Dale Earnhardt Jr. losing pit crew members to JGR
Well, that's not exactly what will happen.
Earnhardt will lose his car chief as well as at least three of his over-the-wall crew members. His car chief has his blessing, considering Jason Burdett will move to JR Motorsports to crew chief an Xfinity Series car for Regan Smith.
But three over-the-wall crew members are headed to pit for a rival, having been hired to pit the car for Joe Gibbs Racing newcomer Carl Edwards. Earnhardt will lose both tire carriers (Kevin Harris and Matt Ver Meer) and his front tire changer (Clay Robinson) to JGR, meaning he will have pretty much an entirely new pit crew in 2015.
Earnhardt acknowledged Thursday that crew members leaving after their contracts expire is part of the business.
"It is a business, and those guys saw an opportunity to do something else elsewhere," Earnhardt said following a NASCAR awards luncheon at the Encore in Las Vegas. "We had a great run together. They were the best team on pit road for the last two years.
"I never once felt at a disadvantage when I pulled on to pit road. It's going to be a challenge to replace those guys."
Hendrick Motorsports has several over-the-wall crew members on contract and training to replace those leaving.
"We've got a lot of great potential crew members that are training every day," Earnhardt said. "I was over there Tuesday, and they were working their guts out.
"We've got guys in the wings ready to move up, ready for that challenge. It's going to be a difficult challenge to replace the talent we have because those guys were amazing."
In addition to having new over-the-wall crew members and a new crew chief, Earnhardt will have a new car chief. Travis Mack, car chief this year for Ives on the Nationwide Series championship car driven by Chase Elliott, will move with Ives to the Hendrick Cup car with Earnhardt.
"Burdett has been looking for that opportunity for a really long time," Earnhardt said. "The deck sort of got shuffled there at the last minute and it opened the door for Burdett and it also opened the door for Travis Mack. … We were excited, really, to give both of them the opportunity they wanted.
"Burdett wanted the opportunity to crew chief and Mack wanted the opportunity to move into a car-chief role at the Cup level. So both of these guys get what they want."
Earnhardt emphasized that having engineer Kevin Meendering returning is the key to having a smooth transition with the crew-chief change. Letarte announced in January that 2014 would be his last year, and he would move to the NBC broadcast booth starting in 2015.
"That's really the main bridge to be able to help me and Greg," Earnhardt said. "Jason is an excellent car chief. I never had to worry about anything being off just the least little bit.
"Having Kevin still on board is going to be the line of communication between me and Greg that we need to be able to not miss a beat."
Ives and Mack will get their first chance to work with Earnhardt in their new roles Tuesday and Wednesday at a Goodyear tire test at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
"All the history I have with Kevin, that's going to help Kevin and Greg," Earnhardt said. "Kevin is going to go, ‘Look, Greg, this is what Dale Jr. typically likes and this is the stuff that we do to makes him fast.'
"That's going to cut a lot of corners for us." Sporting News