Behind the No. 8 ball: Pete Rondeau should have looked before he leaped into DEI's top team

Sporting News, The, June 10, 2005 by Lee Spencer

Pete Rondeau stood in the shadows between the trailers of Greg Biffle and Kurt Busch last Thursday at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

Gone was the unmistakable red work shirt with Bud emblazoned across the front that he had sported since the start of the season. After six months under intense scrutiny as Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s new crew chief, Rondeau, dressed in civvies, was on the outside looking in.

Despite scoring more points than Busch's and Jeff Gordon's teams over the eight races leading up to Charlotte, Dale Earnhardt Inc.'s principals--including Junior--were not satisfied.

Earnhardt was 11th in points after the first 11 races, but the No. 8 Budweiser had no victories, no poles and only three top fives. Earnhardt had led just five laps (at Daytona and Talladega) all season. Last year after 11 races, Earnhardt had the points lead, three wins and seven top fives. Off the pace doesn't begin to describe what has happened to the team.

At Richmond, where he was the defending champion, Earnhardt never was a factor. Finally, it came down to this: Rondeau was popular with the team and the driver, but when it came to making race decisions, he froze at crunch time. That forced vice president of competition Richie Gilmore to ask over the radio midrace at Richmond, "What's the game plan?" Without communication between a driver and a crew chief, critical decisions to get the car dialed in will not happen and performance will never improve.

Every crew chief has to start somewhere, but it was not fair to start Rondeau out with the most visible driver in NASCAR. Considering Earnhardt's immense popularity, running anywhere outside the top five is unacceptable.

DEI technical director Steve Hmiel, 54, will fill in as the No. 8's crew chief. Hmiel's resume boasts close to 30 years of Cup experience, including crew chief stints with Richard Petty and Mark Martin. Hmiel was instrumental in building Roush Racing, and he was a valued employee of the late Dale Earnhardt--who once asked him to be the crew chief for the No. 3---when DEI expanded from Busch to Cup. Hmiel has been with the organization through Junior's entire Cup career and was Gilmore's and Junior's choice for the job.

Now the question becomes whether Hmiel can develop a system similar to the successful infrastructures at Hendrick Motorsports and Roush Racing, where all teams share information and work toward a common goal, something that hasn't happened at DEI. If, in Hmiel's words, DEI "goes strictly to an open-book policy, where we'll use engineering unilaterally," he will be more than just a crew chief--he will be a miracle worker.

TSN's POWER POLL

1. Jimmie Johnson

2. Greg Biffle

[up arrow] 3. Ryan Newman

4. Jeff Gordon

5. Elliott Sadler

6. Kevin Harvick

7. Tony Stewart

8. Jamie McMurray

9. Bobby Labonte

[down arrow] 10. Kurt Busch The defending champion has to wonder when the madness is going to stop.

speed read

Jason Leffler can flat-out drive, but he doesn't have the cars or the crew chief to get the job done. Leffler has not found his comfort level in the No. 11. After Leffler failed to qualify for last Sunday's race at Charlotte, drastic changes must be made.

INSIDE DISH

There were a record 22 cautions (one turned into red) during the Coca-Cola 600 last Sunday. One flew after Dale Earnhardt Jr. tagged teammate Michael Waltrip from behind. Tony Eury Sr., Dale Earnhardt Inc.'s director of competition, was not happy. Clearly. "I don't know what his (Junior's) problem is with Michael," Eury said, "but it will be fixed tomorrow--I guarantee it. He acts like he's friends with him, but every time he gets near him on the racetrack, he ends up wrecking him. DEI has enough problems. We don't need that." * Eighteen cars broke the qualifying record at Lowe's Motor Speedway after the track was levigated (smoothed), but the grinding of the surface led to problems involving holes in the pavement. Early in Sunday night's race, part of the hole-filling material knocked a hole in the nose of Jeff Gordon's No. 24. LMS is now the second-fastest track on the circuit; speeds exceed 200 mph on the straightaways. But side-by-side racing has been sacrificed. * Michel Jourdain was spotted having lunch with Busch Series director Joe Balash, NASCAR Mexico director Chad Little and Canada director Richard Buck at the Speedway Club at Lowe's Motor Speedway last week. The meeting was to discuss a world touring series that initially would draw stock car drivers from the United States, Mexico and Canada and eventually from abroad. "It would be a good idea to have a world series with those types of cars," says Jourdain, a Busch driver who was born in Mexico. "But I don't know what NASCAR's plans are right now." * Darlington Raceway has an agreement with NASCAR to be the host of at least one race in 2006. International Speedway Corp.'s expected investment in capital improvements at Darlington Raceway should guarantee races in the future. Dodge has a three-year deal to sponsor the race. * Take Greg Biffle's name off the list of free agents for 2006. Biffle, 35, signed a three-year deal and will stay with Roush Racing. Although Biffle didn't receive the compensation he was looking for, he has the reassurance from Roush that he will be the senior driver in the Cup stable when Mark Martin retires. * There are few men behind the scenes in motorsports who will have as lasting an effect as the late Randy Dorton, who was instrumental in creating the engine powerhouse at Hendrick Motorsports. Last Tuesday, seven months after Dorton died in a plane crash, his widow, Dianne Dorton, announced the formation of the Randy A. Dorton Memorial Fund, which will provide scholarships for promising engine builders at the NASCAR Technical Institute. "What better way to honor Randy than at a school that's all about racing," she said.