Jeff Owens / Special to FOXSports.com
Posted: 2 hours ago
Now that the real-life, better-than-reality-TV drama of Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s contract negotiations are finally over, the pressure is on.
On Earnhardt.
But not Earnhardt Jr.
It's on Teresa Earnhardt, the team owner and stepmother who dug her feet in the sand and showed Junior the door.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. will be fine after leaving Dale Earnhardt Inc.
He'll land a lucrative deal with Richard Childress Racing, Joe Gibbs Racing or another top team. He'll win races, contend for a championship and make all of Junior Nation happy.
For more news from the track and the shop, check out our NASCAR Scene headlines page.
Get NASCAR Scene headlines
And a happy Junior Nation is a free-spending Junior Nation, one that will make the tribe's namesake a very, very, very rich man.
But what about DEI?
Will it crumble like many are predicting?
Will it become the next Robert Yates Racing, falling further and further behind the top contenders until it is an afterthought?
If so, will Teresa sell and get out?
If she does, what becomes of Dale Earnhardt's legacy, which she has worked so feverishly to protect, promote and profit from?
That is perhaps the most intriguing question to come out of the very public breakup.
It also presents Teresa Earnhardt with her next great challenge. She proved that she could pull DEI together and turn it into a successful operation following the 2001 death of her husband.
Now she must prove she can do it again after the departure of his son.
The prevailing opinion is that DEI cannot possibly survive without Earnhardt Jr., who will likely take Budweiser and other sponsors with him, followed by a mass exodus of crewmen and other personnel.
If that happens, DEI will surely be on the brink of disaster and will have to act quickly to right the sinking ship.
It will have to totally rebuild its operation, making it an attractive destination to drivers, crewmen and, more importantly, sponsors.
But for that to happen, it must make major changes immediately.
The question is whether Teresa Earnhardt is committed and willing to make such moves.
First and foremost, DEI must start spending money. According to Earnhardt Jr. - and supported, perhaps, by his on-track performance - DEI is not investing in the right resources to challenge the sport's top teams. It doesn't test enough and it doesn't have some of the latest machinery that teams are using to win races.
It needs an influx of state-of-the-art equipment and engineers that can put it on the cutting edge of technology. It needs an owner who is more concerned with spending money than making money.
More importantly, it needs an owner who at least appears concerned about the team's on-track performance.
The knock on Teresa Earnhardt is that she is too busy overseeing Earnhardt's legacy and other business interests to pay enough attention to the racing end of DEI. She rarely comes to the track and hardly ever speaks to the media or fans.
Though she is entitled to her privacy, that seems like an odd way to run a race team in such an ultra-competitive world.
Though she no doubt has smart people handling the team's racing operations, absentee owners are rarely successful in today's very public NASCAR. Sponsors want to see the owners cashing their checks visible at the track, with their hands on the pulse of the team and poised to make whatever changes are necessary to make their teams competitive.
She must show that she is in control and not just sitting back and letting others run such a high-profile operation.
Her first move should be to make sure she retains Martin Truex Jr., a two-time Busch Series champion who clearly has the potential to win at the Cup level.
With Earnhardt Jr. on the way out, all efforts should be made to ensure that Truex Jr. is happy and competitive, for he is now the future of the team. If DEI can show that it can cultivate his talent and put a winning team around him, then it has a better shot at attracting new drivers and sponsors.
The pressure now is on Teresa to make sure those things happen. If they don't, then DEI will likely fail. And if DEI fails, that means she will have failed.
Surely, such a shrewd businesswoman and the sport's most mysterious team owner didn't come this far to fall on her face.
Surely, she didn't stand firm through such tense and unpopular contract negotiations just to stick it to Dale Jr. and have the last word.
Jeff Owens is a writer for NASCAR Scene, which is published weekly, 50 weeks per year. Visit www.scenedaily.com for more information. © 2007 Street & Smith Sports Group
Posted: 2 hours ago
Now that the real-life, better-than-reality-TV drama of Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s contract negotiations are finally over, the pressure is on.
On Earnhardt.
But not Earnhardt Jr.
It's on Teresa Earnhardt, the team owner and stepmother who dug her feet in the sand and showed Junior the door.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. will be fine after leaving Dale Earnhardt Inc.
He'll land a lucrative deal with Richard Childress Racing, Joe Gibbs Racing or another top team. He'll win races, contend for a championship and make all of Junior Nation happy.
For more news from the track and the shop, check out our NASCAR Scene headlines page.
Get NASCAR Scene headlines
And a happy Junior Nation is a free-spending Junior Nation, one that will make the tribe's namesake a very, very, very rich man.
But what about DEI?
Will it crumble like many are predicting?
Will it become the next Robert Yates Racing, falling further and further behind the top contenders until it is an afterthought?
If so, will Teresa sell and get out?
If she does, what becomes of Dale Earnhardt's legacy, which she has worked so feverishly to protect, promote and profit from?
That is perhaps the most intriguing question to come out of the very public breakup.
It also presents Teresa Earnhardt with her next great challenge. She proved that she could pull DEI together and turn it into a successful operation following the 2001 death of her husband.
Now she must prove she can do it again after the departure of his son.
The prevailing opinion is that DEI cannot possibly survive without Earnhardt Jr., who will likely take Budweiser and other sponsors with him, followed by a mass exodus of crewmen and other personnel.
If that happens, DEI will surely be on the brink of disaster and will have to act quickly to right the sinking ship.
It will have to totally rebuild its operation, making it an attractive destination to drivers, crewmen and, more importantly, sponsors.
But for that to happen, it must make major changes immediately.
The question is whether Teresa Earnhardt is committed and willing to make such moves.
First and foremost, DEI must start spending money. According to Earnhardt Jr. - and supported, perhaps, by his on-track performance - DEI is not investing in the right resources to challenge the sport's top teams. It doesn't test enough and it doesn't have some of the latest machinery that teams are using to win races.
It needs an influx of state-of-the-art equipment and engineers that can put it on the cutting edge of technology. It needs an owner who is more concerned with spending money than making money.
More importantly, it needs an owner who at least appears concerned about the team's on-track performance.
The knock on Teresa Earnhardt is that she is too busy overseeing Earnhardt's legacy and other business interests to pay enough attention to the racing end of DEI. She rarely comes to the track and hardly ever speaks to the media or fans.
Though she is entitled to her privacy, that seems like an odd way to run a race team in such an ultra-competitive world.
Though she no doubt has smart people handling the team's racing operations, absentee owners are rarely successful in today's very public NASCAR. Sponsors want to see the owners cashing their checks visible at the track, with their hands on the pulse of the team and poised to make whatever changes are necessary to make their teams competitive.
She must show that she is in control and not just sitting back and letting others run such a high-profile operation.
Her first move should be to make sure she retains Martin Truex Jr., a two-time Busch Series champion who clearly has the potential to win at the Cup level.
With Earnhardt Jr. on the way out, all efforts should be made to ensure that Truex Jr. is happy and competitive, for he is now the future of the team. If DEI can show that it can cultivate his talent and put a winning team around him, then it has a better shot at attracting new drivers and sponsors.
The pressure now is on Teresa to make sure those things happen. If they don't, then DEI will likely fail. And if DEI fails, that means she will have failed.
Surely, such a shrewd businesswoman and the sport's most mysterious team owner didn't come this far to fall on her face.
Surely, she didn't stand firm through such tense and unpopular contract negotiations just to stick it to Dale Jr. and have the last word.
Jeff Owens is a writer for NASCAR Scene, which is published weekly, 50 weeks per year. Visit www.scenedaily.com for more information. © 2007 Street & Smith Sports Group
