Dale Earnhardt Jr. suggested that chemistry had much more to do with his JR Motorsports team firing Kelly Bires than performance.
Earnhardt Jr. Explains Why JR Motorsports Fired Kelly Bires
Earnhardt Jr. said Bires and JRM “just weren’t clicking. We weren’t getting along.”
As such, Earnhardt Jr. said it was better to release Bires now and give other drivers a chance at a full-time ride in 2011.
Earnhardt Jr. said the partners in JR Motorsports – himself, his sister Kelley, cousin Tony Eury Jr. and Rick Hendrick – listened to the people in the shop in regard to their decision.
He hinted that may have included Tony Eury Sr., Bires’ crew chief and an old-school racer. Internally, Earnhardt Jr. said, “we were definitely going down the wrong path.”
“Knowing what we knew, and Tony Sr. and Tony Jr. getting to work with Kelly very closely over the last couple of weeks…we got to know what we needed to know to make the decision we made,” Earnhardt Jr. said.
Told that it looked strange from an outsiders’ view that JR Motorsports was making so many changes – such as promising Bires a full season but then firing him only a couple months into the year – Earnhardt Jr. disagreed.
“You go into a lot of deals in this garage with the best expectations, so I don’t know how it looks any stranger than anything else that’s happened in the past,” he said.
And what about the number of drivers JRM has gone through over the years?
“Yeah, we went through a lot of drivers, but we’ll produce some good ones hopefully in the future,” he said. “We’re proud of what we’ve been able to do so far as a company.
“We’re looking for the next Brad (Keselowski), the next Jeff Gordon, whoever you want to compare him to, we’re looking for that next guy. And you’ve got to get him in the race car.”
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