After DEI's struggles this year with engines, and the announcement that Dale Jr. would be leaving to go to Hendricks after '07, things have gotten even worse for Dale Earnhardt Incorporated.   This past  week Director of Competition Steve Heimel announced he was leaving DEI as well to join Chip Ganassi. 5 years ago, DEI was still considered one of the top teams/companies in NASCAR.   How Quickly things have gone bad since the loss of Dale SR, and fankly, the loss of true direction and leadership at DEI.

Today's race showed us Nothing can go right for DEI these days.

      Martin Truex had a great car all day running as the leader and hanging around the top 5.   With 5 laps to go, after the final pit-stop, Denny Hamlin , who had stayed on the track for postion as everyone else pit, ran out of gas on the restart. Truex, who was boxed in behind him,  slammed into the back of Hamlin, and his day was done.

     Then Dale Jr who also had a strong car most of the day and had worked hard to fight from a lap down to make it all the way back up to 3rd place behind JJ and Carl Edwards,  losses his left rear wheel on the Green/White/checker restart without any contact except the asphalt beneath him.

     We've  seen blow outs and track bars break,  or damage caused from hitting another car cause top 5's all year for Dale Jr. to end up as DNFs,   but for the whole wheel, tire, and all to just fall off, is ridiculous. Surely he had all the lugnuts on or NASCAR would have brought him back in after the pit.  DEI's engines falling to peices all year, and now the wheels are breaking apart.?

What a mess!

 Junior finally released some of his frustration earlier this week about having top 5 cars all year, and so many freak things turning this year into a Big dissapointment.

Here' s  the link courtesy of Fox and Associated press to Dale Junior's take on how '07 has gone for his team:

http://msn.foxsports.com/nascar/story/7379792

      With DEI's  luck this year, and obvious issues in the garage,  maybe its time to just park the cars, send Teresa to the Antarctic, and rebuild the company from the ground up.. Or better yet, sell it to Richard Childress.                                           DEI is a mess and I only see things getting worse as Junior moves to Hendricks after this season ends. You have to feel bad for Truex. He's stuck in a bad situation now that only looks to get worse.

Cartoon Courtesy of Mike Smith, award-winning editorial cartoonist featured daily in the Las Vegas Sun, L.A. Times, N.Y. Times, USA Today, and many others.

More of his  NASCAR cartoons can be found here:

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sports/racing/cart
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