CUP: Letarte Humbled By New Challenge, Has Faith In Earnhardt

Sprint Cup

CUP: Letarte Humbled By New Challenge, Has Faith In Earnhardt

Steve Letarte looks forward to guiding the effort of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the No. 88 team in 2011...

Bob Pockrass | http://www.scenedaily.com | Posted November 24, 2010 Charlotte, NC

Steve Letarte (Pictured) has spent the last five-plus years working with Jeff Gordon. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Steve Letarte remembers the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Texas earlier this year when Dale Earnhardt Jr., with no race practice because of rain all weekend, took the lead by passing the best drivers on the outside.

That move is one of the reasons that Letarte believes he can help Earnhardt Jr. find his confidence, and victory lane, in 2011.

The newly named crew chief for NASCAR’s most popular driver is ready for the challenge and said he did not question team owner Rick Hendrick’s decision to move him from working with four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon to Earnhardt Jr., who has struggled the last three seasons at Hendrick under crew chiefs Tony Eury Jr. and Lance McGrew.

“I have 100 percent faith in Mr. Hendrick and the decision he makes,” Letarte said Wednesday afternoon at the Hendrick Motorsports shop. “I was excited for the opportunity. I was humbled. It’s a task that he has given me that is not a small task, it’s not an insignificant task.

“It’s a very important task for this company, for Dale Jr., for the sport, and I take it as that. I was very proud that I was the guy tagged for that. I’m excited, and I’m ready to go.”

Letarte has spent the last five-plus years working with Gordon. Although they made the Chase for the Sprint Cup all five years, they managed only 10 victories in 190 races – and just one in the last three years – while Gordon challenged for the title only in 2007.

Such results were hard to stomach for Letarte, a member of all four of Gordon’s championship teams and someone that worked in the Hendrick shop at age 16 in 1995.

“Five years is a long opportunity, and I had an opportunity to get him there, and we came close a few years but we never got there completely,” the 31-year-old Letarte said of his time spent with Gordon. “I’m definitely disappointed in that. … I’m a crew chief in this sport because of Jeff Gordon.

“I’m a crew chief in this sport because of Rick Hendrick. Those two created who I am. When I started here, I was a 16-year-old kid that swept the floor with a lot of desire and not a lot of knowledge.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. has mostly struggled over three seasons at Hendrick Motorsports. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Two aspects of his experience with Gordon could be beneficial in his new job.

The first is that Gordon can get animated on the radio during the race, just like Earnhardt Jr., being horribly blunt if he dislikes the car.

“I don’t think much gets me too worked up anymore,” Letarte said. “Dale Jr. and I will be a great mix on the radio. The most important thing is to have opposites. Jeff and I were opposites; Jimmie [Johnson] and Chad [Knaus] are opposites.

“Dale Jr. can be excitable, and I usually stay pretty calm. That’s my job. I’m not in the car. I don’t have the distractions. I can get down [off the box] and get a glass of water.”

Being Gordon’s crew chief also put Letarte in the spotlight. He already has felt the harsh words of fans blaming him for Gordon’s woes. That likely will be no different – and more than likely intensified – if Earnhardt Jr. doesn’t perform up to expectations.

“I would say that if the spotlight got to me, I’d be well sunburned by now,” Letarte said. “I’m not too concerned. My dad raised me from a very young age on how racing works – whether it’s Jeff Gordon, Dale Jr., Jimmie Johnson or whoever it is, when they put a helmet on, that’s a driver.

“That’s what they are and that’s the tool we’ll use to win races. And I think Dale Jr. gives me a remarkable tool to take to the race track.”

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