Re: Dale Jr
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Pretty wild to me. I haven't been keeping up too much with the gossip but I heard the other day that Childress was supposed to start a new team and that's where all the gossip was pointing. I'm blown away that Hendrick would let Kyle Busch go considering how well he's done.
I have my doubts about Tony Jr. And I doubt Busch would want to go to DEI since they seem to be behind the other big teams.
This just seems so weird, almost surreal that Jr, the old school southern boy, hero of the old guard NASCAR crowd is gonna be teammates with Gordon, Johnson, and Mears. It's just weird. I want to know what the future of DEI will be like without Jr. And btw, does Budweiser have their contract with DEI or with Jr?
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Kyle's been outstanding, but he's apparently going to be difficult with his contract and with his successes is going to be much more expensive than Casey Mears. He also isn't going to bring in nearly as much revenue as Junior, but that goes without saying for basically anybody in the Cup series.
I would like to think Tony Eury is going to come with Dale to Hendrick, because that kind of friendship and team trust can't be easily replaced. Its been pretty well proven that Junior does better with Eury as his crew chief. I don't think he can go wrong with anything Hendrick will give him (Letarte and Knaus are ridiculous, and Busch and Mears's guys are doing very well as "the other two"). I wouldn't be surprised to see Teresa try to keep him with DEI just to spite Dale.
I'm looking forward to the day when I see Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt working together, if only for all the confused fans out there. The two guys are friends, and I'm sure they have a competitive fire in them that makes them rivals as the two faces of NASCAR, but if this works, will there be any team more dominant than Gordon-Johnson-Earnhardt? Obviously not. I've never been a Gordon fan, mainly because I was a Dale Sr. fan first and foremost, then passed that on to Junior. This should still be interesting.
Side note: This got long, but Bud has their contract with DEI. Hendrick still has sponsorship deals with the National Guard, Kellogg's, GMAC, and all that. The #8 is also the property of DEI. The 3 car is the property of Childress, I believe, so this also eliminates the chance of Junior driving the black #3, which I was kinda hoping would happen.
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