Dale Jr. talks about DEI/Ganassi merger
WHAT IS YOUR TAKE ON THE DEI/GANASSI MERGER? “I think it is good for both teams to try to do that. It gives those guys a good opportunity to try to get through the season financially. Chip Ganassi is a racer. They really need somebody like that. I just hope that they move forward and make some things happen. It is tough this year, tough next year, especially for all the guys trying to find money. That is this biggest problem. There are some great personnel at Ganassi. Steve Hmiel will be reunited with a bunch of old employees at DEI and buddies. The need a racer around there over the top of things and really making hard decisions. It will be interesting to see how all of that works. I think it should be seamless and it should be productive for everybody."
IS THERE SOME IRONY THERE THAT THIS HAPPENED GIVEN WHAT YOU WANTED TO DO LAST YEAR? “I don’t know. I think it is good for the teams though. I am happy for Martin (Truex, Jr.) and Aric (Almirola). I think it will be good for Juan (Pablo Montoya) to work with them guys. Juan is really going to enjoy working with Martin. It should be good. I think it is great for Ganassi to give his company a boost. It is really good for both. I think Juan will enjoy working with Martin and Aric and those teams. They will be able to work off each other. It will be exciting to see new data come in from the DEI guys and the DEI guys will be excited to see what Ganassi has been doing over the last several years as far as setups and what direction they have went. When you accumulate that information together and the bits and pieces that are good from each side and mold it together, you might really improve all of it as won."
ARE YOU UPSET ABOUT THE LAYOFFS AT DEI? “That was going to happen regardless of whether they merged or not I am pretty sure. They weren’t going to run four teams, or three or whatever. You know what I mean. You can’t blame a single individual for the layoffs. The sport is going to have a lot of those hopefully only for the short term. But it is not because of the merger."
WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR DAD WOULD HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT THIS HAPPENING? “I don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine. Sorry, I really don’t know. He would had better luck at securing the sponsorships than they currently do with the state that they are in. When my Daddy died, all of that changed. Everything about everything changed. If he was here, he would be sad, but he is not and everybody has to go do their own thing and make their own way. Everybody has got to take care of themselves. He ain’t here to take care of everybody, so you have to do your own thing, take care of yourself. Gotta do what they gotta do and that said and I ain’t got nothin’ to do with it and I don’t really have an opinion about it. I want them to succeed, I want them to be happy. I want it to work. But I can’t exhaust any of my emotion over it because of what I got going on myself. I have to get my own thing going, I got to do better. I got things I could do better. See full transcript at GM Racing