Stoddard out as Jeff Burton's crew chief

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA - Jeff Burton won 14 races with Frank Stoddard as his crew chief and finished a career-best third in the 2000 Winston Cup points race. <br> <br> But Stoddard won&#39;t be in charge of Burton&#39;s team at Richmond International Raceway on Saturday night. He&#39;s been replaced by Paul Andrews in what Burton called an emotional, but necessary, split. <br> <br> Andrews takes over after winning his release from Dale Earnhardt Inc. as Steve Park&#39;s crew chief earlier this week. <br> <br> ``It&#39;s apparent that we aren&#39;t doing as well as we need to,&#39;&#39; Burton said Thursday. ``We&#39;re in the midst of our second year that&#39;s sub-par as seen by me and by Frank and by a lot of people watching it. <br> <br> ``Frank hasn&#39;t done anything wrong, and I don&#39;t feel like I&#39;ve done anything wrong. It&#39;s just that together, right now, we aren&#39;t getting it done.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Many saw Burton as a championship contender last season, especially after his strong finish in 2000. Instead, he and the other Roush teams struggled, and Burton finished 10th. <br> <br> This year, he&#39;s 13th after 25 of 36 races with only three top-five finishes, and trails the other three Roush drivers in the standings. <br> <br> Burton said he does not know why the chemistry he and Stoddard once had seems to have gone away, but said the possibility of one of them leaving was one of many solutions discussed. <br> <br> ``We didn&#39;t wake up yesterday and say, &#39;We&#39;ve got to make this change.&#39; When it did happen, it happened very fast, but it was a long process,&#39;&#39; Burton said. <br> <br> The company has offered Stoddard another position. A telephone message left at Stoddard&#39;s Roush Racing office was not returned Thursday. <br> <br> Coming in with less than one-third of a season to go will limit Andrews mostly to tweaking the program in place on Burton&#39;s car and fine tuning some things. <br> <br> ``They have a great thing going,&#39;&#39; Andrews said. ``We&#39;re not going to throw this year away at all. We&#39;re definitely going to get in the top 10 in points and win some races. But it&#39;s definitely a building time for 2003.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Andrews has been a Winston Cup crew chief since 1988, when he worked with the late Alan Kulwicki. The team won the championship in 1992. His teams have won 12 races, including victories for Park in 2000 and 2001. <br> <br> Andrews&#39; departure was ``kind of abrupt,&#39;&#39; Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. ``I really didn&#39;t see that coming, but I don&#39;t hold any ill-will for him.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Earnhardt credited Andrews with helping Park become a winner in Winston Cup racing, but said DEI&#39;s decision to renew Park&#39;s contract for next season may have helped Andrews decide to look elsewhere. <br> <br> ``I just feel like he wasn&#39;t up to the challenge of trying to get that team back to where they had it before,&#39;&#39; Earnhardt said. <br> <br> Park missed the end of last season after suffering a brain injury in a freak accident during a Busch race at Darlington Raceway. He missed the first four races of this season and has struggled, posting his only finish better than 20th with a seventh-place run in the Brickyard 400. <br> <br> Steve Hmiel, the Earnhardt team&#39;s director of motorsports, and Dave Charpentier, its lead engineer, will share responsibilities for Park&#39;s No. 1 Chevrolet until a new crew chief is selected. <br> <br> One of the challenges Burton faces is finding a way to balance his sadness and excitement. He and Stoddard worked together since the team was formed in 1998. <br> <br> ``I&#39;m having trouble with my emotions,&#39;&#39; he said. ``I&#39;m not really sure how to handle it emotionally because it&#39;s a break up, but it&#39;s also a rebirth of something, and that&#39;s kind of how we&#39;re approaching it.&#34;