After missing last year’s Chase for the Championship, Dale Earnhardt Jr has a more familiar back-up crew for the 2006 season, a season in which Earnhardt Jr says he will definitely be a contender.
Q.
Back to the old gang. Do you feel that gives you confidence for the 500?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:
I was real confident last year going into last year's season. But knowing what I know now, I didn't know then, I definitely feel pretty comfortable. Working with Tony, Jr. is going to be a lot of fun. We've already tested a lot of time and have a good mentality and rapport with each other. Obviously, we worked together the end of last year. This is a new start.
The beginning of the year, we're definitely paying a lot more attention what's going on with the racecar, what's going on with each other. There's a good, close bond there. It's always been close. The working relationship definitely improved.
Q.
Is that going to change the way you used to talk to each other or let it slide and not worry about it as much?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:
I don't think we'll change how we talk to each other. I don't know, maybe you'll think it's a change, but to me nothing's really different. It should sound different when everybody else hears it, but to us, no.
Q.
On his new episode Speed channel
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:
There was a show a long time ago called Car and Track. Joe Whitlock gave me a couple of tapes one day, and I watched 'em. Kind of got just really glued to what I was seeing in it. It was a bunch of episodes with Car and Track. I watched them over and over and over and over and over and over, and never give them back to Joe.
![Dale Earnhardt Jr talks to crew chief Tony Eury Jr in Las Vegas. [Pic Credit Todd Warshaw/Getty Images]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/192821.jpg)
