The former DEI #8, now EGR#8 Chevy is off the track most likely for good!! The team has laid off 40-50 personnel. The latest news out from Earnhardt Ganassi Racing is that the #8 EGR Chevy is without sponsorship, and therefore they suspended the operations for that team! This was once the “hallmark” team of DEI!!!! The #8 was the pride of a “BIG E”!!! The #8 held special meaning to the Earnhardt family. That was the number that Ralph Earnhardt, Dale Sr’s father, raced for many years and won a championship. The #8 team was what Dale Earnhardt, Sr. built DEI all around. This team was going to be his (Dale , Sr.’s) centerpiece for Dale Earnhardt Inc.!!!! Now it is just a memory!!
It appears that DEI is crumbling into ruins, kind of like the Roman Empire did mor than a thousand years ago!!! The reasons behind this failure belong to just one person, Mrs.Theresa Earnhardt. First Theresa refused to come up with a new contract to keep Dale, Jr. racing for DEI in the #8 Budweiser Chevy. Because of that decision, the next domino fell really fast and very hard. Budweiser left DEI and took their HUGE dollars over to the #9 GEM Dodge. That deal alone caused DEI a huge financial hardship, which will be shown to be the pivotal decision in the ultimate collapse of DEI!!! It is this reporter’s opinion that Theresa Earnhardt has made some really incredibly stupid decisions since her late husbands untimely death!! But by far the biggest blunder of all was allowing her stepson, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. to walk away from the empire that Dale, Sr. had built!!! Because once Jr. walked away from DEI, the dominoes just started to fall sequentially and nothing could be done to stop the uncontrolled fall in the abyss!!!
There are many rumors in the mill around the garage area related to this story. One is that because of the #8 operations being suspended, that might allow Martin Truex, Jr. to become a free agent soon. If that happens, what will become of the EGR #42 team? Ultimately, what is that organization’s long term future in NASCAR anyway?
What is your take on this news???