt, he says, "I don't know
that I ever figured out what he was looking for."
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Issue date: June 22, 1998
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