Dale Earnhardt Jr. said he believed he and his cousin, Tony Eury Jr., each could enjoy more success in NASCAR now that they no longer were on the same team.

“I’d always heard it’s hard to work with family, but I never experienced that. It had always been great,” Earnhardt Jr. said of Eury, who along with Tony Eury Sr. headed up the No. 8 Chevrolet team until the recent shake-up at Dale Earnhardt Inc. “(Tony Jr.) knows exactly what I am thinking at the track at all times. That was a little bit of our downfall at times, we probably expected too much out of each other.”

Earnhardt Jr., who finished fifth in the final Nextel Cup standings this year, will have Pete Rondeau as his crew chief next year. Rondeau, along with the core members of his crew, will move over to the No. 8 from Michael Waltrip’s No. 15 Chevrolets. Eury Jr. and members of Earnhardt Jr.’s crew from this year will move to Waltrip’s team, with Eury Sr. assuming the role of director of competition. Steve Hmiel moves from that job to technical director.

Earnhardt Jr. said he had input into the decision to make the changes. “I wasn’t in there smashing all the buttons,” he said, “but I had input. … I wanted to make sure everything was fair.”

Earnhardt Jr. admitted “it was miserable a lot of the time between the good times” as he worked with the Eurys. The driver’s relationship with Eury Jr. was particularly volatile.

“He and I both agreed that each of us needs to work with different people to learn the maturity and the respect side of it that we didn’t have for each other,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I think it will be better for both of us. There will be a higher level of respect both ways, coming or going.”

NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr., right, talks to cousin Tony Eury Jr. in the garage at Daytona Speedway. Eury is moving from Junior's to Michael Waltrip's crew.

Earnhardt Jr. said he knows that Rondeau will be under scrutiny as crew chief for the driver who was named Nextel Cup’s most popular driver for a second straight year.

“He’ll be OK,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “He’s a pretty quiet guy. It’s going to be a big, big relief to work with somebody who’s calm and relaxed and not putting any pressure on me.”