Dale Jr. Near 'The End of My Rope'

CONCORD, N.C. -- Sounding at times deflated and exasperated, Dale Earnhardt Jr. told reporters Friday at Lowe's Motor Speedway that he's just as perplexed by the disappointing performance of his team as the rising tide of critics and doubters.

Most frustrating, he said, is that he doesn't have the quick answers to turning things around.

Earnhardt used Thursday night's qualifying session as a microcosm of his 2009 season. After posting a top-15 speed during practice in his No. 88 Amp Energy-Chevrolet, he managed only the 39th fastest lap in qualifying.

"All the other cars qualified fine and backed their times up in practice and we didn't even get close,'' a mostly subdued Earnhardt said. "We looked ridiculous last night.

"It's like really encouraging one day and the next day it's equally discouraging and that gets really old. I'm about to the end of my rope on it.''

Earnhardt enters Saturday's Banking 500 ranked 22nd in the points standings. He has scored only two top-10 finishes since May while accumulating 12 finishes of 25th or worse -- half of those 35th place or worse.

As if the results weren't disappointing enough, to compound matters, Earnhardt is the only driver in Hendrick Motorsports equipment not among the 12-driver Chase for the Championship. His teammates Jimmie Johnson, 50-year-old Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon are ranked first, second and fifth, respectively, in the standings.

Stewart-Haas Racing drivers Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman, who use Hendrick engines and chassis, are ranked fourth and ninth.

Even when Earnhardt has run well, it seems a late race gremlin creeps up, negating the kind of effort the team desperately needs to build momentum.

Earnhardt qualified on the outside pole and led 41 laps at Kansas City two weeks ago -- the first laps he led since April 26 at Talladega, Ala. -- only to have engine troubles relegate him to a 36th-place finish.
"I've been riding it out but there comes a point where you don't want to ride it out no more. You've just had enough. It's been a long year."
-- Dale Earnhardt Jr.
"I've been riding it out but there comes a point where you don't want to ride it out no more,'' Earnhardt said. "You've just had enough. It's been a long year.

"I really don't want the year to be over with because I like going to the race track every week and racing, but the last several, well, all year, it's been so low.

"The highs have not been very high and the lows have been terribly low. That's hard to want to get back up and try again the next week when you take such a beating. I don't know what else to do."

The hope was that a change in crew chief early in the season would at least invigorate Earnhardt's team. Clearly what they had wasn't working.

Team owner Rick Hendrick replaced Earnhardt's crew chief -- and cousin -- Tony Eury Jr. with Lance McGrew following the Memorial Day weekend race here in Charlotte. But for all the good intentions, the new combination has only produced two top-10 runs (at Michigan and Bristol, Tenn.)

Earnhardt said he gets along well with McGrew but wasn't sure if they would be together next year based upon their tenure so far. But he said he hasn't discussed the situation with Hendrick yet and didn't feel qualified to make the call.

He suggested maybe he needed someone more like his uncle Tony Eury Sr., who heads up Earnhardt's successful Nationwide Series team saying, "I need more of a dictator.''

"I don't think I'm the guy to leave that decision up to because I wouldn't make the right one,'' Earnhardt said. "There's probably better people to make it, especially in the organization. There's a lot of smart people around there.

"I'm just waiting for somebody to make the call. Just tell me. Put the (dang) team together and say this is what you've got and this is what you're going to do next year. Just kind of waiting on that to happen.''

In the meantime, Earnhardt has such modest goals you'd think he was a young rookie, not a former Daytona 500 winner and championship contender. It's obvious he's done a lot of soul searching recently.

"Hopefully, you can finish one,'' Earnhardt said. "That should do a lot for us if we can finish one.

"We just need to run better. It's not happening. It's not happening fast enough.

"I don't know what the answer is. I've tried to think about what the answer is and I don't know what it is.

"Rick has put me in a great position but I haven't made the most of it, or for whatever reason we're just not getting it done.''