Young: Hendrick gives Earnhardt’s team a push

Kyle Busch isn’t a man of many words, but when he does speak, we in the media tend to listen. The 23-year-old has a knack for authoring great sound bites.

His latest came in victory lane last week at Bristol, where the former Hendrick Motorsports driver took a not-so-veiled shot at his favorite whipping boy. Busch, you might remember, was basically dumped by Rick Hendrick to make room for Dale Earnhardt Jr. before the 2008 season.

So when Busch was asked about his relative unpopularity with fans, he jumped at the chance to kick at Junior one more time.

“We all know who is No. 1 and forever will be,” he said. “To me, I go out there to win races, to be No. 1 on the racetrack. That’s where I feel like I win, where my benefit is. For me, I don’t think I would enjoy having the most fans out there. I actually like the way I am, the role I portray. There’s probably too much pressure on one guy’s shoulders who doesn’t seem to win very often.”

Ouch. Busch’s tongue is as sharp as his driver skills, but it’s hard to blame him for gloating. Hendrick lit a fire under the talented driver who, by his own admission, did not show his full potential at Hendrick. And based purely on a financial basis, the driver switch hasn’t been all that bad. Junior is still far away the biggest name in the sport and its biggest financial draw.

But with just one race win for the 34-year-old Earnhardt since the switch, to Busch’s 10, the move appears very one-sided from a performance standpoint. So much so that Hendrick took time to address Junior’s lack of productivity and his driver/crew chief relationship with cousin Tony Eury Jr.

Hendrick went public after spending three hours meeting with Earnhardt, Eury, team engineers and management types. The meeting was an effort from the owner to try to understand why the team doesn’t compete for wins and why Earnhardt and Eury often seem at odds on race day.

Hendrick came out of the meeting with a positive feeling ... for now.

“There’s no way these guys sat in a meeting for three hours not to come out with a plan that’s going to make them better,” said Hendrick, clearly aiming the remark at his underachieving team. “Dale is as focused or maybe even more focused as I’ve seen since he’s been here. I give him a tremendous amount of credit.

“You can tell a young kid you need to work out, you need to work better, you need to do this and that. But Dale has taken all the suggestions to heart, and we’ve got to give him the best stuff out there.”

Instead of suggesting a shakeup, Hendrick went another route. He basically asked Earnhardt to take his profession more seriously. Not from a competitive standpoint — Hendrick, like anyone who’s familiar with the driver, knows Junior’s competitive desire isn’t lacking — but more from a personal prospective.

He asked the driver to shape up, literally. Perhaps it’s the Mark Martin syndrome, but whatever the reason, Hendrick has gotten on a fitness kick and he wants Earnhardt invovlved, both in working out and in bettering his eating habits.

The real problem, though, appears to be getting Earnhardt and Eury on the same page. Instead of trading barbs during a race, maybe they should find a way to be productive. For his part, Earnhardt defends Eury on all fronts, including this week when several media outlets called for the crew chief’s ouster.

Of course, there’s nothing that a win or two can’t fix. However, unless it happens in the next few weeks, Hendrick won’t hesitate to shake things up.