I spend a good deal of time
studying and watching Earnhardt as many of his fans are apt to do. Much of this time is spent listening to Earnhardt’s
in race communications with the rest of his team. This is accomplished with radios at the track and with Hot Pass
from DirecTV for the rest of the season. This new TV product provides watchers with an even more detailed insight into the
inner workings of the drivers and teams covered.
Out of the car Earnhardt
is most commonly known as Junior to his fans, but on the radio he is more often referred to as Junebug, particularly by Eury
Jr. Earnhardt refers to Eury Jr. as Junior most of the time. This apparently is some holdover from times past quite possibly
as a result of the cousins growing up to together. Its also important to note the contrast in communication styles from what
the fan sees outside the race car and what goes on inside. As calm, cool and collected as Earnhardt is in almost every setting
outside the car, his personality does a significant swap during the race. Now some of this is to be expected as the drivers
run bumper-to-bumper and door-to-door at speeds most of us have never felt other than in an airplane. This heightened level
of excitement is heard in almost every driver’s voice. It’s really quite remarkable that they are able to be as
calm as they are given their circumstances. Many times they can be heard talking when driving in close quarters on the track
and you would think the last thing they should be doing is pushing that small button on their steering wheel that activates
their radio.
Communication is difficult
at best. The noise from the cars, static in the radio, and multiple users, namely driver, crew chief and spotter on one channel,
makes clear communication a significant challenge. For Earnhardt and his team, this failure to communicate nearly cost them
solid finishes in two races this year; the last at the Bristol race a couple of
weeks ago. On both occasions Earnhardt wanted to pit for tires late in the race and both times Eury Jr. initially nixed the
idea, preferring to maintain track position and count on Earnhardt to drive on old tires. Most of the time these decisions
are a coin flip and the benefits can by argued both ways. The problem was, in both cases Eury Jr. tried to call Earnhardt
into the pits at the last second, but because someone else was talking, his communication did not get to Earnhardt. Unfortunately
the crew chief gets most of the blame for these incidents and rightfully so most of the time.
During the race,
Earnhardt can be very colorful with his language both in words used and voice inflection. His communication is somewhat
technical but maybe not as precise as some. He talks a lot about what the car is doing and what he wants it to do differently,
but doesn’t give many suggestions as to how to fix it. In some strange way Eury seems to be able to decode what Earnhardt
wants in the car more from the tone of his voice than anything else. To an outside observer it is not always clear what in-race
adjustments will be made to the car and even if Earnhardt agrees. Earnhardt seems to leave it up to Eury, Jr. and trust
he understands what he wants.
2006 StockCar Review.
