Dale Earnhardt Jr’s Announcement for 2008 Season
At 8:05 am, Pacific time, during his live televised press conference, Dale Earnhardt Jr announced, his “new boss for 2008″, Rick Hendrick, of Hendrick Motorsports.
At the time of this posting, no news on how this is going to pan out in the team, with rumors of who may be leaving.
Rick Hendrick notes that he and Kyle had been in negotiations since the end of last year, and they both realized that Kyle will have better opportunities else where.
So Dale Earnhardt Jr will be taking the slot that Kyle Busch has held and the contract is a 5 year contract.
Sponsorships have not been worked out yet. (IE: Is Budweiser coming along with Jr?)
Jr said he wants to keep the number 8, and that they would have to present that to Teresa (Earnhardt) and see how that pans out. The audience erupted into some entertaining laughter with that statement.
In regards of whether Jr’s present crew will come over from DEI, it was noted that this specific set of details will be worked out over the next couple of months as to staffing set ups for his team.
When asked about the reports of Jr going to Gibbs or Childress, Jr noted that info came out of thin air.
They could come close to winning half of the races in 2008.
You have to figure both Gordon and Johnson are good for 5 to 6 wins apiece. As far as Jr. is concerned, I can see him ending up with 3 or 4 wins, maybe 5. Between the 3 of them they'll probably win all 4 plate races. Casey Mears reminds me of a young Bobby Labonte, who's coming into his own. I could see him picking off 2 or 3 wins. I could see a total of 15 to 20 wins for the Hendrick organization next year. by ThunderRoad