Earnhardt Jr., McGrew need time

Let's all pause for a moment to mark the one year anniversary of Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s last victory.

OK, that's done. Now what? After all, it's doubtful Earnhardt will celebrate the occasion with a return trip to victory lane this Sunday at Michigan International Speedway. After a solid 12th-place showing in his first race with new crew chief Lance McGrew, Earnhardt came back with a resounding thud in Race 2. His 27th-place finish at Pocono Raceway frustrated supporters, who have hoped replacing Tony Eury Jr. atop the pit box would create some sort of magical spark that will jumpstart the struggling team.

But, the reality is, it doesn't happen that way.

Changing crew chiefs is never an instant fix. A new set of eyes and ideas may lead to an initial burst, but a team very rarely rockets to the front in the immediate races following a major personnel change.

A solid case in point is Richard Childress Racing. Kevin Harvick and Casey Mears had great debut races at Richmond after swapping their entire crews – although a late accident caused Harvick to finish 34th, though Mears grabbed his first top-10 of the season.

It looked promising for the slumping RCR cars, but it was ultimately a false hope. Mears followed with consecutive finishes of 36th and 33rd, and aside from an 11th at Darlington, Harvick has been nothing special the last four races.

The reasons why teams tend to continue their struggles after a crew chief change are fairly obvious: It takes the new team leader several weeks to look over what he's inherited and figure out what needs to be fixed. After all, teams running well with all their ducks in a row don't typically need to make such a major personnel change.

So in Earnhardt's case, McGrew was given control of a team in trouble. One of his first tasks is pouring over the inventory of cars and notes and plans that Eury left behind, and figuring out what wasn't working. It's most certainly a complex question, because if Hendrick Motorsports knew what the problem was, it would have been fixed before the season spiraled out of control.

Next up is learning the driver, and in Earnhardt's case, it's much more difficult than a simple meet-and-greet. Driver communication is vital, and if the No. 88 team has any chance of turning things around, Earnhardt and McGrew must speak the same language.

That's not an easy task, either.

Hendrick's four drivers routinely meet to debrief following one of the final practice sessions before the upcoming race. In that meeting, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin and Earnhardt share what each one has learned about the car and the track over the course of the weekend.

In Earnhardt's case, his terminology is often foreign to the other three. It's not right or wrong, it's just different from the more common terms that the other three use. Eury knew the language, and after all those years of working with his cousin, he knew how to interpret his driver and often even finished his sentences.

The only way McGrew can be successful is to find a common language with Earnhardt. Never mind all the funky terms Earnhardt uses that McGrew has likely never heard before. They've first got to get the basics down: When Earnhardt says he's too tight or too loose, McGrew has to figure out just what that means. Every driver is different – tight to Junior might not be all that tight to Jeff or Jimmie – and learning where the driver is most comfortable is an immediate challenge.

But it takes time, and almost never happens overnight.

A solid but lower profile example is Juan Pablo Montoya, who worked for one month last season with Jimmy Elledge and rolled to a second-place finish at Talladega in his first race with his new crew chief. They followed with finishes of 32nd and 23rd the next two races, and, even though Montoya loved working with him, Elledge was fired a week after that.

Then came Brian Pattie, who out of the box helped Montoya to five finishes of 30th or worse in their first seven races together. The two didn't sync until Chicago, a full eight races after Pattie took over, but it still took the rest of the season to get everything configured to Pattie's liking.

Now here they are, almost a full year after their initial pairing, finally running at a consistent pace with much-improved results.

Does Earnhardt have a year to get in sync? Yes and no. His job is not in jeopardy, but the spotlight on him is so intense, the pressure to turn the season around must be overwhelming. He may press too much, and McGrew might push to make things happen to give the No. 88 team some relief.

It's the wrong plan.

The best thing for Earnhardt and McGrew and all the outsiders so keenly following their progress is patience.

This is going to be a process – one Hendrick isn't even certain will end with McGrew removing the interim tag from his title – and success isn't going to come overnight.

Will it be another year before Earnhardt wins again? Probably not. Once he gets some of his confidence back, he'll start to run better and stop making head-shaking mistakes on the track and on pit road. And at some point, luck and/or pit strategy just make him a winner again.

But until it happens, everyone has got to practice just a little bit of patience.