Nascar and Racing Crew Chiefs

Less than five races into the 2009 season, the talk regarding Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s crew chief Tony Eury Jr. has already reached the front burner.

And if we're lucky, the talk will subside sometime after the 2009 season ends -- barring two things: Earnhardt wins the championship or Eury Jr. finds a new role.

But Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway, Earnhardt Jr. made one thing crystal clear ahead of Sunday's Food City 500: crew chief Tony Eury Jr. isn't going anywhere.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Dressed casually in jeans and a black, button-down oxford, Ray Evernham leaned back into his chair and twirled the large gold ring on his right ring finger - the ring he received as crew chief for Jeff Gordon's 1999 Daytona 500 victory.

"I've got two of these Daytona 500 rings, but I can't get a parking pass," Evernham joked Wednesday from the infield of the Daytona International Speedway.

A decade ago he was celebrating in victory lane. A year ago he was on the pit box guiding another young driver, Kasey Kahne, to a top-10 finish in the Daytona 500. This week, he had to borrow a parking pass from fellow ESPN television analyst Rusty Wallace.

For once, NASCAR seems to have stepped up to the plate in regards to issuing penalties for cheating in the sport.

As you know, Wednesday brought the news from NASCAR of the stiff backhand that the sanctioning body inflicted on the team members of Joe Gibbs Racing's two Nationwide Series teams who were caught cheating last Saturday at Michigan International Speedway.

The penalties included indefinite suspensions for both crew chiefs of the No. 18 and No. 20 cars (Jason Ratcliff and Dave Rogers) as well as five other team members involved in the illicit tampering of the post-race competition testing analysis NASCAR performed Saturday. The term "indefinite" -- to the best of my knowledge -- has never been used by NASCAR for a performance-related suspension.

Point deductions to the tune of 150 driver and owner points for the cars driven by Tony Stewart and Joey Logano were also inflicted, as well as monetary fines to the crew chiefs.

The biggest impact, I think, comes from what the Joe Gibbs Racing team has done about the matter. They've already confirmed that the team members in question will be suspended for at least the remainder of the season and that they will each face internal fines from the company that will be paid directly from their pocket.

Geoffrey Miller is in Concord, N.C. for Sunday's Sprint Cup Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway. He'll aim to eat as many elephant ears as possible while blogging away "Live from Lowe's" throughout Memorial Day weekend.

Jeff Gordon may have had a car capable of running in the Top-10, but he simply didn't have the track position.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. had the car to beat until lap 296 when he blew a tire and slapped the wall -- while leading.

Somehow, though, the two Hendrick Motorsports teammates ended up fourth (Gordon) and fifth (Earnhardt Jr.) in the final standings of Sunday night's Coca-Cola 600.

Earnhardt Jr. truly had a car that was one of the top two or three in the entire field, and he likely had the best car as the race was set to begin its final 100 laps of the scheduled 400. Then, his right rear tire went flat as he prepared to lap Hendrick teammate Gordon while entering turn 3 on lap 296, and the No. 88 veered into the wall.

Luckily, Earnhardt had been using the high lane all evening so the impact wasn't as severe as it could have been. The team brought him to pit road many times under the subsequent caution, threw some new rubber on it, pulled out the fenders, and double-checked the suspension.

Junior rejoined the race around 20th, but the car just wasn't the same.

That's where his path aligned with that of Jeff Gordon's team and how to maximize their final finish.

Be sure to let voice be heard at the FanHouse NASCAR FanVote.

Petty Enterprises picked up a new crew chief this week.

Jeff Meendering, a now-former employee of Hendrick Motorsports, will take over the top of the pit box for former Cup champion Bobby Labonte, effective immediately.

Meendering served as Jeff Gordon's crew chief during the six-race stretch over the summer that normal crew chief Steve Letarte was suspended for infractions at Infineon Raceway. During that stretch, Gordon was winless but still picked up 4 Top-5s and didn't finish outside of the Top-10.

A relationship with Robbie Loomis, Gordon's previous crew chief and now vice-president of race operations at PE, helped Meendering land the job.

"Robbie Loomis gave me the opportunity to join the No. 24 team in 2001 and I learned from him, and Steve Letarte, how to prepare and execute at the track," said Meendering.

In 2007, Labonte's No. 43 Dodges finished 18th in points with no Top-5s and just 3 Top-10s. Labonte hasn't won a Nextel Cup event since Homestead in 2003 with his former team, Joe Gibbs Racing.

Petty Enterprises has suffered through a long winless streak as well. Their last win was in 1999 with John Andretti at Martinsville. However, Labonte's 17th-place finish in the final Nextel Cup Standings was the highest for any Petty Enterprises team since 1999.

CONFIRMED: Roush-Fenway Racing officially announced Thursday morning that Robbie Reiser would assume role of General Manager at Roush-Fenway after the conclusion of Sunday's Ford 400.

Read the full release here.

ORIGINAL: Matt Kenseth might not be hearing Robbie Reiser's voice in his ear anymore after Sunday's Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, according to ESPN.com's David Newton:

Sources close to the situation told ESPN.com that Robbie Reiser, who has been Matt Kenseth's crew chief since they entered NASCAR's premier series in 2000 and long before that in the Busch Series, will become the general manager at Roush Fenway Racing.

He will replace Max Jones, who will move into the GM role at Robert Yates Racing. RYR and Roush recently formed an alliance that basically will allow them to work as a seven-car operation without violating NASCAR's four-car cap.

If indeed it happens, this will be the first time in Kenseth's NASCAR career that Reiser wasn't calling the shots for him. Together, Kenseth and Reiser have landed one Cup championship in 2003 and 15 race wins since Kenseth ran his first full season in 2000.

In the internal combustion process, water doesn't burn too well. Actually, it doesn't burn at all.

Denny Hamlin's Chevrolet engine tried to burn water Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway, and the result wasn't pretty. Martin Truex Jr. slammed into the No. 11 as it stalled leading the field to a restart, Kyle Busch spun through the grass, and Carl Edwards unbelievably jumped five spots on the start.

Hamlin's car didn't stumble because of a lack of Sunoco racing fuel in the tank, but rather a fuel pump filled with water that had somehow made it into the team's fuel canisters. When Hamlin hit the gas, the pump fired more water than gas, causing Hamlin's engine to sputter.

Dave Blaney and race-winner Jimmie Johnson also found trace amounts of water in their systems during post-race teardowns.

Only Hamlin and Blaney had significant performance problems as a result, and Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s team suspects water caused Junior to fall back at the start of Sunday's race.

NASCAR apparently can't quite figure out where the water came from, mainly because it affected different manufacturers on different teams.

That didn't take long.

NASCAR confirmed Sunday morning at Atlanta Motor Speedway that they will switch to the new generation race car in the NASCAR Nationwide Series. The new car (I'm tired of calling it the Car of Tomorrow when its here today) will be raced full-time in the top NASCAR series next season.

"We're working on an '09 [Nationwide] car," Bodine said. "[Having it ready for] '09 is tentative. It's not set in stone but we're working on it. We've informed some of the Busch owners and we've got a prototype at the R&D center."

"There will be a different body style and different aerodynamic package," Bodine said. "We're working on all that stuff. We're just not there yet, still working through all that process.

Sporting several new safety features, a rear wing, and a front splitter, the next generation chassis and body style brought hope that NASCAR would finally apply some clarity and definition between the Sprint Cup Series and the Nationwide Series.

Instead, NASCAR will revert back to the old thinking of running two series that are hardly different, which will continue to lead to insane amounts of Cup regulars parading the Nationwide Series (formerly Busch).

The safety additions are without a doubt a good idea, but let's hope Bodine is right in that they will use a different body style and aerodynamics.

What happened to this fun idea?

Reports from Talladega indicate that Nextel Cup inspection for the Cookie Cutter UAW-Ford 500 went off without a hitch.

Points leading crew chief Chad Knaus indicates that is because NASCAR gives everybody wings, but doesn't let teams spread them and fly:

"They don't want somebody to think somebody has an advantage on them, which is kind of against the way the sport was built. Last I checked it was our job to build the best race car."

These are his comments after NASCAR passed out mandated "side plates and wickers" for the COT wings, evidently eliminating one of only two ways crew chiefs could adjust the already restricted air flow.

"They say those are supposed to be the tools they're going to give us to work with. Now they've taken those tools away and there is nothing to work with."

Apparently, there will be even less to work with by the time the drivers take the green flag. NASCAR is expected to suck even more life out of the cars by changing the restrictor plates, too, to slow super speed at the super speedway.

Not surprising. Nor is NASCAR's new motto:

We're NASCAR. Our half-baked ideas burn the competitors' buns.

As expected, Carl Edwards, winner of the Dodge Dealers 400 at Dover International Speedway last Sunday, has been penalized 25 driver championship points due to rule violations found in post-race inspection (too low):

"We have the misfortune of violating a rule which makes no sense," said Roush Fenway Racing president Geoff Smith. "It was promulgated to address restrictor-plate races, not downforce races. I say misfortune because we are being penalized for a violation that actually impaired the car's performance."

Um ... the car wasn't so impaired it couldn't drive to victory lane ... but I'd still agree it's a misfortune. The loss of points dropped Edwards from third to sixth in the standings, 28 points behind leader Jeff Gordon.