JR Motorsports all revved up for 2013
- Earnardt Jr.'s difficult business decisions that involved cutting ties with Eurys justified in win
- Regan Smith earns first win for team in more than two years in his inaugural Nationwide race
- Danica Patrick finishes in top 10 in points, first for a female driver
HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. has endured a roller-coaster season as a team owner and driver.
Two months ago, he ended a longtime business relationship with his uncle, Tony Eury Sr. Ten days later, cousin Tony Eury Jr. left the Nationwide team. Nationwide driver Danica Patrick has brought plenty of attention to the team with mostly mediocre results. Earnhardt missed two Chase for the Sprint Cup races while recovering from a concussion, effectively ending his chances at his first Cup title.
He finally got some justification this weekend for those difficult decisions and times involving the family business.
Earnhardt is celebrating with a surprising win from Regan Smith in the Nationwide finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. It was more than just prize money and a trophy for the team owner.
Smith hadn't raced on the circuit in five seasons, but he gave JR Motorsports its first Nationwide victory since Jamie McMurray in September 2010 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Earnhardt also got a landmark top-10 finish in points from Danica Patrick, the first woman to finish among the top 10 in a NASCAR national series.
"We have made a lot of changes, but you have to make changes sometimes," Earnhardt said. "Things do change, people come and go in your career and in your life, and you have to do what's right. It is a business in the end, and you have to make those business decisions."
Hiring Smith was one of those decisions. Smith had filled in for Earnhardt in two Sprint Cup races while the driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet sat out while recovering from a concussion. He was brought on in late October to drive for the Nationwide team full-time, and the Ford EcoBoost 300 was his first race with JRM.
While that victory was anticipated, Smith's participation wasn't always certain.
"We really didn't have the plan to run Regan this weekend until a couple weeks ago," Earnhardt said. "(Crew chief) Steve Letarte has been helping quite a bit behind the scenes as far as helping my sister (Kelley Earnhardt Miller) and the company, (Ryan) Pemberton and all the guys with what our direction is and sort of honing in on how we can improve overall as a company for the long run."
The changes were difficult for Earnhardt and his sister, who runs the team's day-to-day operation. However, they were designed to get JRM better aligned with partner Hendrick Motorsports — Earnhardt's Sprint Cup team — and make the team mesh more efficiently with Hendrick's engineering-oriented approach.
"We had a lot of help from Hendrick, and that influence and that resource and that knowledge is hard to compete against," Earnhardt said. "That's been kind of part of our turnaround ... reestablishing our relationship and that line of resources and line of communication, and I think it helped."
Smith disagreed with the notion that a win in his first race with JRM could increase expectations beyond the team's capability.
"We expect this every week, and we're going to expect it every week next year," said Smith, who got his first win in 103 Nationwide races.
"The main thing is going to be to go into the off-season and realize that we've got to continue to improve, we've got to continue to build fast race cars, to find more speed because everybody else is going to do it all off-season. But I don't think winning ever sets the standard too high."
Besides, Earnhardt said, winning was already a part of the plan.
"I felt like we could do this," Earnhardt said. "I've seen Regan do some pretty unique stuff and see some flashes that let me know that given the right opportunity this guy can run the laps one after the other, as long as you need him to run them.
"They put a really, really good car underneath him, and he ran the laps, every lap. It was phenomenal the speed they had."
