Dale Earnhardt Jr
News Archive

Junior backs up words with strong showing at MIS For a guy who only two days earlier had been lambasting NASCAR for allegedly putting a poor product on the tracks much of this season, Dale Earnhardt Jr. sure looked like he was having a whole lot of fun Sunday at Michigan International Speedway. And for a while, it looked like he might even win a race, too. In the end, Earnhardt had to settle for third in the Carfax 400 -- but he was coming hard over the final laps and knew he had the fuel to make it. Eventual winner Brian Vickers and second-place finisher Jeff Gordon, Earnhardt's teammate at Hendrick Motorsports, weren't nearly as sure that they could make it to the checkered flag without running out of gas. But while Earnhardt had fresher tires and more gas than the pair running in front of him, he didn't have the time to catch them. "The way our luck has been, I wasn't sitting there thinking I was in the catbird's seat. I was thinking maybe I'll get on the podium [with a top-three finish]," Earnhardt said. "I know every one of those guys is real good at saving fuel. We've all gotten smarter, I think, in the last year and a half on some of the tricks you can pull to do that, some of the things we can accomplish under caution to help ourselves." Earnhardt should know. His last Sprint Cup victory came 43 races ago at the same MIS venue, when he gambled on fuel mileage at the end and barely made it to Victory Lane. This time, others had to sweat out the fuel-mileage game. Some lost, too. Losers in that gambling affair included two of Earnhardt's other Hendrick teammates -- three-time defending points champion Jimmie Johnson, who ran out of gas with three laps to go; and Mark Martin, who won the Michigan race in June when Johnson and Greg Biffle both ran out of gas in front of him in the final lap and a half. Johnson attempted to make it 51 laps between fuel stops this time, when in the June race he failed to make it more than 47. It turned out to be a bad gamble and he ended up with a 33rd-place finish to show for it. As good as Johnson and his crew chief, Chad Knaus, have proven to be overall during the past several seasons, playing the fuel-mileage gamble game obviously is not their forte. "I'm certainly frustrated," Johnson said. "We've won one race on fuel mileage, ever. It's just not what we are good at. I think it is a little too risky for us to even try it. "We got lucky once in Phoenix. Outside of that, we always come up short." Knaus added: "We had the fastest car by a bunch and I hate it for Jimmie and I hate it for all my guys." Martin was running just outside the top 10 when he ran out of fuel Sunday, relegating him to a 31st-place finish. Meanwhile, Earnhardt had no such concerns because he pitted earlier while the rest of the top cars stayed out on the track, hoping for a late caution that never came. Earnhardt said afterward that he had to talk crew chief Lance McGrew in letting him come to pit road to take on gas and four tires at the time, figuring it would pay dividends later. "I knew we had to come in for fuel. Initially, he did not want to," Earnhardt said. "But I was like, 'You know what? Eventually we're going to have to pit and that's going to put us in the back, so why don't we go back there now -- instead of waiting until later when we'll only have a handful of laps to make it back up?' We made the right move." The third-place finish was Earnhardt's best since grabbing second at Talladega in April. In the 13 races between that one and Sunday's, Earnhardt had finished no higher than 12th and came home in 26th or worse nine times. He said he is hopeful Sunday's strong run is a harbinger of better times ahead for him and his No. 88 Chevrolet team. They began the season projected as a championship contender, but struggled so badly that team owner Rick Hendrick eventually replaced Tony Eury Jr. with McGrew as crew chief -- a move that hadn't paid many tangible dividends until Sunday. "We just haven't had nothin' to smile about," Earnhardt said. "So I'm just real happy for Lance and real happy for my guys, my team. Hopefully, this will take a little of the load off of Rick and our sponsors. Hopefully, this will lift them up a little bit and help us build some momentum in the right direction. "It was a good run [Sunday]. We've seen some other hints where we've been getting better at some other tracks over the last two months. But we finally put a race together where we can appreciate the finish, instead of just having a good car here and there." NASCAR boss responds to Earnhardt NASCAR president Mike Helton agrees with Dale Earnhardt Jr. that the sport should always be looking for ways to improve. Where he differs is over Earnhardt's suggestion that NASCAR's redesigned race car needs wholesale changes. Speaking at Michigan International Speedway on Saturday morning, Helton said officials are looking at potential improvements to the new car, which was referred to as the Car of Tomorrow, or CoT, in the run-up to its 2007 introduction. But Helton says officials aren't considering major or hasty changes -- something Earnhardt deemed necessary in an interview session Friday. "I think where we are right now, the consensus in the garage area -- which leads us to our consensus -- is that there's not going to be a major change to this car," Helton said. On Friday, Earnhardt said that NASCAR's brand of on-track action has fallen flat and needs an injection of excitement. He pointed to the new car as one area in need of an overhaul, although he did not suggest specific changes. "We're not really where we want to be, I don't think, as a sport," Earnhardt said. "We need to do things to excite corporate America, excite the fans. "And we need to be proactive immediately, because we haven't." But Helton doesn't think springing major technical changes on cash-strapped racing teams is a good idea. And he doesn't see anything wrong with NASCAR's on-track product. "Urgency could create more havoc or more expense that we don't need," Helton said. "And oh, by the way, I'd make the argument that the racing we've got on the racetrack is as good as I've seen it in a long time. "So a reaction from us could interrupt that." The CoT made its debut in a handful of races in 2007 and was used full-time in 2008. It was designed to save teams money and improve safety, and is generally considered a success on those fronts. But there have been complaints from drivers that the new car just doesn't put on as good a show. It's also worth noting that Earnhardt hasn't performed well in the new car and enters Sunday's race 25th in the points. Asked Friday about the car, series points leader Tony Stewart wasn't nearly as critical. Helton gently suggested that Earnhardt wouldn't be complaining if he were running as well as Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon. "(Earnhardt's) expression was more broad about things in general, that we need to be working on things to make the sport better in general, and I agree with that," Helton said. "As it comes to the car, he and his (No. 88) team in particular -- not his organization, because others in his organization are having a better year with it -- (are struggling) and so there's some frustration there that I think contributes to his comments." Which, in a sense, reminded Helton of Earnhardt's late father. "His dad would come in, when he was having a bad stretch, he (would say), 'Man, I'd like to change something right now because I'd like to change my own performance,' " said Helton, a close friend of Dale Sr. "And I think that's what (Junior) was talking about." Dale Earnhardt Jr. says cautions don't frustrate drivers as much thanks to double-file restarts Dale Earnhardt Jr. says the new double-file restart rule has made drivers less frustrated over cautions for debris. At times, NASCAR will call a debris caution and drivers have questioned whether the caution is really necessary. But now that they have a chance to improve their positions because all the lead-lap cars restart side-by-side up front, they don’t mind them. “Right now drivers aren’t balking and upset as much now when these phantom debris cautions come out,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We used to hate those because we were in the middle of a race, and now it’s looked upon when we get these crazy cautions coming out, everybody says, ‘Great, it’s an opportunity to pick up some more spots on this double-file restarts.’ “That’s really your best chance to make up positions, unfortunately.” Earnhardt Jr., in Atlanta on Thursday to promote the Labor Day weekend races there, talked about a number of issues: • On interim crew chief Lance McGrew: “As of now, he’s the man of the future. He’s the guy that we’re all placing our confidence in to make the correct decisions. He has taken quite a task on to try to improve our team and change the direction of our team and make us more competitive. ... I’m feeling pretty good about it. I like working with Lance, and I’m feeling pretty comfortable working with him, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the rest of the season plays out.” • On 500-mile races: “I don’t mind them at most places … Pocono is quite difficult to be at, and running 500 miles there just doesn’t seem, if you built that track today, we’d never run there, and I’m not sure that would be the logical choice when we got talking about how many laps we were going to run. ... I think the shorter races are more exciting races. In the 500-mile races, there’s a good chunk of anywhere from 200 to 300 miles of wait-and-see where all drivers are just trying to protect their position and protect where they’re at. We can definitely cut back on that because that’s not very exciting even for the guys doing it.” • On restrictor-plate racing: “That’s not as quite as enjoyable as really just having free reign of having all the horsepower that’s available to you or separate the field by one’s ability to build a better motor, one’s ability to build a better race car. Right now everybody is in the same box with the engine – the plate pretty much make everybody’s engine the same power – and the bodies are so restricted, there’s no science in building or creating or improving them. “So we’re all going to run the same lap time, and if you put us all out there together, we’re all going to run in this big ball, and at the end of the race guys are going to try to push and fit their car into these holes that aren’t big enough and make these wrecks happen. That’s what is going to happen every time. It’s not really that fun. When I look back on some of the … races they had in the early ’80s before the plates came, those were the best.” • On the Atlanta night race: “It will be fast for the first several laps on tires, and then they’ll fall off enough to where you will be able to manage what’s going on and try different things and try different lines. It will be pretty hairy, pretty fast. You’re going to see some incredible lap times on new tires late in the race.” Frustrated with NASCAR's new car, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has confidence in crew chief Lance McGrew Dale Earnhardt Jr. is happy with his new crew chief but still frustrated with NASCAR’s new race car. Earnhardt Jr. has worked for the last 10 races with crew chief Lance McGrew. He has no top-10s and four top-20s with McGrew, compared to three top-10s and six top-20s in the first 12 races with Tony Eury Jr., his cousin and long-time crew chief who was replaced by McGrew in June. “We’re still not seeing the type of stuff that we need to see to feel like we’re going to be able to turn it around,” Earnhardt Jr. said Friday at Michigan International Speedway. “But we’re working hard. I have a lot of confidence in Lance. He has a lot of confidence in me. I think we get along really well. “We’re working really, really hard together. … We want to be able to help our teammates in the Chase [For The Sprint Cup]. We want to be able to be an asset to the company before the end of the season toward their quest for the championship. That’s what’s most important for us, to feel like that we have a hand in controlling everyone’s destiny and be a part of it. We’re trying to become better, and we have reason to do that before the end of the year, not only for ourselves but the company as well.” It has been a tough year for Earnhardt Jr., who is 25th in the standings after a brake failure at Watkins Glen that the team traced to a hose clamp that rubbed the brake line against a nut. Earnhardt Jr., who has said he reads what is written about him, says he has tried to use criticism as motivation and not have it get him down. “It’s tough handling criticism, no matter which direction it comes from,” he said. “Everybody finds that as a challenge. I don’t really find it to be a real big problem because for the most part, most of the criticism that we’ve gotten this year was definitely deserved or warranted. “Most of the time, the media was bringing up facts and statistics. … You’d rather not be in the news for those reasons, and you’re just trying to get back to the race track to do something to turn it around and it hasn’t happened yet.” Now apparently Earnhardt Jr. wants the media to help to pressure NASCAR into tweaking the new model Cup car formerly known as the car of tomorrow. While he likes it for safety reasons, he doesn’t like it as far as the box it puts the crews in as far as adjustments. “The media could address it a little stronger, and I think the drivers could be a little more vocal about it, and I think NASCAR could … probably be a little more urgent in improving our product,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “The ultimate result is create exciting racing that the fans will enjoy, that the drivers enjoy, so everyone is happy. That should be our quest always, even when things are good. “I feel like, especially right now, we need to really really try to turn over every stone, and that includes where we are with the COT and where we feel like its development is and where we feel like its future goes and where we feel like this car goes, how it evolves.” Earnhardt Jr. said he is not trying to start a crusade, just answering some questions about the new car. The sport’s most popular driver said double-file restarts have brought a spark to a series that needed a spark, and he believes the racing can be even better. “I think all the drivers enjoy [those restarts],” Earnhardt Jr. said. “The fans love it. We need more of that – things that are tangible, such as the cars themselves, and things they can do in the races to add more of that. The double-file restarts give us that opportunity to be exciting for only a moment, and we need to figure out how we can maintain that throughout the entire race. “I feel like I just remember how the other cars drove. I liked how they drove. And I like how this car is safe, but I want to be able to race it like we raced the other cars. … We’re not where we want to be as a sport. We need to do things that excite corporate America, excite the fans, and we need to be proactive immediately. Before [the double-file restarts, racing] was rather poor. The races were very poor, and we almost depended on a late caution to save the day to make somebody race side by side for a couple of laps at least within 10 laps of the finish of the race. Somehow that saved the day, and there was no argument the next week. It would go away. That was very frustrating because 95 percent of the race wasn’t worth the price of a ticket." Earnhardt Jr., who actually won the first race at Michigan with NASCAR’s new car when he captured the victory in June 2008, says he likes the facility. “The track has a lot of different grooves, and you can move around and find a place to run on the track [which] makes it pretty enjoyable,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “It’s in the backyard of the manufacturers. I like the race track because it’s so wide.” Does that win – 51 races ago – seem like a lifetime earlier? “Not really,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “The Busch Series championships, Daytona 500 wins, all-star race wins, that was a lifetime ago.” Alabama Motorsports Park no longer a 'Dale Earnhardt Jr. Speedway' Hendrick Motorsports driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. has removed his name from the Alabama Motorsports Park project, according to the Mobile (Ala.) Press Register. The project, which includes an oval track and road course, is scheduled to open in 2012 – more than two years later than the original plan – according to the track’s website. Alabama Motorsports Park is owned by Gulf Coast Entertainment, and Earnhardt Jr., his sister Kelley Earnhardt Elledge and brother Kerry Earnhardt were part of the project. "Dale is focusing on racing, and his sponsor demands have gone up incredibly," Bill Futterer of PSE-3 and Futterer Partners said told the newspaper. "We have agreed not to extend his personal services agreement." Futterer said "We're not upset, and they are not angry." Futterer's marketing firm is working on what had been called “Alabama Motorsports Park, A Dale Earnhardt Jr. Speedway.” Gulf Coast Entertainment had agreed in February to purchase Memphis Motorsports Park, but the deal with Dover Motorsports Inc., was extended in July because Gulf Coast “continues to seek financing,” a news release from Dover Motorsports said. Dale Earnhardt Jr. stays positive in the face of bad breaks - and bad brakes He strolled out of the infield medical center with his head held high and even the hint of a smile on his face. Yes, the No. 88 car had just gone skidding off the track, through the Watkins Glen gravel trap and into the tire barrier. And yes, it was another poor finish in a miserable season for a team many felt was a lock to make the Chase. But Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s body language said it all: Through this year of bad breaks and bad brakes (as was the case at the Glen), the sport’s most popular driver remains intent on staying positive. He laughed lightly with reporters while waiting to be interviewed. He chuckled and shook his head while recounting his latest misfortune. A positive attitude can go a long way on days like these. Make no mistake: By no means was Earnhardt Jr. happy. And he certainly doesn’t think his team’s lowly spot in the standings is a joke. But when things like a brake failure happen, isn’t shrugging your shoulders about all you can do? “Yeah, pretty much,” he said. “It has been a tough year, man. I guess if I sat there and thought about all the bad things and got further down, it would just be a longer climb to get back.” These days, Earnhardt Jr. could teach a course on optimism. His half-glass-full attitude since new crew chief Lance McGrew joined the team is reflective of his feeling that there are better days ahead. At least he hopes. “Somehow you’ve just got to have some kind of positive thoughts and pull something out of it to keep yourself feeling like you’ve got a shot the next weekend and the next weekend,” he said. “We can’t give up. We can’t quit. We’ve just got to keep trying.” Try though they might, the results have hardly been impressive. Earnhardt Jr. and McGrew have now had 10 races together. The duo has yet to combine for a top-10 finish (Earnhardt Jr. actually only has three all season) and have as many top-15s as finishes of 36th or worse (three) or a single lap led. With Tony Eury Jr. at the helm, Earnhardt Jr.’s average finish in the first 12 races of the season was 21.3; since the crew chief change, his average finish has dropped to 24.9. Fans might argue that their driver has been in position for good finishes only to find bad luck (the road-course race at Sonoma comes to mind), but Earnhardt Jr.’s driver rating has also fallen (from 76.3 to 72.1) during the McGrew Era. Surely, those numbers will fuel the criticism from those who believe Earnhardt Jr. – not anyone else – has been to blame all along. But I still maintain that anyone who can win 18 Cup races, 22 Nationwide races and make the Chase three times is far from a mediocre driver. For whatever reason, the performance just isn’t there lately. And in the face of this much adversity and pressure, it would be easy to become a miserable human being. But knowing how far a positive attitude can carry both yourself and the people around you, Earnhardt Jr. refuses. “We’ve been through worse stuff,” he said. “We’ve still got a lot to be thankful for and life in general. We’re working hard. It’ll turn around.” I couldn’t help but wonder though: Had he thought of trying any good-luck charms to speed up the process? He laughed at the suggestion. “No,” he said. “I’m all right. I’ll get it going. A lot of bad is coming along right now, but if you want to see any good one day, you’ve got to go through it.” These aren’t the days Earnhardt Jr. expected when he joined Hendrick Motorsports. But with an outlook like his, at least it makes things a little easier. Earnhardt loses brakes, crashes Dale Earnhardt Jr. has run off the track in the Sprint Cup race at Watkins Glen International after losing his brakes. Running 26th on lap 41 Monday, Earnhardt cut inside of Reed Sorenson entering turn 10, a sweeping left-hander on the 11-turn, 2.45-mile track. Both cars collided and went skidding sideways across a gravel pit. Earnhardt slammed hard into a tire barrier. Neither driver was injured, but Earnhardt’s No. 88 was heavily damaged. Dale Earnhardt Jr. watches solid run end with engine failure Sunday Dale Earnhardt Jr. was happy his Hendrick Motorsports team could make his car better during the NASCAR SPrint Cup Allstate 400 on Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but he was obviously disappointed with the race's outcome. Earnhardt Jr. was in the garage after 127 laps after a valve-train issue wiped out his engine and relegated him to 36th. He felt as if he was the one to blame for the problem. “I’ve had no engine problems all year,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Hendrick engines, we don’t ever have problems with them. So I’m assuming it was driver related or driver error somewhere around the race track. “It broke the valve train leaving the pit stall and probably broke a couple of tips off the valve springs that went into the bottom and eventually tore the bottom of the motor out. I hate it for the engine guys because they build some great motors. It’s frustrating for my team, but we seem to be getting better and seem to be running better.” Earnhardt Jr., who battled a stomach virus Thursday and into Friday morning, said he felt fine during the race Sunday. “I feel fine, now,” he said. “I was really, really feeling good this morning. I’m over it 100 percent.” The car brought to Indianapolis was a new car and will also be used at Pocono Raceway next weekend, Earnhardt Jr. said. He would have been more frustrated if he didn’t run well, but he qualified third and was running in the top 10 when the engine blew. “That last run, we were really, really loose and the last 10 laps of the run, I think we were one of the best cars on the track,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I drove back to Jeff [Gordon] and the 9 car [of Kasey Kahne] and I was feeling pretty confident about it then. We were starting a run too snug or starting it too loose. “Me and [crew chief] Lance [McGrew] are getting better on communicating and understanding each other. We’re running better. We’ve either had poor luck and made some mistakes. We just have to keep our heads up. We’re going to Pocono with this same car and hopefully we get it running just as good there if not better.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. recovering from stomach virus; Brad Keselowski on standby Hendrick Motorsports driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. says he is feeling better Saturday after battling a stomach virus for the past couple of days, but that Brad Keselowski will take some laps in his car during today's NASCAR Sprint Cup practice session. Keselowski will also be on standby should he be needed Sunday. Earnhardt Jr. did practice his car Friday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but said that he felt "miserable" doing so. He has taken intravenous fluids to help him overcome any dehydration issues, though, and seems confident he can run the full Allstate 400 Sunday. Earnhardt Jr. says he fell ill Thursday and battled the stomach virus and a fever until yesterday morning. "I came here and got a couple of IVs early in the afternoon," he said. "It was a 24-hour bug. I broke my fever about 8 o'clock yesterday morning, fever came back last night but I broke it again … Probably get some more fluids this afternoon after practice, but I feel tons better. "That stomach virus was the worst thing I've ever experienced in my life. … I'm not a very big fan of stomach viruses now. I feel better and [am] not really worried about - I feel fine and I feel like I've got enough energy and everything, the only thing I'm worried about is dehydrating." Keselowski, who drives the JR Motorsports Nationwide entry, will take a few laps in the car during this afternoon's practice session so that he will be eligible to be a relief driver for the team, if needed, on Sunday. Earnhardt Jr., though, doesn't think he'll be needed. "I doubt we'll do that," he said. "I just want to [give him practice laps], basically, just to be safe." Dale Earnhardt Jr. doesn't blame media for slow start to season Dale Earnhardt Jr., responding to comments made by his former crew chief, Tony Eury Jr., earlier Thursday, refused to blame the media for his slow start this season in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. The sport’s most popular driver agreed he took some heat in the media, but said that’s to be expected given his status. “Well, I got a lot of flack. Any time I messed up on pit road, everybody beats that drum and beats that drum,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Everybody else is missing stalls and messing up. …That’s just the way it is, that’s part of being the most popular driver in the sport.” Eury, who was replaced by Lance McGrew as Earnhardt Jr.’s interim crew chief in late May, said the media’s negative coverage of the driver after a couple of bad races early in the year created unrealistic pressure. “My personal opinion … is that you guys put so much pressure on him after Daytona that Dale Jr. just basically had had enough,” Eury said. “We went to Daytona and had a shot at winning that race, had some problems on pit road … [then] we went to California and blew up so there’s two negative weeks. “You guys were all over him and it just brought him down. I don’t think we had a strong enough finish to bring him back up, so every week the hole gets deeper and deeper and deeper. …” Earnhardt Jr. said that regardless of the media coverage, the team wasn’t getting the job done. “I don’t think anything that happens outside the car affects performance,” he said. “So how good we ran is really how good we were, as a team. Not very good. “Look at Kyle [Busch]. He has a lot of bad things written about him, but he performs.” Eury Jr. talks openly about split with Earnhardt Jr. When the decision was made for Tony Eury Jr. to follow Dale Earnhardt Jr. to Hendrick Motorsports as Earnhardt's crew chief late in the 2007 Cup season, Eury couldn't wait to get to the race track and start his new job. The sky seemed the limit. Check that. There didn't seem to be a limit to what the pair were going to be able to accomplish for their new employer. Eury told team owner Rick Hendrick he was coming into his new job "with all the confidence in the world." Former driving champion-turned-television announcer Darrell Waltrip predicted the Eury-Earnhardt tandem would win the season-opening 2008 Daytona 500 and "at least six more races" during their first season together under the Hendrick banner. When asked about this lofty prognostication, neither Hendrick nor Earnhardt blanched. They agreed, in fact, that it sounded about right. Like most everyone else, they were wrong. The Eury-Earnhardt team won one race at Hendrick, in June of '08, at Michigan. When they matched their struggles at the end of last season from the outset this season, Hendrick eventually felt he had to pull the plug on the long-time, on-track partnership between cousins. And when Eury was relieved of his duties as crew chief for Earnhardt six weeks ago, he couldn't get away from the race track fast enough or far enough at first. "You know, I've just been chillin' a lot, kind of spending some time with the wife," Eury Jr. said. "I haven't done that in a real long time, so I'm kind of enjoying that. "Basically, I would say the first two or three weeks, I didn't even watch a race." Eury was back at the track Thursday at Chicagoland Speedway, where he spoke publicly for the first time since his split with Earnhardt. Eury is serving as crew chief for the No. 25 Chevrolet entry driven by rookie Brad Keselowski and maintained that was his focus this weekend -- but he spoke at length and with great passion about his recent past, blaming mostly the media for placing high expectations on the No. 88 team that simply could not be met. Asked what his thoughts and feeling were when he learned of the decision that removed him as Earnhardt's crew chief, Eury grimaced and replied: "I think it was mixed. In one shape and form it was like, 'Cool, I'm glad this is over with.' And the next one felt like I let my cousin down. I've done a lot for him, he's done a lot for me, but we enjoy racing together. "I think a lot of people put him on a pedestal that he doesn't need to be on. They put a lot of pressure on him to be somebody he's not going to be. Dale Jr. is a great race car driver, but I just think he's got so much pressure on him that he doesn't enjoy it right now." It got to be that Eury wasn't enjoying being Junior's crew chief any longer, either. "You get blasted in the media and you have to go home, where my wife wouldn't even watch the race," he said. "I would come home and she would ask where we finished -- because she didn't want to sit there and hear the negativity on it. I fought it for a long time -- and at some point in time, you have to weigh it and ask if it's worth it." Eury said he and Earnhardt didn't even communicate in the immediate aftermath of their Hendrick-induced split. But eventually, they talked. "We just let everything ease up," Eury said. "We sent a couple texts that first weekend. We talked on the phone and it was kind of emotional for both of us. "In no way, shape or form am I going to let this sport get in between me and Dale Jr. ... He's family and we go deeper than this racing deal." Eury said he did not begrudge Hendrick's decision to order up the split. "I think it had just kind of run its course," Eury said. "There were definitely some things that happened and evolved that brought us to this point. In general, it was time. There is no other way to put it. "We just needed to try something different. Dale Jr. is not getting any younger, so let's give him the opportunity to work with somebody else and try something else. Definitely the road we were going down, it wasn't a bed of roses, so let's try something different. That's where it was at." So far, the switch from Eury Jr. to Lance McGrew as Earnhardt's crew chief has not had much of an impact on the No. 88 team. Earnhardt enters Saturday's LifeLock.com 400 at Chicagoland ranked 21st in points. He was 19th in points when the change was made May 28. Eury said this season went downhill fast after Earnhardt encountered difficulty finding his pit stall during this year's season-opening Daytona 500, relegating him to a 27th-place finish in a race the cousins believed they could win. For the spiral that followed, Eury insisted the media mostly was to blame. "I think, my personal opinion, is that you guys put so much pressure on him after Daytona that Dale Jr. just basically had had enough," Eury said. "We went to Daytona and had a shot at winning that race, had some problems on pit road, but we ain't going to slam Dale Jr. We're going to pick him up and say, 'Let's go to Vegas.' That was after we went to California and blew up, so there's two negative weeks. "You guys were all over him and it just brought him down. I don't think we had a strong enough finish [they were 10th at Las Vegas in the third race of the season] to bring him back up, so every week the hole gets deeper and deeper and deeper. It was like throwing a squirrel into a hole; it's not coming out. So it will dig the other way to get away from everything. Basically, I think that's it in a nutshell. It's unfortunate." Eury did admit that the positive chemistry he felt the pair enjoyed while racing the No. 8 Chevy at Dale Earnhardt Inc. went away when they came over to Hendrick, never to completely return. "I was always looking around the corner toward the positive," said Eury, who spent five seasons as Earnhardt's car chief before becoming his crew chief in 2006 at DEI. "I always looked at it that if I had to do it myself, I would turn it around. But one thing you learn real quick is that you can't do it all by yourself. You have to be surrounded by good people and people who have faith in you -- and that's what makes a good race team in this garage. If there are two people who believe in you and the rest of them don't, then you really don't have a lot going for you and it's an uphill battle. "I think that was the chemistry we had with the No. 8 car at DEI. There was a lot of heart and soul in that team, where we believed in one another and picked up the next guy beside you and carried on and always did whatever you could. I think that's what I kind of missed [with the No. 88 team at Hendrick]." Despite the heavy criticism he took on an almost constant basis from disgruntled, disappointed fans and the scrutinizing media, Eury insisted that he doesn't believe he has to prove anything to anyone. He said he will work in the Research and Development division at Hendrick for the next six months before deciding if he even wants to consider a return to the Cup garage as a crew chief. Meanwhile, there was work to be done Thursday. Eury was trying to make certain Keselowski's No. 25 car was fast enough to make the 43-car field for this Saturday's race. "I feel satisfied in everything I've done," said Eury, who was crew chief for only two of Earnhardt's 18 career Cup wins. "Whether the people, the race fans, the media -- whether they believe it or don't like it or whatever, I feel very successful. I've won a bunch of races. I've done everything in this garage at some point. I've got nothing to prove, you know what I'm saying? "Would it have been nice to win a Cup championship [with Earnhardt] over here? Yeah, it sure would have. But I'm still at an organization right now where I can be a part of one. Whether I'm the leader of it or just being a part of it, it means something." EARNHARDT SAYS HE'D LIKE TO RACE IN INDY SOMEDAY Dale Earnhardt Jr. says he would jump at the chance to drive in the Indianapolis 500 if there were not a conflicting NASCAR race on the same day. Rain washed out his plans for a ride in a two-seat Indy car on Thursday. Instead, he strapped himself behind the wheel and received a 10-minute driving lesson from former 500 winner Dan Wheldon. Earnhardt said he "picked his brains as hard as I could." And he said driving at Indianapolis "definitely interests me," though he has NASCAR's Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, N.C., on the same day. However, he said he and many other NASCAR drivers would try Indy if the schedules could be resolved. Wheldon to give Dale Earnhardt Jr. IndyCar ride at Indianapolis Motor Speedway The former Indy 500 Winner will give his National Guard teammate a High-Speed tour of Indianapolis Motor Speedway this Thursday when Panther Racing driver Dan Wheldon gives NASCAR Sprint Cup star Dale Earnhardt Jr. a ride in the Indy Racing Experience two-seater at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Both drivers will be available for photos and interviews following the event, which begins at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday. Earnhardt Jr. is in Indianapolis to promote the upcoming July 26th Allstate 400 at the Brickyard and Wheldon is traveling to Canada immediately after Thursday’s event for the Honda Indy Toronto IndyCar Series race, which will be held on Sunday. Wheldon is just over a month removed from a runner-up finish in the 93rd Running of the Indianapolis 500 with Panther – the team’s second consecutive second-place finish in the Greatest Spectacle in Racing. The Indy Racing Experience two-seater will be in the same No. 4 National Guard livery as Wheldon drives full-time in the IndyCar Series. Wheldon and Earnhardt Jr. last appeared together at the National Guard’s Youth ChalleNGe gala in Washington DC in late February. The event also included Earnhardt’s Hendrick Motorsports’ teammate Jeff Gordon, who is also sponsored by the National Guard. Earnhardt will also turn laps in the historic No. 16 Noc-Out Hose Clamp Special that Mauri Rose and Floyd David co-drove to victory in the 1941 Indianapolis 500. Earnhardt currently ranks 21st in the Sprint Cup standings and has collected one Top Five and three Top Ten finishes this season. He will be making his tenth career start in the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard this year, and has previously recorded a best result of sixth at the race in 2006. In nine previous starts, Earnhardt Jr. has led a total of 54 laps at Indianapolis. Dale Earnhardt Jr. pleased with direction of Hendrick Motorsports team Dale Earnhardt Jr. isn’t ready to proclaim that his No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports team has suddenly found the missing link after recent improvements following a crew-chief swap. However, NASCAR’s most popular driver does believe that the group is on the upswing heading into Saturday night’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway. And he hopes the team, which has posted three top-15s since Lance McGrew replaced Tony Eury Jr. as crew chief five races ago, can build confidence for 2010. “Making the Chase [For The Sprint Cup] is a goal, but at the end of the year when you’re done racing at Homestead and you run the last lap and you get out of the car, what kind of feeling do you want to have?” Earnhardt Jr. said Friday at DIS. “The one I want to have is that we’ve fixed it, that we’ve got something we can feel good about and work on and get all our stuff ready for next year and feel like we can go in and get the job done. Right now, that’s not how we feel as a team. “We’ve got a little bit more to go, we’ve got to get a little bit better so at the end of the year we want to feel like we are. We want to have some wins, we want to have some consistency and at the end of the year [be] going, ‘All right, we can’t wait till next year; it’s going to be a good deal.’” Sitting 19th in the standings, Earnhardt Jr. all be ruled out a rally into Chase contention over the last nine races of NASCAR’s regular season. To be eligible for the final 10-race championship-determining segment, Earnhardt Jr. would need to leapfrog seven drivers to move into 12th, the last available Chase spot. “We have quite a ways to go to be able to make the Chase,” he said. “It’s going to be a real challenge for us to make the Chase. We’re still mathematically in it, but we’re not trying to catch just one guy that we’re 200 and some points behind, we’re trying to catch four or five guys, and it’s unrealistic to expect all them guys to have enough trouble and for us to top-10 them to death. “So we’ve got to run better, and even though we have improved, it seems, we still need to obviously get better to be able to compete. Being able to drive up into the top three last week [at New Hampshire] was a lot of fun, but we need to be able to stay there once we get there.” Earnhardt Jr. seems overall fairly pleased with the relationship between he and McGrew, the interim crew chief who replaced Eury after a 40th-place finish at Charlotte in May. “I’ve been more comfortable in the car,” said Earnhardt Jr., who has just one top-five and three top-10s in 17 races in 2009. “I’ve liked what I’ve felt from in the race cars over the last couple weeks and Lance and I seem to communicate well. He’s very excited and we are able to kind of root each other on throughout the race, it seems, and the team has got a great attitude and it seems to get better with each run that we seem to show a little more promise. We’re working. Everybody is really working so hard. “I remember in 2004, even as recently as last year, I don’t remember working this hard and running better than we’re running now. Once we get back to where we want to be, we will appreciate that much more than we probably did in the past.” Earnhardt Jr., who hasn’t won a race since Michigan in June 2008, says NASCAR’s new car has made it more difficult to recover after falling behind on setups and overall preparation. “You used to be able to rebound in a week or two, but if you get behind in this sport now, there’s a chance you may not be able to recover for some time,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “It definitely has been a trying time, and it was really hard and our team was really, really low, but just knowing where we were and how I felt two months ago to now, I can definitely say it’s a big difference for us. “There’s no one person or one thing that really deserves credit. We just made a couple changes and everything seems to be moving in the right direction, so we’ll just try to keep it up.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. says JR Motorsports lacks budget for Nationwide COT NASCAR Nationwide Series team co-owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. said Friday he doesn’t know what the series’ new car will look like in 2010 and that his JR Motorsports team doesn’t have enough money in its current budget to pay for development of the car of tomorrow. Earnhardt Jr., who co-owns JRM with Rick Hendrick, fields one full-time and part-time entry in the Nationwide Series. NASCAR appears to be leaning toward running the new car on restrictor-plate tracks and road courses in 2010. “I haven’t had any conversations with anyone in the sport about the car," Earnhardt Jr. said before Friday night’s Subway Jalapeno 250. “I haven’t had any diagrams or ideas or drafts in front of me to look at. So I am just waiting in the wings like everybody else, I assume.” Richard Childress Racing did the initial development work on the Nationwide COT for Chevrolet. The rule book is close to being finalized on the car, but NASCAR is still talking with teams about the implementation schedule. “We have our budget worked out to where we can run this year with what we have, but we don’t have the money to develop this car,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “You’d be lucky to be able to do it just under $150,000 in just an early- or preseason development. So before you even run a race, you have spent a couple hundred thousand dollars, and we do not have that as a company.” Like a lot of teams, JRM is simply waiting on the final rule book before building any new cars. “Without a doubt, I am sure it will be a safer race car,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Hopefully, we have learned a lot from what we have done the last three years from the Cup level to make a better race car than we have now in the Nationwide Series.” But Earnhardt Jr. wondered if that was possible, saying the current Nationwide car is “the ultimate race car.” “Brad Keselowski had a good analogy the other day,” Earnhardt Jr. said of his Nationwide driver. “He said, ‘If I look at the Nationwide Series car I would brag to my friends and show it off to them.’ And he said he wants to be able to do that with the new car as well and he wants to be excited about the way it looks and how it drives, and so I feel like hopefully they will develop a new car that will be exciting and fun to watch.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. credits interim crew chief Lance McGrew for Sunday's performance Hendrick Motorsports’ Dale Earnhardt Jr. showed flashes of the form he’s lacked for much of the season in Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Earnhardt Jr., who surged as high as third and engaged in a fierce battle with Penske Racing's Kurt Busch for second in the race’s middle stages, ultimately slipped to 13th in the rain-shortened event as his car’s handling grew tight. “Being around fifth and looking at the top five, that was great,” said Earnhardt Jr., who hasn’t been to victory lane since last June at Michigan. “Seeing the leaders most of the day in your windshield is better than where we have been. The restarts were kind of tough. I like the double-file restarts, but man, if you are on the inside, you are going to lose a couple of spots every time. “We were on the inside the last three [restarts] and we lost the opportunity to run in the top five, got shuffled back to just inside the top 10. We had a good car, good run.” Earnhardt Jr., who has just one top-five and three top-10s this season, gave interim crew chief Lance McGrew a lot of credit for the solid outing. McGrew, who replaced Tony Eury Jr. earlier this month, felt Earnhardt Jr.’s gratitude first-hand after the race. “When Junior got out of the car, he came to the top of the pit box [and] he was pretty excited about how the car was all day, and that’s good,” McGrew said. “We’re making big strides right now.” Since taking on the role, McGrew has guided NASCAR’s most popular driver to finishes of 12th, 27th, 14th, 26th and 13th, respectively. “It’s huge,” McGrew said of Sunday’s outcome. “It really is. And he told me flat out. He said, ‘I thought today was going to be a stumbling block for us,’ and he said, ‘You guys put it together and it was good.’ He said, ‘It was good all day long.’ “So that’s a good thing. It’ll get a little swagger back in him.” Earnhardt Jr., who moved up a spot to 19th in the standings Sunday, sounds optimistic looking ahead. “I hope we can keep this up,” he said. “We are inching so slowly up back in to where we need to run. It is taking a while, but hopefully we keep moving forward.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. teams with public relations firm to promote North Carolina's 'Move Over' law NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. has partnered with the public relations firm of Miller Davis Inc. to promote North Carolina’s “Move Over” law. The campaign is designed to generate awareness for the safety of North Carolina Highway Patrol and emergency personnel who work the state highways. Adams Outdoor is also donating space on 16 billboards throughout the state for several weeks this summer. Other non-profit partners on this project include Families for Roadside Safety, The North Carolina State Firemen’s Association and AAA of The Carolinas Foundation for Traffic Safety. “This is an issue that is very personal to a few of our employees,” said Mike Miller, president of Miller Davis Inc. More information about North Carolina’s Move Over Law can be obtained at www.nccrimecontrol.org. Dale Earnhardt Jr. gains two spots in standings with 14th-place Michigan finish For Dale Earnhardt Jr., it was more of the same for much of Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Michigan International Speedway. But in the end, he finished 14th for just his second top-15 in the last six races. Earnhardt Jr. felt that his Hendrick Motorsports team and interim crew chief Lance McGrew had his car in good position midway through the LifeLock 400. But in the end, he felt that the handling dropped off a little and that he lost ground. “We worked on the car and we had it real good at one point - I was real happy,” he said. “Then near the end of the race, the last quarter of the race, we got off a little bit. We had about a 10th-place car, maybe, but we were trying to save fuel at the end and gave up a couple spots trying to do that and didn’t gain back as many as we thought we would. “Not as many people ran out as we thought would. It was a pretty good weekend. We ran pretty good in the race, we have to get a little bit better and we are definitely seeing some signs of improvement.” That includes gaining some ground in the standings. Earnhardt Jr. moved up two spots to 18th with the performance, though he remains 255 points outside of the top 12 and a potential spot in the title-determining Chase For The Sprint Cup. Return to Michigan has Earnhardt feeling positive One year ago, all the pieces seemed in place. Dale Earnhardt Jr. coasted home on fumes to win at Michigan International Speedway and snap a 76-race winless skid. He and crew chief Tony Eury Jr. had a strong position in the standings and a solid handle on the new Sprint Cup car. All the promise and potential that his move to Hendrick Motorsports held appeared to be coming to fruition. And yet here he is, once again at Michigan in the springtime, and once again trying to put the pieces together. Given all that Earnhardt has been through over the past year -- from finishing last in the Chase, to getting off to a slow start this year, to having his crew chief reassigned -- that skid-busting victory on the 2-mile oval last June seems a very long time ago. And yet, NASCAR's most popular driver feels that familiar old burst of confidence just by walking through the gates. It helps that Earnhardt is continuing to build on his relationship with new crew chief Lance McGrew, who succeeded Eury two weeks ago at Dover. It helps that he has a good car, which was second-fastest behind Hendrick teammate Mark Martin in Saturday's final practice for the LifeLock 400. It helps that everyone associated with the No. 88 program can see little glimpses of progress. "The communication with the team is good. Lance is doing a great job. All of the other guys on the road crew have stepped up, and what that means to me is, when I come in here and I can see the different disposition on everyone's face, I'm more positive about what kind of lap time I'm going to get ready to run in the car," said Earnhardt, who will start 30th in Sunday's event. "Lance and I have been talking during the week about everything that comes to mind, and having consistent discussions to try to understand where each of us is at, what our opinion and attitude is. I think it just feels like this should be turning around and should begin to work, and I feel confidence. It gives me confidence. I know that in this sport, you can be great one day and not so great the next. We ran really, really bad and it was very frustrating during the race last week, but even though I didn't know at the time what had went wrong with the car, even at the end of the race I said I still see a lot of positive things happening with the team and feel good about Lance." Earnhardt's results thus far with McGrew have been mixed, with a 12th-place finish in their debut at Dover followed by a 27th-pace run last weekend at Pocono. But Earnhardt takes comfort in knowing that his Pocono car was good in practice, and that the loose condition he fought during the race was the result of a broken front suspension part the team identified only after the vehicle was brought back to the Hendrick shop. "It totally made sense," Earnhardt said. "Actually, in the middle part of the race, I commented over to my engineer that I thought that part had failed. It was pretty good to be able to point at something and go, 'Well, here's the problem.' At least you can start forming better solutions when you know what your problem is." Team owner Rick Hendrick has commissioned a small army to help turn the No. 88 team around, complementing McGrew with a dedicated team manager and chassis engineer. And then there's the driver himself, who has committed to becoming more professional and being more adaptable to change. Although this revamped team has yet to crack the top 10, Earnhardt can already feel the difference. "The guys have got a better attitude. The team was really beat down over the last several months, and that's gotten better. That affects me and affects everybody. We just really want to see some results and things like that in the next couple of weeks to give us an assertion we need to move forward and keep improving. I think we will," he said. "We'll just see how it goes. I feel pretty good about it. I think Rick has gone far beyond what I anticipated in trying to get us assistance and trying help me. More so I'm surprised by how much the crew chiefs and drivers are participating and trying to help us. Everybody is just really trying to help, and it feels great. That kind of thing has got to give you some confidence going in, because I see that they want it to work just like I do." Now Earnhardt is back at Michigan, the site of his first Hendrick breakthrough last year. Is it too soon in the rebuilding project for him to hope for a repeat performance? "You show up every week thinking you can win and hoping you can win," he said. "So it's not too soon to think about that and try to realize that is your ultimate goal. We seem to have good communication. We had a pretty good practice [Friday], but a bad set of tires so we didn't get to make a real hard mock run. I was pretty happy with how things worked out. The communication seems to be going good, and I hope to be realizing some success from it soon." Dale Earnhardt Jr. defends fans after lastest Kyle Busch jab Dale Earnhardt Jr. isn’t amused by Kyle Busch’s latest jab at the Hendrick Motorsports driver. Busch, who said a couple weeks ago that new Earnhardt Jr. crew chief Lance McGrew was going to “have his hands full” working with NASCAR’s most popular driver, took a shot at Earnhardt Jr.’s fans on Friday at Michigan International Speedway. Asked whether he’d gotten much flack about destroying his race-winning guitar after last weekend’s Nationwide Series race Nashville Superspeedway, Busch replied that the only people bothered were “the ones with 88s tattooed on their arms, or maybe still 8s [Earnhardt Jr.’s current and former car numbers].” Busch also called Earnhardt Jr.’s fans, “crazy.” “I think the guy is just trying to direct a lot of people to his web site or to his column and generate ad revenue for said web site I suppose,” Earnhardt Jr. said Friday when told that Busch had remarked about his fans. “I really don’t see how that argument really is that relevant to anything and I don’t even know really what kind of problem he has or what kind of solution he wants. I don’t really get into it.” Earnhardt Jr. and Busch, of course, have a bit of a checkered past. The two drivers tangled last season while racing for lead in the spring Richmond race, with Earnhardt Jr. spinning after a nudge from Busch’s No. 18 Toyota. The accident set off a firestorm of animosity from Earnhardt Jr. fans toward Busch in the following weeks. Busch is also the driver that Hendrick Motorsports team owner Rick Hendrick parted ways with at the end of the 2007 season to make room for Earnhardt Jr. in his four-car stable. “My fans will handle themselves,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “They’re good people. We’ve got a lot of great fans that follow this sport and they’re very loyal to us and we need them more now than ever right now, so I think anyone who would be calling them out and stirring them up is causing problems not only for himself but everyone else in this sport.” Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kevin Harvick fail to gain ground at Pocono Raceway The fortunes of two NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers trying to regain footing in the series standings failed to turn in Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Pocono 500 at Pocono Raceway. With their struggles in the race, Hendrick Motorsports' Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Richard Childress Racing's Kevin Harvick - both championship contenders last season - actually lost ground in their bids to move up the standings. Earnhardt Jr., in his second race with interim crew chief Lance McGrew, finished 27th and fell two spots to 20th in the standings while Harvick finished 24th and fell two spots to 26th. The pair has just 12 races in which to turn the tide and break into the 12-driver Chase For The Sprint Cup field. But as of Sunday night, Earnhardt Jr. was 245 points out of the group and Harvick was 327 points out. McGrew said that he felt like his Hendrick team was making the right changes and heading in the correct direction early in the race. Then things underwent a downturn. "I felt like during the middle of the race we had something good to work with, kind of made some good changes and he was running some really good competitive lap times and we were all happy, then it just kind of went away at the two-thirds point of the race," he said. "… We're building Rome here and … we're still working on the communication. We've just got to do a little better job of figuring out what the track is going to do the next day and make the appropriate changes the night before instead of trying to change it during the race. It'll come." As he considered how the race played out, McGrew said it was difficult to adjust the car properly in the conditions that saw the sun burning on the track, then clouds over it, then rain fall, then the sun appear once more. In the moments after the event, he wasn't sure exactly what the team could have done differently. Overall, he said that the team should anticipate having to make some adjustments and that the group is focused on adjusting and learning one another in an effort to improve. And he remains confident they can do just that. "We're going to have some hurdles and there's going to be some mountains to climb," he said. "And we just have to keep our heads up and continue to try to get better. That's the biggest thing. If you give up, you're done. “Right now I'm still positive about it. I think there's a lot of talent on this team, and obviously there's a lot of talent in the race-car driver. We've just got to get him comfortable with what's under him." 'Change of pace' helps to pick up the pace for Hendrick Motorsports' Dale Earnhardt Jr. Dale Earnhardt Jr. sounded as relieved as anything else that his first outing with new crew chief Lance McGrew went well. The pair netted a 12th-place finish in Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Autism Speaks 400 at Dover International Speedway, the first finish inside the top 25 for the No. 88 team in four weeks. Hendrick Motorsports officials announced Thursday that Earnhardt Jr. and longtime crew chief Tony Eury Jr. would cease to work together, putting McGrew in the role on an interim basis. He was slated to begin his role at Pocono Raceway next weekend, but when Hendrick's Brad Keselowski missed the race, a race-day decision was made to put McGrew on the pit box making the calls for Earnhardt Jr. Sunday. Engineers Rex Stump and Brian Whitesell also worked with the team. The result was not only the finish and a one-position gain to 18th in the standings, but also a chance for McGrew and the driver to learn they understood one another's lingo and to begin developing that communication that is so crucial in a crew chief-driver relationship. Earnhardt Jr. said having McGrew in his ear during the race was "a change of pace," and was cautious when it came to making predictions about the developing relationship. "We didn't right click yet, but we definitely doing OK," he said. "We've got a lot to learn about each other, obviously, and the more we know and understand each other I think the better we will be. Hopefully we get that opportunity. We're just taking it one step at a time. This was one race. For the Juniors, maybe being family got in the way Dale Earnhardt Jr. said he was going to dedicate himself to becoming more professional, and for at least one afternoon he certainly sounded like it. Communicating with new crew chief Lance McGrew over 400 miles Sunday at Dover International Speedway, the extraneous chit-chat was kept to a minimum. There were no fiery arguments, no contentious exchanges, no times when the driver appeared to be coming unhinged. He sounded like a foot soldier relaying succinct responses to a field general -- the exact term car owner Rick Hendrick uses to describe McGrew. In short, it was nothing like the communication Earnhardt often had with former crew chief Tony Eury Jr., who was reassigned to a research and development role last week in the wake of the No. 88 team's subpar performance this season. Those two would sometimes haggle and fight like the close first cousins they are. And, as it turns out, they weren't always honest with one another -- a fact that became markedly more obvious as this new, more composed, and more informative Earnhardt worked patiently with McGrew to make his car better. The end result was a 12th-place finish -- not exactly stellar, but still Earnhardt's best result on a non-restrictor-plate track in two months, and a vast improvement from the embarrassing 40th-place showing at Lowe's Motor Speedway week. You couldn't find a better example of the perils of working with family if you drove across Delaware Bay into New Jersey, and sat in on a therapy session with Tony Soprano. "They told me that I need to give them a lot, and I took it upon myself to do that," Earnhardt said after the race. "It was really hard to be that way with Tony Jr., and it wasn't his fault. Maybe it was my personal fault. But me and him were too cool to talk that much to each other. Too much pride, I guess, between me and him. I don't know how you love somebody so much and carry so much pride around them, but that's the way we were. It's real easy to talk to Lance. He's a sponge and taking all that information in. It's only one race. We'll see how we communicate in two months. We'll see if we're at each others' throats then or not. I think it's a good start. We keep this type of attitude and keep working hard and maintain our expectations, and we'll be all right." The otherwise lackluster results of this season, in which NASCAR's biggest star finds himself 18th in Sprint Cup points, don't necessarily mean Eury is a bad crew chief. They don't necessarily mean Earnhardt is a bad driver. They do mean that the combination didn't work, regardless of how well the Juniors know each other, or how much they love each other, or how much they enjoy being at the race track together. Maybe it took the shakeup for Earnhardt to realize he needed to be a little more poised over the radio, something his detractors have used against him since Hendrick had to step in last year at New Hampshire to talk him off the figurative ledge. Or maybe Earnhardt was simply incapable of communicating with Eury the same way he did with McGrew on Sunday. Maybe their relationship got in the way. "I go back to the way I've talked with my family members before, growing up with my brother," Hendrick said. "They feel like they want to revert back to what they did a long time ago, or it's just a short comment and no real conversation. I think [Sunday] it pressed Junior to explain what the car was doing." Hendrick said he originally considered having Eury sit on the box and letting McGrew call the race, but ultimately decided against it. Wednesday, he made the call -- Eury was moved to the R&D role, general manager Brian Whitesell would run the No. 88 team at Dover, and McGrew would take over at Pocono after a one-race stint with Brad Keselowski. That plan was amended after Keselowski failed to qualify for the Autism Speaks 400. Sunday morning, Hendrick and competition director Ken Howes decided that McGrew would make the calls at Dover. The results were startling. Earnhardt struggled a little at first with McGrew's more rapid speech pattern, but the feedback from the driver was clinical and direct. Nobody whined, nobody pointed fingers, nobody fought. With 166 laps remaining, Earnhardt was up to third thanks in part to a caution that had trapped some contenders a lap down. Then came an adjustment that tightened up the car to the point where the tires were chattering, and led to the team's only real rough patch of the day. "We're in real trouble setup-wise," Earnhardt told McGrew, before making an extra pit stop that sent the No. 88 car back to 15th. And yet, they fought through it. McGrew gave Earnhardt encouragement when he needed it, apologized when his setup tactics didn't work as hoped, even urged his driver to drink more during the event. There were no pit-road blunders, no missed pit boards. In fact, Earnhardt even gained two spots on pit road late in the event. No one seemed displeased with the final result. "We definitely had a productive day," Earnhardt said. "I've told all my boys, we're building Rome here, and it might take a while to get finished. But if everyone works hard, we'll get it right. This was a good start for us." Added McGrew: "In this sport, this level of competition, we're not going to go from where we'd been running to first. That's just not going to happen. This week we needed to run 11th through 15th. Next week I want to run 15th through 12th, and we'll keep going. I think the communication was fantastic." Hendrick agreed. "Overall I'd give it a really good grade," he said. "Had we not had that one adjustment, I think we'd have had a top-six or a top-five car. For the guys to work that well together this quick, I was real pleased. I listened to them all day, and the communication was extremely good." Of course, it's only one race. Two years ago when Greg Erwin took over a Greg Biffle team that was 19th in points, they came to Dover and ran sixth. "I thought, wow, this is easy," Erwin jokes now. They finished 30th and 38th in their next two races, and wound up missing the Chase. But the reclamation of the No. 88 program is an organization-wide effort at Hendrick Motorsports, as evidenced by the six people working atop the pit box at one point in the race. Decisions on car setup are now being made not by one person, but by a committee of McGrew, Whitesell, and engineer Tom Stewart. Chassis engineer Rex Stump has been assigned to the team for the duration. There's no shortage of manpower in the effort to turn Earnhardt's season around. As for Earnhardt himself? If Sunday is a glimpse of the attitude he'll have going forward, then it's only a matter of time. In these situations, change often naturally brings an improvement in performance. But ultimately, it may have been their desire to be together that held both Earnhardt and Eury back. "I told Lance, I said, I'm ready to work. I'll do whatever y'all say. Y'all tell me whatever I need to do better, different, whatever, I'm ready to work. I've always felt that way," Earnhardt said, sitting on the top step of his team transporter after a physical Dover race. "We just got so beat up at the end of the deal with Tony Jr. Me and him were both at the bottom, and we couldn't help each other. I'm willing to do whatever it takes. My attitude is better this week, and this helps. This helps a little bit. Hopefully, we can build on it. In this sport, you're a hero one week and a zero the next, man. It can humble you just as quickly as it can put you on top of the world. We just have to measure our expectations and be smart about our decisions on the weekend." Winless Earnhardt Jr. under pressure All Martin Truex Jr. needs to do to gauge the enormous impact Dale Earnhardt Jr. has on NASCAR is take a peek at the packed stands every race day. The fans dress in Junior's colours, bring their No. 88 signs and roar when his name is mentioned in race introductions. Earnhardt's firm grip as NASCAR's most popular driver hasn't waned even as the wins have dried up. Somehow, the lack of trips to Victory Lane hasn't affected how "Junior Nation" feels about the son of the legendary former Cup champion. That's what makes Earnhardt's career vastly unique from any other driver in the Cup garage. "There are more people involved in this sport because of Dale Jr. then because of me or anybody else out there," Truex said. "I think that's what makes it different, you know?" Earnhardt knows. He's also well aware his devoted fan base was quick to blame crew chief Tony Eury Jr. for any of the No. 88's troubles, and wanted Earnhardt's cousin booted from the Hendrick Motorsports team. Well, they got their scapegoat, and now there's only one person to take the heat for Earnhardt's slumping season. Earnhardt. "I feel like they'll always be pressure on me I guess," Earnhardt said. "I'm all right with that. I've always had pressure on me and I don't mind." Earnhardt has always had pressure, and maybe unrealistic expectations, simply because his dad was "The Intimidator." Signing with the powerhouse Hendrick team for the start of last season only heightened the scrutiny Earnhardt came under. He made the Chase for the championship last season, only to finish a disappointing 12th in the standings after a late fade knocked him out of title contention. This season, Earnhardt is 19th in points and coming off a season-worst 40th-place finish at Lowe's Motor Speedway. It's become natural to wonder if Earnhardt can ever reach the lofty expectations set at Hendrick, and what it will take to rebuild his sagging confidence. "I would be lying if I said I didn't lose confidence at times," Earnhardt said. "You definitely lose confidence when you don't run good. You're only human, so you're definitely going to question some of your abilities when you're not getting it done." It can't be easy to trust his own skill with teammates Jeff Gordon (first), Jimmie Johnson (fourth) and Mark Martin (12th) running well ahead of him in the points standings, even with what they all claim is essentially the same equipment. "When you put yourself at Hendrick Motorsports, you're in the best equipment and you should win races," Earnhardt said. "If you don't, that really sort of makes for a hard argument that you had any business being there in the first place." With Eury booted from his crew chief job, team manager Brian Whitesell will call the shots this weekend at Dover. Next week, Lance McGrew will take over on an interim basis at Pocono Raceway. He was scheduled to work with Brad Keselowski, but the rookie failed to qualify, giving McGrew a chance Saturday at jumping right in to help out on the No. 88. McGrew has gone from a virtual unknown outside racing's inner circle to one of the most pressure-packed jobs in the sport. His grace period might not last much beyond Pocono. "I don't know if any crew chief would sit here and tell you it's not a little daunting to have the most popular driver in your stable," McGrew said. Former Hendrick driver Kyle Busch took delight in delivering a barb at Earnhardt about the perception that his poor finishes were never his fault, always the crew chief. Earnhardt begrudgingly had to agree. "Like Kyle said, most of the people have always been on Tony Jr.'s case and never really pointed the finger at me throughout the season," he said. Drivers in the garage were quick to defend the Earnhardt-Eury relationship. "No one understands the pressure that they've been under, including myself," Martin said. "I don't think I can even comprehend it. Dale Jr. is far and away got the strongest shoulders of any man in NASCAR. There's some good things that come from being the sport's most popular and most recognized driver, but there's a lot of weight on his shoulders as well." The longtime Earnhardt-Eury pairing only produced one win in 48 races with Hendrick, and this season saw a flurry of pit-road problems and setup miscalculations. If Earnhardt keeps an open mind about working with McGrew, perhaps he can regain the form that saw him win six races in 2004. If the poor results keep popping up, then Earnhardt might go down as Hendrick's free-agent bust. "We just have to understand that going in and know that those are the stakes when you show up to the racetrack," Earnhardt said. "You better be able to live up to everybody's expectations." Earnhardt enters adjustment period, accepts share of blame NASCAR's most popular driver spent Friday adjusting to new voices in his ear, while the men charged with resurrecting his racing fortunes were introduced to the spotlight that will follow their association with Dale Earnhardt Jr. In both cases, it will be a work in progress. A day after a Hendrick Motorsports shakeup cost Earnhardt longtime crew chief and cousin Tony Eury Jr., the driver began the next phase with interim replacements Brian Whitesell and Lance McGrew on the No. 88 Chevrolet. Earnhardt sounded hopeful about saving his season after practice for Sunday's Autism Speaks 400 but also expressed disappointment over not fulfilling his original vision when he and Eury — who had been together for much of his nine-year Sprint Cup Series career — joined the powerhouse operation last year. "It's a new chapter and a new direction, which gives you hope," Earnhardt said during a 33-minute news conference at Dover International Speedway. "I'm really disappointed that we didn't get things the way we wanted them with the original structure of the team, so that disappointment may be around for a couple months at least, and may linger for a long time. "But the change and the support that I'm getting from new voices in the company is an opportunity and brings you hope, and sort of lifts the spirits of everybody. Hopefully, when guys show up on race day they'll feel it too." Job one for Whitesell and McGrew is sorting through myriad issues that have Earnhardt 19th in points in a season that began with expectations of another berth in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. He has just three top-10s in 12 starts and hasn't won in 33 starts since last June at Michigan. Monday's 40th-place finish at Lowe's Motor Speedway was the breaking point for team owner Rick Hendrick, who replaced Eury with Whitesell and McGrew and moved lead chassis engineer Rex Stump over to the car. Eury will move into a research and development role with Hendrick. Whitesell will call the shots this weekend before yielding to McGrew next week at Pocono Raceway. Both conceded needing time to find solutions and adjust to Earnhardt — to say nothing of adapting to the huge spotlight he brings as well. "I don't know if any crew chief would sit here and tell you it's not a little daunting to have the most popular driver in your stable," McGrew said. "I have been very fortunate to work with a lot of different drivers and seeing a lot of different personalities. I believe it's going to be extremely challenging and its going to require a lot of work, not so much on the equipment side but on the personal side because I feel like you have to have a relationship with your driver and you have to have a relationship with your team in order to be successful. "I'm not the most outgoing person in the whole world and obviously the media blitz is not exactly what I prefer to be doing right now. It's part of the job and it's something I'll have to work on as well." Earnhardt will start 22nd on Sunday after a qualifying lap of 154.799 mph Friday, his best showing in four races. He wasn't the only Hendrick driver to struggle on the Monster Mile: Mark Martin qualified six spots lower at 154.328 mph while points leader Jeff Gordon brushed the wall on his qualifying run in the No. 24 Impala SS; he will start 42nd on owner's points. Three-time defending series champion Jimmie Johnson, fourth in points, qualified eighth at 155.662 mph. With all the Hendrick cars being prepared the same, Whitesell said better results were expected from Earnhardt's team. He didn't blame Eury for its struggles, but said it was a situation where change was needed and hinted that more could come. "Each weekend we come home, we evaluate the pit crew, the road crew, the shop crew (and ask) are things getting done the way they need to get it done and we made changes this year," Whitesell said. "Tony (Eury) Jr. is not the first thing we've done. "We've done some other personnel changes throughout the year. We're looking for a group of people that want to do this at a championship level. If there is a point where we feel that's not being done then we make those changes." Earnhardt said he and Eury told Hendrick they would accept any change he thought was necessary. He pointed the finger at himself for some of the problems, and accepted scrutiny as part of being the son of a popular seven-time Cup champion. Despite this season's turmoil, Earnhardt said he still looks forward to coming to the track and didn't expect this episode to be a distraction. If anything, he said the disap-pointment and transition motivate him to get back to where he thinks the team belongs — a process that could extend into next season. "When you put yourself at Hendrick Motorsports, you're in the best equipment and you should win races and if you don't that really sort of makes for a hard argument that you had any business being there in the first place," Earnhardt said. "We've got to work hard over the next six months to try to give ourselves that argument and move forward and I think we can do that. Hopefully with a new attitude and a different type of communication and a different approach with someone else leading the team, it's going to be different. "We're trying to do as much as we can while we've got the opportunity on the race track over the next several months to give ourselves the opportunity to make the Chase and try to get this team to where we can start next year with better results so we don't put ourselves in this situation again." In the meantime, Kyle Busch couldn't resist getting in a dig at the driver who replaced him at the Hendrick operation. Busch's career has skyrocketed since signing with Joe Gibbs Racing, while Earnhardt Jr.'s sagging career has hit an all-time low. "It's never Junior. It's always the crew chief," said Busch, who wonders when fans might finally blame NASCAR's most popular driver for his slumping start. Earnhardt said he's ready to take the heat from anyone who wants to take shots — even Busch. "He's always had a chip on his shoulder for me," Earnhardt said. "I expect any opportunity to throw a jab at me, he'll do it. That's just his personality." Earnhardt understands that without Eury Jr. around to deflect criticism, it's up to him to find the spark that will jolt the No. 88 into contention for the Chase for the championship. Earnhardt couldn't say why the pairing with his cousin flopped, but he pointed the finger for the back-of-the-pack finishes at himself. "I take full responsibility for making some mistakes along the way, especially this year," he said. "I would say I haven't been on my game. I shoulder any amount of responsibility that's necessary and everybody feels is fair." Junior's interim crew chief a familiar face at Hendrick Had Mark Martin not signed with Hendrick Motorsports for the 2009 season and needed a crew chief, he very well might have pursued Lance McGrew. Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s interim crew chief might not be a familiar face to many spectators, but he's a known quantity inside the NASCAR garages, where he's worked with a number of top drivers across all three national series. Martin has worked with McGrew only once, in a Nationwide event at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last year. But the crew chief made enough of an impression that Martin might have hired him away from Hendrick had the veteran driver wound up with a different organization for this season. "I really like Lance, and had considered him a candidate for my crew chief possibly at another position other than Hendrick when I was looking at 2009. I really liked working with him. He's a very capable crew chief, and he's a very strong, take-charge kind of guy. I like that," Martin said Friday at Dover International Speedway. "He seems to take charge of situations very strongly, and I think that's a very good thing. I think that's a really good thing. That will be good for Junior. I enjoyed that as well working with him. He's an incredibly knowledgeable guy. Don't forget, he ran seventh with Brad [Keselowski] down at Darlington a few weeks ago." McGrew is working as Keselowski's crew chief again this weekend at Dover, a previous commitment that will preclude him from replacing Tony Eury Jr. on the No. 88 team until next weekend at Pocono Raceway. Brian Whitesell, manager of Hendrick's No. 88 and 5 teams and a former race-winning crew chief on an interim basis with Jeff Gordon, will call the shots at Dover. But beginning Monday, the pressure and expectations that come with working with NASCAR's most popular driver will fall squarely in McGrew's lap. "I don't know if any crew chief will sit here and tell you it isn't a little daunting, having the most popular driver in your stable," McGrew said. "Yes, I have been very fortunate to work with a lot of different drivers, seen a lot of different personalities. I believe it's going to be extremely challenging, and it's going to require a lot of work, not so much on the equipment side but just on a personal side, because I feel like you have to have a relationship with your driver and you have to have a relationship with your team in order to be successful. For me, I'm not the most outgoing person in the whole world. Obviously, the media blitz is not what I'd prefer to be doing right now. But it's part of the job, and something I'll have to work on as well." It's a new experience for somebody who broke into NASCAR in the 1990s by sweeping floors and washing the transporter at Jack Sprague's Busch Series shop. By 2000, McGrew was working as a crew chief on the Busch car owned by Gordon, whom he won a race with that year. The native of Baton Rogue, La., was on the box when Ricky Hendrick won a Truck race at Kansas in 2001, was on the box when Brian Vickers won the 2003 Busch championship and the controversial Cup race at Talladega in 2006, and on the box for Nationwide victories by Martin, Tony Stewart, and Kyle Busch. "Lance did a lot of things," recalled Busch, who was effectively replaced by Earnhardt at Hendrick after the 2007 season. "You're always trying to stay ahead of the curve, and he worked a lot with his team and worked a lot with the cars just trying to stay ahead of the curve with the way everything was going and stuff, just like any other crew chief does. To be honest with you, besides that, he's got his hands full, I guess, having to deal with what's going on. And if Junior doesn't run well, then he's going to be the problem again. It's never Junior, it's always the crew chief." To Hendrick, McGrew -- who in his most recent research and development role worked with the organization's other crew chiefs and engineers -- was the natural choice to take over on an interim basis. Whether he is the long-term solution remains to be seen. Hendrick hasn't ruled out ultimately bringing in someone from outside his race team, as he did with Eury, who came with Earnhardt from Dale Earnhardt Inc. "I'm open to talented people," Hendrick said. "Tony came from outside. I'm looking at folks from the outside. But we had to make a decision based on what we know, and the reason we went inside is I think Lance is an excellent guy, and I know that he and Brian working together makes a pretty strong tandem. You can't go out and find that kind of talent. But I'm not opposed to somebody from the outside. We'll just have to see." McGrew, who said his goal is to get Earnhardt back into the Chase, spoke to his new driver for the first time on Thursday night. He worked with Earnhardt early last year on the Nationwide side, calling signals for a JR Motorsports car after former crew chief Chad Walter was suspended six weeks for a rear spoiler violation. "I have had communication with him," McGrew said. "I will probably ask different questions, but it's just really hard to say until you get put in the situation. Obviously, there's a lot of pressure here, because it is Dale Jr., because it is such a big deal. Constantly being under the microscope, having millions of people listening to you over the radio, obviously you've got to be aware of that. As we grow together, I believe the communication will become exactly what it needs to be -- very precise and proper." Compare that to the communication that often flowed between cousins Earnhardt and Eury, who sometimes openly feuded over the radio. And McGrew won't be alone -- Whitesell will still be dedicated to the No. 88 team after this weekend, as will chassis engineer Rex Stump, who will temporarily step away from his organization-wide role and focus solely on improving Earnhardt's cars. "When you're coupled with Dale Earnhardt Jr., you've got a lot of pressure on you. A lot more than I think most anyone in NASCAR," Martin said. "Lance is a strong fellow. He's got good, strong shoulders. He's been involved at Hendrick Motorsports for a long time. He understands the processes and the program, and he's got Brian going to be sitting right next to him, who was the architect of the 88 and the 5. This is a superteam. Make no mistake, this is a superteam, and having Dale Jr. drive that race car completes the superteam. He is one heck of a race car driver, and as soon as he straps into something that feels right to him, he's going to the front." For Earnhardt and Eury, change an inevitable result Why are we so surprised? Tony Eury Jr. was replaced as Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s crew chief on Thursday, and the reverberations are still being felt from Lowe's Motor Speedway to Las Vegas. After a 40th-place result in Monday's rain-delayed Coca-Cola 600 that sank NASCAR's most popular driver to 19th in Sprint Cup Series points, team owner Rick Hendrick reassigned Eury to a research and development role and brought in a full cadre of replacements to try to turn around the No. 88 car. General manager Brian Whitesell, interim crew chief Lance McGrew and chassis specialist Rex Stump comprise a brain trust whose singular focus will be getting Earnhardt back into contention for the Chase. "We are pulling out all the stops to get this team to where it needs to be," Hendrick said. Understandable, given Earnhardt's high profile, his high-dollar car sponsors, and the sometimes suffocating pressure that goes along with his immense popularity. But it shouldn't come as a shock. The crew chief change is the most elementary of all NASCAR fixes, a tried-and-true method of jump-starting an otherwise struggling program, something most top drivers experience at one point or another in their careers. Not everyone is Richard Petty, able to compete for three decades with the same crew chief -- Dale Inman, in this case -- on his box. Drive long enough, and it's almost bound to happen. But when it happens to Earnhardt and Eury, it feels like breaking up the Beatles. There's a reason for that, of course. Junior and Junior came to Hendrick as a package deal, cousins who lived to race together, who sniped at one another over the radio, who seemed as intrinsically tied together as Goodyear and rubber. In some capacity, they had worked alongside one another on the same race program for all but one year since breaking into NASCAR's top series with Dale Earnhardt Inc. in 2000. When Earnhardt made the decision to jump to Hendrick prior to last year, Eury came over first, laying the groundwork for the No. 88 program in the final few months of 2007. Their relationship, full of feuds and reconciliations and deep family history, became part of the sport's culture. All of which makes the breakup -- and in a sport as competitive and as constantly changing as NASCAR, there are always breakups -- that much more dramatic and noteworthy, as evidenced by the hour Hendrick spent on a conference call with reporters Thursday explaining the reasons behind the change. And yet, it shouldn't have come as a surprise. Drivers much more successful than Earnhardt Jr. have found themselves in this exact situation, and many of them have benefited from the results. All you have to do is look at Earnhardt's father to see the kind of positive outcome that such a change can yield. Dale Earnhardt had won seven championships, and even recently snapped his historic drought in the Daytona 500, but still found himself mired in 12th in points midway through the 1998 season. Given that there was no Chase, that position was equivalent to about 25th today. People were saying that the Intimidator was finished. So car owner Richard Childress shook up things, swapping Earnhardt's crew chief, Larry McReynolds, with Kevin Hamlin, who had worked on teammate Mike Skinner's car. Earnhardt went on to win five more times during the next two years, and at 49 even contended for an eighth championship in 2000. Who knows what else Earnhardt and Hamlin might have accomplished had one fateful day at Daytona not intervened. Look at Jeff Gordon, whose crew chief Robbie Loomis resigned after the driver of the No. 24 car missed the Chase in 2005. An unknown named Steve Letarte stepped in, led Gordon to a phenomenal 2006 season -- even if they didn't win the championship -- and has his driver back in the points lead this year. Look at Rusty Wallace, who hooked up with Robin Pemberton after Buddy Parrott resigned following the 1995 season. They were together for 230 races, one of the longest driver/crew chief relationships in modern NASCAR history. Look at the way Kurt Busch responded to Jimmy Fennig. Look at the way Mark Martin responded to Pat Tryson. Although it may seem so to the desperate citizens of Junior Nation, what's happening to the younger Earnhardt is far from unique. "This was a situation we felt needed to happen, and we couldn't wait until the end of the year," Hendrick said. "It wasn't fair to our sponsors, to our fans, and those two guys [Earnhardt and Eury] to keep doing nothing." And yet, in the case of the No. 88 car, there's no obvious heir apparent, perhaps one reason why Hendrick has chosen this multi-faceted approach. Given that McGrew was already scheduled to work Dover this weekend with driver Brad Keselowski, Whitesell -- who won a race on an interim basis with Gordon after Ray Evernham stepped down, and was the architect of the juggernaut No. 48 team -- will be calling the shots on the No. 88 car this week, with McGrew taking over at Pocono. Overseeing it all will be Stump, one of Hendrick's little-known but invaluable engineering aces, the man Gordon's infamous "T-Rex" car was named after. "Right now, we've got one boat with a hole in it, and we've got to fix it," Hendrick said. "So his efforts are going to be there." As for a long-term solution, who knows. The car owner is throwing a lot of people at the No. 88 problem, but didn't rule out eventually bringing in someone from the outside. "Lance and Junior, or Brian and Junior, may be magic," Hendrick said. "But we're going to keep all our options open." And in the meanwhile, there's Eury, who helped the No. 88 program get off to a fast start early last year, but wasn't able to sustain it. Hendrick speaks of Eury with almost a fatherly tenderness, understandable given their long personal history. Robert Gee, maternal grandfather to both Eury and Earnhardt, was a legendary fabricator and former Hendrick Motorsports employee who helped the eight-time champion get into racing. The first NASCAR race Eury ever attended was a then-Busch event at Road Atlanta, along with Gee and Hendrick. Strangely, those personal ties might have made Thursday's announcement a little easier for everyone involved. "Tony knows when I told him I wanted him to be with this company, he knows that I'm not just saying that, and that I care about him a lot. If it wasn't for his granddad, I probably wouldn't be in this business. I think the world of him, and he's a very smart guy. He can be a contributor to our organization," Hendrick said. "Tony is part of the family, and he will always have a job with me as long as I'm racing if he wants it. And he says he does. He's very good in this [research and development] area, he likes this area. There's no pressure on him, and I'm excited about seeing him smile and laugh and be Tony again." Eury Jr. out as crew chief for slumping Earnhardt Dale Earnhardt Jr. will have a new crew chief starting with this weekend's race at Dover. The team said Thursday that Tony Eury Jr. was replaced as crew chief of Earnhardt's No. 88 team. They left Dale Earnhardt Inc. last season to drive for Hendrick Motorsports, but they've yet to find consistency despite driving for NASCAR's top team. "Our performance hasn't been where it should be," said Rick Hendrick, owner of Hendrick Motorsports. "It's impossible to pin that on any one factor, but a change is the right decision at this point. We have a plan in place, and we're going to move forward with it." They have one win in 48 races with Hendrick and are 19th in points. They hit rock bottom with Monday's 40th-place finish at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Team manager Brian Whitesell will be the crew chief this weekend. Lance McGrew will take over next week on an interim basis as team owner Rick Hendrick figures out a long-term plan for NASCAR's most popular driver. "We're going to put our full resources toward improving the situation and winning races," Hendrick said. "It's going to be a collective effort that includes all of our drivers, all of our crew chiefs and all of our engineers. Everyone in our company will be involved on some level." As a crew chief, McGrew has posted victories in all three of NASCAR's major touring series. He has won races with drivers Brian Vickers, Jeff Gordon, Ricky Hendrick, Kyle Busch, Mark Martin and Tony Stewart. A native of Baton Rouge, La., McGrew has experience working with Earnhardt. Last season, the pair ran three Nationwide Series races, posting two top-10s and a 15th-place finish. After Monday's rain-shortened race, Hendrick's commitment to the pair had clearly waned. Following months of steadfast support, he was noncommittal about Eury's future with Earnhardt. Earnhardt and Eury spent Tuesday and Wednesday testing on the road course at Virginia International Raceway. Hendrick told them he was splitting the pair upon their return. "I have mixed feelings, and that's just natural," Eury said. "But I enjoy working at Hendrick Motorsports, and this is where I want to be. I'll do whatever I can to help all of our teams and try to be a part of another championship. I think a new challenge will be good." Whatever route Hendrick takes, he's giving Earnhardt the full-time use of Whitesell and Rex Stump, the lead chassis engineer. "Tony and I talked through this [Wednesday] night," Hendrick said. "I want him here, he wants to be here, and he's going to be a big contributor to our future success. I have an unbelievable amount of respect for the job he's done and for the caliber of person that he is." Earnhardt and Eury -- first cousins and the grandsons of Robert Gee, one of Hendrick's first employees -- have worked together in some capacity for Earnhardt's entire career. The two went through a rough patch that led to constant bickering at the end of the 2004 season when they raced for the championship at Dale Earnhardt Inc.P>Earnhardt's stepmother, Teresa, separated them at the start of 2005, a move that led Earnhardt to finish a career-worst 19th in the standings. They were back together before the end of the season, but won just one race together in '06 as Earnhardt's relationship with his stepmother rapidly deteriorated. The next year, Earnhardt wrestled with the decision to leave DEI, then embarked on one of the most high-profile free agencies in NASCAR history. He settled on Hendrick Motorsports, and Eury went with him. Although they opened their first season at Hendrick by winning the exhibition Budweiser Shootout and a Daytona 500 qualifying race, Earnhardt didn't win a points race until the 15th event of the year. That was at Michigan, his only victory all season. Still, consistency put him at the top of the title contenders when the Chase for the championship began. But Eury and Earnhardt moved away from what got them into the Chase and finished last in the 12-driver field. Hendrick mum on future of Earnhardt's crew chief After months of firmly backing Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s crew chief, car owner Rick Hendrick is now being noncommittal about Tony Eury’s Jr.’s future. Although Hendrick said Tuesday no personnel changes have been made on Earnhardt’s No. 88 Chevrolet, he declined to give Eury Jr. a vote of confidence a day after NASCAR’s most popular driver had his worst finish of the season. Hendrick even left open the possibility that Earnhardt could have a new crew chief this weekend in Dover, Del. Earnhardt ran near the back of the pack Monday and finished 40th in the rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600, his worst showing since last season’s finale at Homestead. Rick Hendrick has confidence in Dale Earnhardt Jr., Tony Eury Jr. combination Team owner Rick Hendrick says he doesn’t think Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s problems on the race track are the result of his pairing with crew chief (and cousin) Tony Eury Jr. And, Hendrick said during qualifying Friday at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, he doesn’t anticipate a shakeup in personnel within the No. 88 team despite fan sentiment that suggests such a move would improve the performance of the sport’s most popular driver. “If I’m going to do something [I know] in my heart that’s not going to make it any better, just to make a lot of people happy, then I’m screwing the whole deal up,” Hendrick, owner of Hendrick Motorsports, said. “I don’t have a better answer than what we have. That’s the simplest thing I can tell you. With the guys I’ve got working on it, I don’t have a better answer right now. If we need to do something different, we will, and I won’t be the only one making that decision.” Earnhardt Jr., the sport’s most popular figure, has three top-10 finishes this season, his second with Hendrick Motorsports, but has six finishes of 20th or worse. As a result, he’s 18th in points heading into Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at LMS. Hendrick teammates Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Mark Martin all have at least one win this season, and are first, fourth and 11th in points, respectively. “If Tony Jr. was the only guy on that [pit] box making decisions, if Tony Jr. was the only guy in that shop talking to Dale, I say ‘Yeah, maybe,’” Hendrick said. “But that’s not the case. ... What you don’t see is all these engineers picking this thing apart, showing it to Dale and Dale going to Chicago [to test] with some engineers from the 5 car [of teammate Mark Martin] and just hitting right on the combination. And Tony was the guy doing it. “Tony was the guy a year ago when that was the best car in my shop. Until the guys, the guys are smart over there and I’m not one of them, all say, ‘Hey, it’s time for us to do something different,’ then we’ll do it. But we’re working hard and I feel it. “... I never know what the best combination is. We’ve been successful at putting together combinations that work and I believe that we’re not ready to make a change right now.” Hendrick admitted that it’s too easy to stick with what has previously worked for a team when things begin to go awry. And the fact that NASCAR has curtailed testing this season has meant that the No. 88 team has had to try and make gains on the fly. “We’re having to ... convert and test at a race track [on race weekends],” he said. “You’re trying to qualify, practice. Your mind is telling you to go back to what you know, what has worked [in the past], but you know deep down that that’s a half a second slower. So it’s not going to work any more. “Every driver I’ve ever had in every situation goes through that period. Jimmie did, they started testing after Las Vegas last year, worked their ass off and turned it around. Jeff, the same thing. He didn’t like the feel, didn’t like the car. We changed some people, too, but we had a plan, we followed that plan and we implemented those things.” Gordon, a four-time Cup champion, was winless in 2008, ending a 14-year run of winning one or more races. Hendrick noted that despite that setback, “we didn’t rip the team up, we just worked on it and fixed it. “I know the fans are impatient and they want [Earnhardt Jr.] to run good, the sport needs him to run good, we need him to run good and our sponsors need him to run good,” Hendrick said. “He wants to run good. And the harder we work sometimes it looks like the further behind we get. But I really feel like we’ve turned the corner and I look for a good race here Sunday. “Just to say, ‘OK let’s get this guy and put him over here, put this guy over here,’ you can hurt more than you can help. At a point where you have tried everything you know and you can’t get it, it’s time to do something. “But that time’s not here.” More from Junior Even though Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 is the longest race on the NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule, Hendrick Motorsports driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. believes qualifying is still important. The natural line of thought might be that since the race is so long – 600 miles and 400 laps – a driver who qualifies poorly would have plenty of time to make his way toward the front, but Earnhardt Jr. says qualifying is crucial because of its impact on pit selection. "Qualifying is pretty important,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Having a pit stall that you like can be an advantage the whole race. It's a long race, with a lot of stops, and leading the race and being in clean air is real important. “It really doesn't matter if you had a bad qualifying effort because you have plenty of time to get to the front, but pit selection is probably the most important part about it." Earnhardt Jr. should know. This will be the Kannapolis, N.C., native’s 11th start in the 600, a race in which he made his Cup debut in 1999 with Dale Earnhardt Inc. when he ran five races before going full-time for DEI the following season. Earnhardt Jr., of course, left the company founded by his late father, Dale Earnhardt, at the end of 2007 and now competes for Hendrick Motorsports, an organization that has probably had as much success in the 600 as any team in the Cup series. The driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet would like to share in that success on Sunday when he’ll be looking to make up ground after a rough start to the season. Eleven races in, Earnhardt Jr. has just three top-10s and is 18th in the driver standings. But he led 76 laps in last May's event at Charlotte and finished fifth despite a crash that damaged his car. “We run 500 miles [normally], and your body gets used to it,” he said. “You think you wouldn't notice another 100 miles added, but mentally you do. That last 100 miles is really tough mentally, trying to stay focused and trying to stay devoted to what you're doing because it's so easy just to kind of go, 'I'm tired.' Physically it's not a problem, but mentally your brain is just worked after it's over with. “I like it. I love this race track. I love this area. I'm glad to be home these two weeks. I think it's awesome we run a 600-mile race at Charlotte." Of course, Earnhardt Jr. and his Tony Eury Jr.-led team might grow ever fonder of Charlotte if they are the ones celebrating on Sunday night. Despite winning the all-star race at LMS in Earnhardt Jr.’s rookie season of 2000, he has never won a points-paying race at the 1.5-mile track. "It's a long race,” Eury Jr. said. “It's really difficult because when you start the track is really hot, really greasy. As night comes, it really cools down, and the car tightens up quite a bit. You've really got to have a car that is crutched to get through that first leg of the 600. “The first 150 laps, you want to make sure you don't tear up the car and aren't too loose, and you can adjust from there. The key is to get through those first 150 laps without any problems, and then you can have a good night." More from Junior No question the 10-lap shootout at the finish saved the All-Star Race. The last 10 laps were so spectacular that no one is talking much about how boring the first 90 laps were -- and that's fine. That means the new format did its job. On the broader scope of what makes the All-Star Race so special, we defer again to that great spokesman for the sport, Dale Jr. Asked to compare the All-Star Race to All-Star events in other sports, Earnhardt gave a quite eloquent answer that seemed to get right to the meat of it. "With ours, there is a million dollars on the line -- and with other All-Star games, I don't think they get that kind of money," he said. "This is a serious race, perhaps as serious as any race in the season, and I'm not sure you can make that argument for other sports. Their All-Star [events] are more of a celebration of the talents of individual players throughout the season. It's more recreational with the Home Run Derby [in Major League Baseball] and all that. "Our All-Star Race can be a high-pressured situation and we put a lot of emphasis into it. A lot of work goes into it and a lot of cars get tore up -- and there are a lot of people really upset afterward, so it's quite different." Pressure mounts as slumping Junior comes home Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s fans fill the infield. He’s mobbed wherever he goes at his home track. Lines wind around the corner to get into his nearby nightclub. The brand remains strong. It’s just on the track where NASCAR’s most popular driver is still finding success elusive. Welcome home, Junior. Now why aren’t you winning? “I would not trade places with him,” teammate Mark Martin said Friday. “Absolutely not.” Junior acknowledged the gripping pressure after consecutive 27th-place finishes left him 18th in the Sprint Cup standings, far from where his fans expected when he moved to powerhouse Hendrick Motorsports last year. “He’s probably right. I don’t think I’d want to put anybody in my shoes— maybe an enemy or two,” Earnhardt said of Martin’s sympathy. “There are good days and bad days. You’ve got a lot to complain about and you’ve got a lot of things to be grateful for.” Save for a second-place finish at Talladega, little has gone right for the No. 88 team in a season marred by pit road trouble, communication woes and a post-race skirmish with Casey Mears at Phoenix. Earnhardt has three top-10 finishes—and six of 20th or worse. After just one victory a year ago and quickly fading from contention once he made the Chase for the championship in his Hendrick debut, there have been calls to replace his crew chief and cousin, Tony Eury Jr. Owner Rick Hendrick has defended the team, but acknowledged they’ve had numerous meetings on how to end Junior’s funk. “I haven’t changed my position. There’s so much pressure on all of them guys, we’ve just got to take a deep breath,” Hendrick said. “He’s under the spotlight. We’re not happy about it and we’re working on it. I’ve just never been the kind of person who rips stuff up and says lets just try new things.” The trouble is finding and fixing what’s wrong, while Earnhardt tries to fight off negativity that he said “can make you into a real jerk.” Junior was searching for that balance as prepares for Saturday’s All-Star race and next weekend’s Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, just miles from his hometown. “When you’re running bad, you’re just a target,” Earnhardt said. “And you’re angry because you’re running bad, and frustrated. You can’t win for losing. If you get angry you’re a (jerk). If you take it on the chin you don’t care. “Everybody’s got an opinion of you. You just move on.” From the grim looks of his crew as they shuffled in and out his hauler after All-Star practice Friday afternoon, the team is need of some good fortune. “Where they’re at right now is they just need to not let the pressure get them so tight that they can’t perform at their best level,” Martin said. “So my advice to Junior was, ‘Hey this is All-Star weekend. Come here and take a deep breath and take a deep breath for your team and go out here and have some fun and let this thing come to you.’ “It’s going to come around. It’s going to come around for those guys.” Success has come quickly for Martin, though. The 50-year-old has two wins in his first season with Hendrick, which has further highlighted Junior’s troubles. “I’m all right,” Earnhardt said. “I appreciate Mark’s concern and he’s always been a great supporter of me. It feels good for him to recognize my position and how life is.” Quotebook: Darlington "You go sit in that car. It's not fun."- Dale Earnhardt Jr., on racing at Darlington For Junior, the years pass, but pressures remain same It felt like the old days of the Southern 500, the conditions warm and sticky and the humidity as thick as a coastal South Carolina drawl. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was hot and bothered as he emerged from his car following opening practice Friday afternoon at Darlington Raceway, and in no mood to discuss a botched pit-road call that derailed his efforts a week earlier at Richmond. "Ya'll saw what happened," he said, referring to a wedge adjustment that was misinterpreted by crewmen as a track bar adjustment, and played a part in a 27th-place finish. "Why do I have to comment on it? It don't help nothing to talk about it, not for me. My team's had enough s--- from everybody else, I don't need to weigh in on it. Ya'll saw what happened. Ya'll will say what ya'll want to say. We're working on it, trying to fix it. I'm pretty sure the guys will concentrate harder and try not to make that mistake next time." It's been that kind of season for NASCAR's most popular driver, one full of mediocre race results and pit-road mistakes and a championship Chase that seems to become a little less realistic with each passing week. The pressure is on, and at times it can feel suffocating, with fans demanding performance and reporters demanding answers and everyone at Hendrick Motorsports pursuing race wins and championships except for the driver in the No. 88 car. But that's the way it is when your last name is Earnhardt, and every stumble is scrutinized, and the bar of expectation is set atmospherically high. To that degree, little has changed since Earnhardt first began racing in this part of the world. In 1995 Dale Earnhardt sent his son to Myrtle Beach Speedway, a tough short track with plenty of stout competition located 75 miles east of Darlington through the pine forests and Carolina bays. For the better part of three years Earnhardt Jr. raced late model stocks, worked on his own cars, operated on a tight budget and traded paint with seasoned drivers who contended for regional and national titles on NASCAR's weekly series. There was no Junior Nation back then, just savvy local fans who could remember the days when the Intimidator occasionally raced a sportsman car at Myrtle Beach in the 1970s, and found his son to be likeable if a little shy. He was even voted the track's most popular driver once, an event that would repeat itself through the years. "Everybody liked him. He got along with everyone," said Bill Hennecy, general manager of the Myrtle Beach track. "He basically didn't have enough financing when he came down here. I think his dad was putting him through the school of hard knocks. He came down here basically on a budget. He ate at places like the Raceway Grill. They'll tell you Dale Jr. used to stop down there on his way to the beach, and they'd feed him hamburger steak. Then he would stop at a place called the 501 Pit Stop, where Ernie Hammonds would give him a tank of gas, because he was only making a couple of hundred dollars a week at the dealership changing oil for his dad. He was on a pretty tight budget, and I think Senior did that to say, 'OK, you're going to learn what the value of a dollar means, and what it costs to work on these race cars.'" Earnhardt Jr.'s Myrtle Beach days are far from forgotten; the driver often credits his three years on the half-mile oval for his traditional strength on Cup Series venues like Phoenix, Bristol, and -- an inadvertent track bar adjustment notwithstanding -- Richmond. There were plenty of carefree days, afternoons kicking back in the shade and eating fried chicken. But then as now, there were questions about why he didn't win more, or whether he could live up to his last name. Earnhardt won just one 50-lap feature during his time in Myrtle Beach, and claimed another at the short track over in Florence. What he's dealing with today is nothing new. "When you're doing that kind of stuff, you don't realize how good you've got it and how lucky you are," Earnhardt said Friday, remembering his late model days. "There was a lot of pressure and a lot of worry, just like there is today. You don't understand what opportunity you have at that age. I did poorly in trying to enjoy it. Every week if we didn't run in the top three, it was a failure, just like it is up here." These days, though, it's harder to find an escape. As a 19-year-old in Myrtle Beach, he could cruise Ocean Boulevard or spin records as a guest disc jockey at a local radio station, and nobody gave him any grief. "I don't think everybody expected as much out of him as he maybe expected out of himself," remembered Hennecy, who also worked for a time as public address announcer at Darlington and its sister track, North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham. "He wasn't leaned on heavily down here. It was like when the Rolling Stones came to town, nobody leaned on the Rolling Stones. Nobody was all over them to get their autograph. It's like race fans somehow can't discern the difference between being in awe and being somebody's friend. That's difficult for them. But overall, he was always friendly, he was always congenial to the people who came, and at the time he was humble." Earnhardt gave up that relative degree of anonymity long ago. These days he's under siege, his every move or misstep critiqued to the nth degree, his crew chief, Tony Eury Jr., facing the wrath of a fan base that's growing increasingly impatient with mistakes. Many want a crew chief swap, of the kind car owner Richard Childress recently made with the teams of Kevin Harvick and Casey Mears. Alan Gustafson, Mark Martin's crew chief, effectively torpedoed such a notion Friday. "Fortunately for us, we're with a real high profile organization, we have really great drivers, but with that comes a lot of pressure to perform," Gustafson said. "I heard the same things last year with the 24 [team of Jeff Gordon], and I heard how bad [crew chief] Steve [Letarte] was. Steve is a really good friend of mine, so I'm really glad right now he's the smartest guy in the series. That changes pretty quick, and I feel the same way about Tony. I haven't known Tony as long as I've known Steve; I've known Steve forever. But the same thing is going to happen with Tony. One day we'll all look up, and he's going to be the smartest guy in the garage, and I'll be really happy for him when that day comes." A sweltering Friday at Darlington brought more head-scratching for the No. 88 team -- 28th in opening practice, 21st in final practice, 26th in qualifying for the Southern 500. Teammate Jimmie Johnson sees no lack of effort. "They're working their tails off to get stuff right," said the three-time defending series champion. "Last weekend [at Richmond], they were extremely optimistic about their car in debriefs we had leading into the race, even race day morning. I think they're learning, they're running their course. I don't know what I'd change. There are a lot of great things that come from Tony Jr. and ideas that he has. Junior is as committed and as focused as I've ever seen him, and giving great feedback. So hopefully whatever is needed will spark, and off they'll go." The next step is a Saturday night event under the lights on a difficult South Carolina race track, where Earnhardt Jr. will once again try to silence the critics and show the promise so many believe lives within him. In some ways, it must seem a lot like all those days back in Myrtle Beach. Dale Jr. Foundation sets forth All-Star fund-raisers In a month-long push to raise money and awareness for key charities dedicated to helping children, the Dale Jr. Foundation has created several initiatives as part of its All-Star charity lineup. Through these events, the Dale Jr. Foundation will donate to Make-A-Wish, March of Dimes / Bikers for Babies, the NASCAR Foundation and Speedway Children's Charities. • Beginning Saturday at the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, the Dale Jr. Foundation will host 50 guests from the Victory Junction Gang Camp, Make-A-Wish and Kid's Wish Network in a pre-race chalet. The chalet and 50 race tickets were donated by race sponsor GoDaddy.com and includes an appearance by Brad Keselowski. "The Dale Jr. Foundation is committed to helping underprivileged youth achieve their goals," said Kelley Earnhardt, vice president and general manager of JR Motorsports. "Last year, with the help of all of our fans and supporters, we were able to donate to over 250 charitable organizations. This year we want to continue setting the bar higher for our charitable goals. These events surrounding the All-Star Race are a great way to start our fund-raising efforts for 2009." • As part of the second Dale Jr. Foundation initiative, Earnhardt will donate a custom motorcycle to March of Dimes / Bikers for Babies, a charity in partnership with Dee Snider of the rock band Twisted Sister. The motorcycle, made for Earnhardt by the team at Orange County Choppers, currently is on display at JR Motorsports. Fans can visit JR Motorsports on May 21 or go to the foundation's Web site to find out how they can win this one-of-a-kind chopper. • Complementing the special Dale Jr. Foundation paint scheme that Earnhardt will run on track at the Sprint All-Star Race on May 16, the foundation is hosting a Dale Jr. All-Star suite to benefit Speedway Children's Charities. Fans who want to give to get closer to the racing action will receive a VIP experience, which includes a pre-race pit tour, an appearance by Earnhardt and Richard Petty, a seat in the suite to view the race, complimentary food and drinks, and souvenirs. "This is going to be a really cool time during the All-Star week," Earnhardt said. "In addition to a special Dale Jr. Foundation paint scheme on the hood of the 88, we have a number of charities we're working with over the next couple of weeks. The foundation has always been important to my sister, Kelley, and me. Because of that, I am making a matching gift of the donations received from fans through our Web site." • JR Motorsports has been selling NASCAR Day pins in its retail store in partnership with the NASCAR Foundation. It will donate a portion of the proceeds raised from the pins and the funds raised during the NASCAR Day Radio-thon to Make-A-Wish. Fans should call 1-877-515-GIVE and mention the Dale Jr. Foundation to take part in this special event. The Dale Jr. Foundation has unique collectibles, including many autographed items, to be purchased through its partnership with e-Bay. All the proceeds from the auctions will benefit the Dale Jr. Foundation. The foundation's Web site also offers six different selections of hard card memberships. Fans can attain memberships and not only get exclusive Dale Jr. items, but help the foundation further its mission. To learn more about how you can help Dale Jr. make a difference, go to www.thedalejrfoundation.org. Dale Earnhardt Jr. likes history, style of Darlington racing Dale Earnhardt Jr. has long been a student of NASCAR history, which may be why he likes Darlington Raceway so much. Earnhardt Jr., driver of the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, says that it would be special to win Saturday night’s Southern 500 at the historic 1.366-mile Darlington track, simply because of all the people who have won there before. David Pearson has the most wins at the track, with 10, while Dale Earnhardt Sr. follows with nine. Jeff Gordon has seven. The list of winners at the track also includes such standouts as Bobby Allison, Harry Gant, Buck Baker, Fireball Roberts, Fred Lorenzen, Curtis Turner, Tim Richmond and Speedy Thompson. "I'd love to win because the track has a lot of history," Earnhardt Jr. said. "A lot of great names have been in victory lane there. It's so tough to win. It's such a tough race track. And when you've won there, you're considered one of the tougher guys in the sport because you can conquer this race and conquer what this track throws at you." Crew chief Tony Eury Jr. recognizes that as well. As he looks over the past, he sees a lot of unique moments in the sport's history. This year, he'd like to become a part of those. Earnhardt Jr. has four consecutive top-10 finishes at the track and a worst finish of 11th in the last six Cup races there. But he has never won a Cup race there. "Darlington has a lot of history behind it," Eury Jr. said. "There have been a lot of cool things happen at Darlington. It was probably one of the first tracks I got to go to when I was growing up. … It's just a driver's track. That's what's neat about Darlington." And he thinks it's one that favors drivers such as his - those willing to take a risk. "It takes us a little bit into the race to really get going because it takes that long for the track to get rubbered up and for the real groove to come in," he said. "It's running up against the wall, which Dale Jr. doesn't mind. It kind of fits his style, where some guys don't like a track where you have to run up against the wall." Junior to headline new Acceleration club at MIS Dale Earnhardt Jr. will headline the biggest hospitality event in motorsports at Michigan International Speedway in June. Earnhardt is a featured guest in Acceleration, the new and exciting fan hospitality option open at MIS on June 13-14 race weekend. Acceleration is a club that combines the thrill and speed of NASCAR with the comfort, fun and food of a favorite sports bar. "Michigan has come up with a great event for the fans at Acceleration," Earnhardt said. "It's always good to get out there and interact with the fans and I hope we can put on a good race for them." Earnhardt and other guests will participate in a fan forum, Q&A with Acceleration club guests throughout the weekend. A complete schedule of guests and times will be posted on the speedway's new Web site, www.MISpeedway.com, as they are confirmed. "I can't think of a better way to kick off the grand opening of our new hospitality club than with an exceptional lineup of drivers and celebrities and our race fans," said Josh Burgett, corporate partnerships director for MIS. "Acceleration is a true VIP experience and only a few steps away from world-class racing. Whether you're purchasing individual tickets or bringing a small group, Acceleration is the perfect way to enjoy the excitement and power of NASCAR and MIS." New, improved and better than ever for 2009, Acceleration is the perfect combination of great racing, great food and great times. The hospitality option replaces the former Tailgate Club and Victory Lane Club at MIS and is an all-inclusive fan package that promises even better food, entertainment and guest amenities. Now located on the New Holland Motorsports Fan Plaza, Acceleration is set up in a 15,000-square-foot pavilion. It is the biggest and best way to enjoy race day, and it's only a few short steps from the speedway's grandstand seats. Hospitality packages can be purchased individually or for groups. And guests can take part in Acceleration on Saturday or Sunday -- or both days -- of the event. Admission is $69 for adults and $49 for kids, plus a grandstand admission ticket for Saturday; and $179 for adults and $79 for kids, plus a grandstand admission ticket for Sunday. Acceleration can be purchased for the entire weekend for $248 for adults and $128 kids, plus a grandstand admission ticket. Acceleration isn't just for individual ticket holders. Businesses also can take advantage of this hospitality option by reserving a table of 10 for $3,650. "We know that one size doesn't always fit all," Burgett said. "So we have created an option for companies who may have smaller client bases or smaller budgets and will create a package that suits their needs, rather than simply ours." Tickets and camping are on sale now. For additional information, call the MIS Ticket Hotline at 800-354-1010 or visit the new MISpeedway.com. AMP Energy unveils new Dale Earnhardt Jr.-themed energy drink AMP Energy has announced the launch of Tradin' Paint, a new Dale Earnhardt Jr.-themed energy drink. The beverage is a confluence of three flavors - orange, lime and berry. "Dale Jr. was very involved in creating this new AMP Energy flavor, and it is a true representation of his taste and his sport," said Lauren Hobart, VP of energy drinks, Pepsi-Cola North America Beverages. "The flavor and packaging embody the thrills and excitement of side-by-side racing at intense speeds - complete with a look that features all the bumps, scratches and crashes that Dale's car endures as it advances track position." Tradin' Paint, which features the paint scheme on Earnhardt Jr.'s No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, is available in a 16-ounce can nationwide through the summer. The product, which will be available only for a limited time, will be supported by a full slate of advertising, including TV and radio. Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kevin Harvick in danger of missing Chase For The Sprint Cup After another disappointing finish Saturday night at Richmond, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is now in serious danger of not making this year’s Chase For The Sprint Cup. Kevin Harvick, who has made NASCAR’s playoffs the past three years, is in even bigger trouble. That’s not exactly a news flash given how the two marquee drivers have performed this season. But it does mean that two of NASCAR's biggest names and most popular drivers are suddenly having major problems and facing an uphill battle. As a result, the odds of them returning to the championship race this year are stacked decidedly against them. After 10 races, Earnhardt Jr. is 18th in points. Harvick, who wrecked and finished 34th at Richmond, is 23rd. They aren’t the only ones in trouble, of course, but they are the biggest names among the drivers who have gotten off to slow starts and must turn their seasons around in a hurry in order to make the Chase. In the past two seasons, only three drivers have rallied to make the Chase after being outside the top 12 in points after 10 races, and one of those – Jeff Gordon – was 13th at this point last year, only six points behind 12th place. Matt Kenseth was 22nd in points after 10 races last year and looked as if he would miss the Chase for the first time since the format was introduced in 2004. Kenseth rallied, however, scoring 11 top-10 finishes over the next 16 races to make it. Martin Truex Jr. made a similar move in 2007. He was 20th in points after 10 races but reeled off 11 top-15 finishes, including his first career victory and five top-fives, to make the Chase. Both Earnhardt Jr. and Harvick have been hurt by bad luck and uncharacteristic mistakes. But both have also struggled to get their cars dialed in, suffering through too many races when they were simply not a factor. Both have the driving talent and teams to turn things around quickly. The problem, however, is that both are mired behind several other drivers who have proved capable of running at least as well and challenging for a spot in the Chase. And to even have a shot, they must hope that at least one or two drivers currently in the top 12 hit a slump and fade out of contention. David Reutimann, Juan Pablo Montoya, Mark Martin, Brian Vickers and Kasey Kahne are all ahead of Earnhardt Jr. in points while Harvick also trails Marcos Ambrose, Casey Mears and Truex Jr. Reutimann and Montoya have both shown improvement this season and look as if they and their teams will only get better. Kahne is capable of hitting a hot streak at any time, and the ever-improving Vickers challenged for a Chase spot right until the very end last year. The biggest threat, though, is Martin, who would be solidly in the top 12 right now if not for horrible luck. Martin got off to a terrible start – three straight finishes of 31st or worse – but has rallied all the way to 15th in points. He is just 61 points out of 12th, and with one victory already under his belt, there is little doubt that he will crack the top 12 soon. Of the current top 12, all but two made the Chase last year and were expected to make it again this year. And the two additions are not flukes. Kurt Busch, winner of the inaugural Chase in 2004, has arguably the most improved team on the circuit at Penske Racing. He has a win and six top-10 finishes in 10 races and is just 10 points behind leader Jeff Gordon. He is almost certain to be in the Chase come September. Ryan Newman’s new Stewart-Haas Racing team is also showing rapid improvement. He also had his share of bad luck to start the season but has rallied with consecutive top-five finishes to move to 10th in points. With the Stewart-Haas organization showing that it will be a force to be reckoned with in the second half of the season, Newman appears to be another good bet to make the Chase. So where does that leave Earnhardt Jr. and Harvick? It leaves them with a long road ahead of them, and not much hope. Earnhardt Jr. and his team struggled in the second half of last season, and those problems have carried over into 2009. They continue to make costly mistakes and appear to be lagging behind Hendrick Motorsports’ other three teams. With Earnhardt Jr. and crew chief Tony Eury Jr. remaining committed to each other – and team owner Rick Hendrick having given them a vote of confidence – it is up to them to turn things around. So far, they have shown few reasons for optimism. Harvick got off to such a poor start that team owner Richard Childress stepped in and swapped his crew with teammate Casey Mears’ team, a move Harvick wasn’t entirely happy with. Now Harvick must rally with a brand-new crew he is not used to working with. The move could work two ways: Either Harvick and new crew chief Gil Martin hit on something that jumpstarts the team, or it takes them several weeks to adjust, which could be too late. Every year there are at least one or two big-name drivers who miss the Chase. That ultimately is why NASCAR expanded it to 12 teams in 2007. Unless they turn things around quickly, it looks as if it may be Earnhardt Jr. and Harvick this year. Dale Earnhardt Jr.: He and Kyle Busch are over last year's incidents at Richmond Dale Earnhardt Jr. says he and Kyle Busch are both over the incidents that happened between them last year at Richmond International Raceway. “At least I hope he’s over it,” Earnhardt Jr. said Friday at the track, which will host the Crown Royal/Russ Friedman 400 Saturday night. “We’ll find out, I guess.” In May, Busch ran into Earnhardt Jr. while the two were racing for the lead late in the race. Earnhardt Jr. into Busch in September’s event. Each driver said the crashes were accidents. That doesn’t mean Earnhardt Jr. believes the two are friends. Asked if he thought Busch liked him, Earnhardt Jr. shook his head. “I don’t think he does, no,” he said. “I think that’s pretty obvious.” Much of that stems from Busch’s dismissal from Hendrick Motorsports, where Earnhardt Jr. now drives, he suggested. “He doesn’t like a Hendrick race car, and everybody knows what he says on the radio every time he gets around us and all the things he says,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “He just doesn’t have a good perception of any one of us and, I guess, me.” Earnhardt Jr. was asked whether he felt the September incident avenged the May wreck, intentional or not. “I don’t think there was a score to even,” he said. “His deal [in May] was an accident, racing hard. We were racing for the lead… . Hell, the same thing just happened to me in practice [with Juan Pablo Montoya], and there wasn’t any money on the line, no trophy.” But are specators really supposed to believe that Earnhardt Jr. didn’t wreck Busch on purpose last September? “I’d say so,” he said firmly. “Have I ever lied to you before?” Dale Jr. Foundation selling tickets to suite for Sprint All-Star race Dale Jr. Foundation officials announced Wednesday that they will sell tickets to a suite at Lowe’s Motor Speedway for the NASCAR Sprint All-Star race that will also be a fundraiser for the foundation and for Speedway Children’s Charities. Tickets for “Dale Jr.’s All-Star suite” are available for $288 each through Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s official site, www.dalejr.com. The ticket includes a variety of a activities, including appearances by Earnhardt Jr. and Richard Petty. Also included is a reserved seat in a luxury box at the track, with complimentary food and drink. Fans will also have access to a cash bar and will receive a souvenir gift bag and be eligible for raffle prizes. Before the race, tickets holders will receive a prerace pit tour. “I’m looking forward to everything we have planned around the All-Star race this year,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I think The Dale Jr. Foundation paint scheme will look good under the lights, and it’s fun to change it up from time to time. I want to thank Amp Energy and National Guard for letting me do this. They basically gave up the hood of the car for The Dale Jr. Foundation. “The All-Star suite is going to be a lot of fun. If I wasn’t racing, that is exactly the place I would want to chill out and watch the race. It’s one of the best views you can get at the track. Fans lucky enough to get these tickets will have an experience they’ll never forget, and it’s for a great cause.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. sets his sights on Richmond Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s season is clearly on an upswing these days. After being plagued with problems in the opening pair of races, he has recovered nicely and finds himself nearing the crucial top 12 in NASCAR Sprint Cup points. After a series of pit-road problems, he and his Hendrick Motorsports' crew have rallied to the point that they won a pit crew award this week. He's climbed to 15th in the standings and sits just 45 points outside of the 12-driver group that will, after 26 races, be locked into the 10-race championship-determining segment of the season. And he's heading to a track where he has 10 top-10 finishes, including three wins, in Cup races. In what is now known as the Nationwide Series, his statistics are even more outstanding, with three wins and a runnerup performance in five races. Yes, things are looking pretty well in Earnhardt Jr.'s world. But after the season he has endured, he's not even close to willing to speculate on winning at Richmond International Raceway, site of this weekend's Crown Royal/Russ Friedman 400. Right now, fresh off his first top-five finish of the season – he was runnerup at Talladega Sunday – he’s keeping the big picture in mind. "I wouldn't go that far," he said when asked if he was thinking about his chance of winning this weekend. "We're definitely going to go in there to try to win the race. But we are in so dire need of getting some top-five finishes. I mean, and don't let that fool you, I'm not saying that we're gonna take a second-place car and finish fourth with it. "I'm just saying that, just like this past weekend, every lap I'll be concentrating on not putting myself in any precarious situation that might not allow me to finish in the top five, if I've got a car that can. If we got a real good car, we're gonna try to take care of it so we can make sure if we cannot win the race, are not allowed to win the race in some way, we can at least get the points we need to sort of dig ourselves out of this hole we're in." It sounds like a mature attitude for the 34-year-old as he tries to get his team on track. Earnhardt Jr. is the only one of the four Hendrick drivers without a win this season, something that likely makes him even hungrier for a victory, and he’s heading to a track with a record that speaks for itself. “I like Richmond a lot,” he said. “We always thought we run good there 'cause it's a lot like Myrtle Beach [S.C.], where I ran a lot in the Late Models. There's a lot of similarities. But I just like short-track racing. We seem to do really good on the short tracks. “It's got a lot of different grooves that you can run. You can move around. I think it puts on one of the more exciting races in the season. It ranks right up there as some of the best." Richmond, however, hasn’t always been kind to him. Take last year. Earnhardt Jr. was vying with Kyle Busch for the lead late in the race when contact sent Earnhardt Jr. into the wall. He deems that race as “pretty wild” and admits, “That was pretty disappointing how the first race finished.” Obviously, he’d like for things to go better this time. His team certainly believes in his ability to do just that. “He’s awesome there,” crew chief Tony Eury Jr. said of Richmond. “… I think he really likes going up there. Richmond just fits his style.” Right now, the driver just wants to continue finishing well. As he looks at his team, he sees improvement. His pit stops were fast at Talladega. He’s heading to some tracks where he traditionally runs well. All he wants now is to keep it going. And to make the Chase, where he finished 12th in the standings in 2008, once more. “We sort of started out last year running so good at the start of the year, we never were too worried about losing our position to make the Chase, and we struggled through the summer like I've done in the past, and we were able to get through it without really losing a whole lot of ground or putting ourselves in any jeopardy,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “This year we started out so slow and terrible; we're in a hole now. “We're going to be fighting our way to try to get in the Chase all year, I'm pretty sure. So we're gonna have to step our performance up in the summer way beyond what we were capable of doing last year. That's gonna be what decides whether we make the Chase or not.” Still, Earnhardt Jr. believes that his he and his team can do it. And it starts with smart races and decisions. “I think, you know, I feel pretty confident,” he said, “and I feel like we can definitely do better than we did last year in the summer races, you know, with Pocono, the road courses, all those things.” Dale Earnhardt Jr.: Brad Keselowski can stay at JR Motorsports if he wants Brad Keselowski may not have anything signed for next season, but team co-owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. says that he'd like to have him back in his NASCAR Nationwide Series ride if that's what Keselowski would like. Keselowski, who drives full time in the Nationwide Series for JR Motorsports, surprised the racing world by winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Talladega Superspeedway Sunday in a Phoenix Racing entry. During a national teleconference Tuesday, Earnhardt Jr. was asked about Keselowski's future. "I'd like Brad to drive my Nationwide car again if he wants to," he said. "But as far as like what he does in his Cup stuff, that's with [Hendrick Motorsports team owner] Rick [Hendrick]. It's my understanding that that's particularly not any of my business up until they're ready to share that information. Whatever Rick wants to do with Brad, it's up to him on the Cup side I'm in the business of trying to help guys win races in the Nationwide Series and trying to help them become better race-car drivers. "I feel like we've really achieved that goal with Brad, and he's sort of done what we set out to do with our program. You know, it's really up to him if he wants to keep driving the car. We'll work that out. We're not really in no big hurry. He's got a bright future, so ... I don't really know what our plans are for finding him opportunities past the level of the Nationwide Series. I can't really say much about it." Keselowski is currently sixth in the Nationwide standings. Dale Earnhardt Jr. says 'me and Mears are cool' As part its weeklong, prime time programming lineup leading up to the 25th running of the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race, SPEED will air a series of four consecutive My All-Star specials, beginning at 9 p.m. ET on May 12, focusing on the race-winning experience of All-Star drivers from three different decades. The first 30-minute program will focus on inaugural All-Star Race winner Darrell Waltrip (1985), followed by specials featuring Michael Waltrip (1996), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (2000) and Kasey Kahne (2008). "These specials are meant to capture more than just the All-Star racing experience," said Steve Craddock, SPEED's SVP of Programming. "In addition to current interviews with the All-Stars, the shows also will present archival sights and sounds from each driver's era ... viewers will see where the driver was at that stage of his life and what was going on in the world of NASCAR." In 2000, Earnhardt, Jr. rose from the shadows with a late charge from mid-pack to win the race in his rookie season aboard the No. 8 owned by his famous father. "That win here in the All-Star race was, and still is, the favorite moment of my career-being in victory lane with my dad," Earnhardt Jr. said. "The wins that I had before, he [Dale Earnhardt] would come in and shake everybody's hand and take off. That was the only Victory Lane that he stood in the entire time ... he was there for the whole half-hour, 45 minutes we were there, even as the car was taken off for inspection he continued to stay." In addition to the My All-Star specials, SPEED will begin Countdown to All-Star at 8 p.m. on May 12. Hosted by John Roberts and Steve Byrnes and shot at the new SPEED studios in Charlotte, Countdown to All-Star will report from around the city on the events leading up to action on the track. On May 13, Countdown to All-Star will take viewers to the live O.A.R. concert from uptown Charlotte. Krista Voda, Elliott Sadler and Rutledge Wood will bring viewers stories from the area most teams call home. The specials are part of a week of All-Star coverage on SPEED, culminating in the "48 Hours of All-Star" weekend and highlighted by live and exclusive coverage of the Sprint Showdown and All-Star Race at 7 p.m. on May 16. Dale Earnhardt Jr. says 'me and Mears are cool' Dale Earnhardt Jr. isn’t upset with NASCAR’s decision to put him and Casey Mears on a six-week probation for their incident at the end of last weekend’s Sprint Cup race at Phoenix International Raceway and says that he and his former teammate have discussed their scrum and put it behind them. “Me and Mears are cool,” Earnhardt Jr. said on Friday at Talladega Superspeedway, site of Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Aaron’s 499. “We’ve been buddies. What happens on the track stays on the track, and it’s good to be on probation every once in a while, I guess.” The altercation started when Mears spun Earnhardt Jr. with 12 laps left in the race at Phoenix. Earnhardt Jr. retaliated by spinning Mears on the cool-down lap before Mears bumped into Earnhardt Jr. again on pit road. “Me and Casey are real good friends and we definitely wouldn’t go the week without having a discussion about it,” said Earnhardt Jr., who was a teammate to Mears last season at Hendrick Motorsports before Mears left for Richard Childress Racing. “He’s having a better season this year but he’s still not satisfied and I’m definitely in the same position he is, and we’re just trying to run better. I admitted that he made a mistake – he doesn’t run over people, but I just lost my cool. It happens.” Mears said he got loose and ended up getting into Earnhardt Jr., who was pinching him down on the track. He said he didn't expect the tap on the cool-down lap. "I had totally forgotten about it then," Mears said. "I was coming around the outside and I saw him then and I swerved, knowing what was coming. "Then I just got [angry] because I got spun out, so I went back and let him know that." Earnhardt Jr. and Mears don't take issue with the nature of penalty, which came a couple days after NASCAR initially indicated it wouldn’t punish the drivers involved. NASCAR handed down an identical sanction to Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards after those drivers traded late-race bumps last fall at Bristol. “NASCAR has [issued] the same penalties for the same infractions before, so they can’t really change the way they do the penalties without getting a lot of fuss, especially if I’m involved,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “So I don’t care. I don’t think it’s a serious issue. I don’t want to put anybody in danger, anybody coming out on the race track or people walking across the track or whatever, and I don’t know enough about Phoenix to have known whether that was a safe place to do something like that, so maybe it’s best they continue to penalize people for doing these types of things just for the safety of the spectators and the officials and all. “A six-week probation is a good penalty because as a driver you’re kind of taught to watch yourself for the next six weeks and you get back in the habit of acting more professionally on the race track, so it’s good to have the penalty, but it’s good to have the fireworks, too. You know what I mean? I think they have to go hand-in-hand.” Had Earnhardt Jr.’s car not already been damaged from contact with the wall, he may not have even retaliated. “I wouldn’t have done it if my car wasn’t tore up,” he said. “I don’t want to tear up my car if it isn’t tore up, but it was already wrecked, so I didn’t have a real problem doing it because I knew they was going to have to put a front clip on it anyways and that fender was going to be removed. “If I’m NASCAR, I’d deal with [these kind of situations] on a case-by-case scenario and move on. I think they did the right thing this weekend, they did the right thing in the past and they’ll do the right thing in the future.” Mears concurred. "We didn’t really put anybody in harm’s way with what we were doing," Mears said. "When we got down to pit road and I bumped him, I obviously knew we were on pit road and I wasn’t going to shove him into somebody on pit road or do something stupid. I was just going to bump him, let him know I was upset. "Where he did it on the race track, it was after the race, there was nobody out there that was going to get hurt. I think we both proved our point. No harm, no foul and now we go on to the next week." Owner/driver Earnhardt in search of special victory Some of Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s greatest days have come at Talladega Superspeedway. He has five Cup Series wins and one in the Nationwide Series at the 2.66-mile track. But a win in Saturday's Aaron's 312 (2:30 p.m. ET on ABC) would give Earnhardt a victory like none other. He will be driving his JR Motorsports No. 5 Chevrolet. "I'd love to win in my own car," he said. "That's a big goal of mine, and it's certainly something we can achieve at Talladega." This will be the fourth race of the Nationwide season for the No. 5 and Earnhardt. He finished seventh at Daytona, fifth at Las Vegas and 20th at Texas. JR Motorsports' primary car is the No. 88, driven by Brad Keselowski, who is fifth in the point standings. Earnhardt has high hopes for Talladega. He finished sixth in last year's Aaron's 312. "It's one of my favorite tracks, and I enjoy racing in front of the fans there," he said. "They've always been good to me, and we've always been able to give them a show." But he's also realistic. Earnhardt knows the perils of restrictor-plate racing where the Big One can take a car out of a race in a flash, regardless of how well it's running. "Just have to be lucky," he said. "I've avoided them, and I've been in them. There's no method into it, so I prefer directing our focus to getting our car driving right. That's most important."Three to watch David Ragan, No. 6: Ragan is third in points, 126 behind front-running Kyle Busch. Ragan finished 18th at Talladega last year and fourth in his first race there in 2007. He has been solid all season with five top-10s in the first seven races. Ragan, 23, is looking for his first NASCAR win. Jason Leffler, No. 38: Leffler is fourth in points, 143 back. Leffler finished fourth last year, his second top-10 to go with a fifth in 2004. Equally impressive is that Leffler has been running at the end of all five of his Talladega starts. He qualifies well at Talladega (10.6 average start) and has started third the past two races. Brad Keselowski, No. 88: Keselowski continued his surge last week with his third consecutive third-place finish. He remained fifth in the standings but drew 49 points closer to the top spot. He finished 23rd last year in his first race at Talladega. He led three times for nine laps before getting caught up in the Big One. Track chatter Ryan Newman: "I think it is hard to have expectations going into a race like Talladega because anything can happen there. The key at Talladega is just to have a fast car. The track is really smooth, and handling isn't nearly as important as it is at Daytona. Typically, the fastest race car is out front. It's wide open and you have to have some teamwork to stay up front. If we have a fast car and have some friends out on the race track and if we can stay out of trouble, I think we will have a good day. That's a lot 'ifs,' but that's how Talladega is." Jason Leffler: "During practice, you really want to spend some time figuring out what your car will do and where; whether you're in the middle, on the inside or on the outside. You put that information in the back of your mind for the race. It's a type of racing where you have to be pretty aggressive, but at the same time, you have to be cautious, especially early on. You don't want to be the guy that causes the 20-car pileup, 15 laps into the race. On the other hand, when you get to the end of the race it's pretty much a wide-open free-for-all and you have to take chances." Dale Earnhardt Jr. brings confidence, good attitude to Talladega Attitude is everything for Hendrick Motorsports’ Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Talladega Superspeedway, site of Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Aaron’s 499. “I go in with a real good attitude,” the driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet said. “When you go into something with a good attitude, you normally get good results.” Clearly, when it comes to racing at Talladega, Earnhardt Jr. is doing something right. From 2001 to 2004 while driving for Dale Earnhardt Inc., Earnhardt Jr. found victory lane five times at the 2.66-mile trioval on the way to becoming one of the most revered restrictor-plate drivers on the Cup circuit. Since then, Earnhardt Jr. has been strong at Talladega but hasn’t won. That doesn’t make him any less confident heading into this weekend, however. Earnhardt Jr. hasn’t forgotten the keys to winning at Talladega, which include finding a good drafting partner. That is something he has excelled at many times over the years at both Talladega and Daytona, NASCAR’s only two tracks where cars are kept it tight packs by restrictor plates that stymie horsepower and reduce speed. "It's definitely something you learn,” Earnhardt Jr. said of drafting. “You can watch it on television and gain a little bit of knowledge, but you have to get out there and make the mistakes and make things happen to understand them." Crew chief Tony Eury Jr. considers Earnhardt Jr.’s drafting instincts to be second to almost none. "I think patience is a big part of being good at Talladega,” he said. “Your driver needs to be able to hang out in the draft when he needs to but also needs to see when things are happening and make a move. “Dale knows who he can work with, and that's a big part of it, too, having the right people to draft with." Of course, drafting isn’t all that goes into mastering Talladega. There’s also the matter of avoiding the familiar multicar wreck, known in NASCAR jargon as “The Big One.” That is easier said than done, according to Earnhardt Jr. “I guess you just try not to be around people that are wrecking,” he said. “It's hard. I've been caught up in it, and it's really just a crapshoot - like a lottery." Earnhardt Jr. needs to stay out of trouble at Talladega if for no other reason because his season is off to a rough start. After eight races, NASCAR’s most popular driver is 19th in the series standings, with just a pair of top-10s. Another bad finish would be a devastating blow to his chances of making NASCAR’s Chase For The Sprint Cup, the final 10-race segment that decides the series championship. If Earnhardt Jr. is to make the 12-driver Chase field, his margin for error over the final 18 races of NASCAR’s regular season is slim. "I'm always thinking about [points],” he said. “I always watch them since the first race [of the season]. “You can start counting some people out of the Chase. Anybody who is 25th on back is going to have a hard time making it." NASCAR puts Dale Earnhardt Jr., Casey Mears on probation NASCAR officials have placed Hendrick Motorsports’ Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Richard Childress Racing’s Casey Mears on probation for the next six Sprint Cup races as a result of their on-track incident last Saturday following the conclusion of the race at Phoenix International Raceway. Earnhardt Jr., driver of the No. 88, and Mears, driver of the No. 07, both violated Section 12-4-A – actions detrimental to stock-car racing – of the 2009 NASCAR rule book. Hitting another competitor’s car after the race had concluded is considered to fall under that rule. NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston – who said Saturday that no penalties were expected to come from the incident – said Tuesday afternoon the issue was revisited during NASCAR’s internal weekly Tuesday competition meeting, where it normally reviews the previous weekend’s races. “We had a good discussion at our weekly competition meeting today and at the end of it, we decided to err on the side of caution and to put the drivers on probation so the situation would not escalate,” Poston said. “This goes back to why we typically don’t make [final] decisions on penalties at the track. We give us a few days to kick it around the table and that’s what happened.” On the cool-down lap after the race, Earnhardt Jr. spun Mears in retaliation for an accident that happened late in the event. Mears then bumped Earnhardt Jr. on pit road. The probation takes effect beginning with this weekend’s event at Talladega Superspeedway. “When we penalize, it’s to make sure that things don’t escalate,” Poston said. “Bumping and banging is part of the sport. What we want to be careful of is it doesn’t get out of control and put somebody in danger.” Poston denied that NASCAR reacted after publicity Monday that questioned whether failing to penalize Mears and Earnhardt Jr. was consistent with past penalties. Last year, Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch were also placed on six-week probation after a similar incident. “The decision we made was based on a good conversation on what we thought was best,” Poston said. Contest to award the chance to wave the green flag for Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Talladega The Bowling Proprietors' Association of America and Amp Energy have announced a promotion that will award the grand prize winner the opportunity to wave the green flag on Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s qualifying lap for the Amp Energy 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway on Nov. 1. Scratch-off cards for Bowling Gives You the Chance to Drop the Flag for Dale are available with the purchase of any 16-oz Amp Energy drink and at participating bowling centers. Other prizes include custom Amp Energy bowling balls, bowling shirts, bowling pins and items autographed by Earnhardt Jr. The promotion runs through May 30. Additional information is available at www.GoBowling.com. Earnhardt goes from bad to good to worse The early and late portions of the race were awful for Dale Earnhardt Jr. on Saturday night in the Subway Fresh Fit 500. In between, he led the NASCAR race for 63 laps. With two top-10 finishes this year, Earnhardt had high hopes coming in to Phoenix, where he had won twice (2003, 2004). But things went from bad to worse in a hurry. When he came out from the first pit stop, loose lug nuts forced him back in the pits again, and left him struggling in 28th place. There were early problems with his Chevrolet, too. On turn two less than halfway into the race, he went into a wild sideways skid. Virtually the entire field passed him and he languished in 36th place. But the car got better as the sun went down, and while the rest of the field went to the pits during a caution flag, Earnhardt took the lead and even pulled away from the cars that had been faster earlier. Earnhardt led for 52 laps. Tony Stewart passed Earnhardt on lap 220—out of 312. After the field made pit stops under a green flag, Earnhardt had the lead again, this time for 11 laps. Eventual winner Mark Martin passed him on lap 256. Earnhardt needed a late caution flag to allow him a final pit stop without losing more ground. He never got one. In need of new tires, Earnhardt steadily fell back. A few laps from the finish, Casey Mears’ car nudged Earnhardt’s into a spin. Earnhardt’s Chevy hit the wall. Earnhardt kept the car running and a short time later came up behind Mears and spun him off the course in retaliation. Earnhardt finished in 31st place. “We just couldn’t get it right tonight and we were very loose at the end,” he said. “It felt good to lead some laps. We’ll get ‘em at Talladega.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. changes diet in order to improve performance If Dale Earnhardt Jr. is looking a little bit thinner these days, it might be because has altered his eating habits. The Hendrick Motorsports driver’s new diet, which he has recently changed in an effort to be healthier and feel better, was among several topics Earnhardt Jr. addressed on Friday at Phoenix International Raceway. “Me and my family got together and they sort of helped me on my grocery shopping a little bit, so I just got everybody who was responsible for doing any of the grocery shopping around the house or anything like that or for the bus or whatever and we just totally changed exactly what we were gonna eat,” Earnhardt Jr. said from the site of Saturday night’s Sprint Cup Subway Fresh Fit 500. “We got away from the chips and Doritos and those type of things and just got rid of all the things that are laying there for you to snack on. There’s a lot of things that are healthy for you that I enjoy eating.” At the top of Earnhardt Jr.’s list of healthy favorites are Lemon Pepper Tuna and Trisket crackers. “That’s really good. My momma turned me on to both of those actually,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I always liked tuna but I could eat that for dinner – a can of that and some Triskets – and I’m good to go. But, I mean, I still eat a steak and rice on the weekends. You’ve got to have proteins and stuff like that, but we’re just cutting out a lot of the nonsense as far as the ice creams and the chips and stuff [and] I feel a lot better. NASCAR’s most popular driver also weighed in on social-networking web sites, where his name tends to pop up in lots of places that may not be legimitate. So are any of those who claim to be Earnhardt Jr. really him? “There’s tons of imposters out there,” he said. “I don’t have a MySpace [account], a Twitter, none of that crap. There’s a bunch of imposters out there, though, you have to be aware of. I really would never get into social networking being that it it’s just a dangerous area to be involved in, especially if you’re high profile. “So I think it’s smart for me to stay in the regular social networks, the ones I can see, you know?” Earnhardt Jr. also discussed Saturday night racing and whether he thinks there should be more races held on Saturdays. The majority of Cup races have long been held on Sundays and that remains true today. “To have to come here and work for two days, it’s great weather and the fans obviously really love this place. It makes for a fun weekend,” the driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet said. “I love racing on Saturdays. We always start them Sunday races so late and I really, really hate that. Being around the race track at 7 o’clock at night on Sunday, I don’t feel like that’s the way it should be. ... Racing on Saturday night is fun.” How often would he like to do it? “Every week,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Why not?” The Kannapolis, N.C., native also shared his view on what, if any, changes he would like to see made to the Sprint Cup Series’ schedule, which features 36-points-paying races and two exhibition events. “I’d shorten the schedule up, man,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We run too long. The season’s too long. I’d shorten it and then the next year I’d want to put it back. “It’s probably perfect the way it is. We just need to stop complaining and go race.” Junior saddened by EGR's parking of his old No. 8 car It was the number Dale Earnhardt Jr. drove to 17 of his 18 Cup Series career victories. It was the number his legendary grandfather, Ralph, used to drive. And although his father went on to make another number far more famous, it was the number of the first car Dale Earnhardt drove in the Cup Series in 1975. But there is no No. 8 car entered in Saturday's Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix International Raceway. Earnhardt Ganassi Racing recently announced it was shutting down operations for the car that had been driven this year by Aric Almirola because of a lack of sponsorship funding. Earnhardt Jr. drove the No. 8 for what was then known as Dale Earnhardt Inc. -- the company founded by his father but run by his stepmother, Teresa, after Earnhardt's death in the 2001 Daytona 500 -- for nearly 300 Cup races from 1999 through 2007. It was then that he left DEI to drive the No. 88 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, following a dispute with Teresa over a new contract that could not be resolved. "Well, yeah, I'm pretty sad. But I don't think it'll be gone for long," Earnhardt said of the No. 8 being missing Friday during Cup practices at Phoenix. Earnhardt said he is thankful that after he was unable to get Teresa Earnhardt to part ways with the number 8, he was able to negotiate with Robert and Doug Yates of Yates Racing to secure the number on the car he currently drives. "I read a lot of the input that [the media] had all week, and sort of got the temperature for what the press is thinking and what the fans have been thinking," he said. "And the one thing about when I was reading those articles that struck me was about how glad I was that Robert and Doug and all those guys at Yates Racing were willing to work with me on the No. 88 [which they owned but agreed to let Hendrick Motorsports use for the younger Earnhardt]. "I don't have any malice toward Teresa over her wanting to keep that [No. 8] number. If I had been in her shoes, I probably would have done the exact same thing. That has been the case with every other owner in the past. The understanding has always been that the numbers belong to them." Earnhardt insisted his misunderstanding with his stepmother over the number always has been overblown. "I really wasn't as upset about it as a lot of people probably thought I was; and it probably wasn't as ugly a situation as a lot of people probably felt like it was," Earnhardt said. "But I was glad that I found Robert and the guys willing to talk about the 88, because that was a number with a ton of history and something that I could really wrap my hands around and be excited about. "The 8 will be back, and someone else will add to [its history] and do something great with it. And hopefully it's Ganassi and Teresa. Hopefully they can get it back on the race track. I wouldn't ever count 'em out. It's a tough economy. I wish them all the success and I wish that they can get that car funded so Aric can get back on the race track. He's a great guy and he needs to be out on the race track with us. I think it's just a small piece of the puzzle, really; I don't think it's going to be something that's permanent." Earnhardt laughed heartily when a reporter asked if his grandmother was upset over the current demise of the No. 8. "We all -- and she especially -- have been around this sport a long time," he said. "You've got to expect change. I've worked with a lot of different people -- and some I wish today that I was still working with. But circumstances prevented that, and you have to be able to let go of that and move on and try to do the best you can -- and that's the same way within every situation in this sport." With that in mind, he said he long ago put any serious emotional attachment he had to his old number to rest in his head. "Yes, I wish I would never had to have changed numbers," said Earnhardt, currently 16th in the Cup points standings. "I had to under the circumstances, and I'm happy to have the opportunity to use the 88. I hope I do a good job with it for all the guys who have used it in the past. That's really the only thing that I think about right now. "Having that number, there's a little bit of responsibility with it because it was pretty historic. So I must concentrate on that now." New GPS navigator puts Dale Jr. in your front seat Transplant GPS and ALK Technologies, in conjunction with JR Motorsports and NASCAR, announced the introduction of the Spotter GPS Navigator, Dale Jr. Edition, the latest in Global Positioning System products featuring one of the most popular NASCAR drivers, Dale Earnhardt Jr. The Spotter GPS Navigator, Dale Jr. Edition will launch with pre-sale opportunities at RightWayGPS.com, Amazon.com, BestBuy.com, NASCAR.COM, and ShopJRNation.com on April 14 and be available at retail locations nationwide on May 15. The Spotter possesses all the features standard in a high quality personal navigation device (PND) but sets itself apart from other devices in that it was designed specifically for Dale Earnhardt Jr. and NASCAR fans. The device provides turn-by-turn directions in Dale Jr.'s voice and unique style, including such commands as: "You drive, I'll ride shotgun.", "Hang a left.", and "Park it, we're here." The Spotter offers users a selection of vehicles for the GPS pointer, including Dale Jr.'s Amp Energy car, National Guard car or the team hauler. Preloaded data includes points of interest unique to Dale Jr. and NASCAR, including where Junior likes to grab a pizza, the NASCAR tracks, plus a Race Shop Tour Route of team garages and shops in the Charlotte, N.C. area. The Spotter also includes street name turn-by-turn voice guidance; 4.3 inch high resolution LCD with anti-glare screen; Sirf Atlas III GPS module with Windows CE operating system; preloaded Navteq maps of the United States (Q4 2008 map data); plus a video player, music player, photo viewing and E-book capabilities. "The Spotter GPS is a unique and innovative and will resonate well with our loyal fan base," said Blake Davidson, managing director for licensed products for NASCAR. "Dale Earnhardt Jr. has such a strong following in our sport and his personal touch on this GPS creates a great connection between the driver and the fan." For complete details on the Spotter GPS Navigator, Dale Jr. Edition, click here. Another frustrating day ends in 20th-place finish for Hendrick Motorsports' Dale Earnhardt Jr. Even as his Hendrick Motorsports teammates finished first, second and sixth, Dale Earnhardt Jr. discovered again that nothing comes easy for him so far in the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season. Earnhardt Jr. led once for six laps and used tire strategy to run in the top 10 in the latter stages of Sunday’s Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. But like many races this season, mistakes were made that cost Earnhardt Jr. a top finish. First, there was another mistake on pit road, and then Earnhardt Jr. admitted it was his fault when he slid into the Turn 1 wall with 45 laps remaining. After pitting, Earnhardt Jr. dropped from seventh to 22nd, one lap down, and he ended up 20th. The mistake on pit road “wasn’t nothing,” Earnhardt Jr. said. A lugnut wasn’t secured on a pit stop, and Earnhardt Jr. had to come back to pit road to replace it. But he missed his pit stall and had to make another stop. “We were already last in line on the lead lap,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We came down pit road, and all the lapped [cars] were in their stalls, and I just didn’t want to get T-boned by one of those guys coming out. I didn’t get it in the stall, so we just went around and came back in.” Later, Earnhardt Jr. slipped in Turn 1 and smacked the wall. “I was running real, real hard all day, trying to run hard and trying to run well,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Just got into the wall down there in the middle of [turns] 1 and 2. The car jumped sideways. … My mistake.” Earnhardt Jr. remained 16th in the Cup standings, with his third finish of 20th or worse in the first seven races. Part of the problem, he said, has been poor qualifying efforts. Earnhardt Jr. hasn't started better than 14th all season and began the Texas race in 20th. “We were really fast,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We just started way back there and were running back there all day. If you can’t pass, you’ve got to start where you’ve got to finish. You’ve got to start up front if you want to finish there.” Earnhardt Jr. and his team will work more on qualifying in the future, he said, much like teammates Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Mark Martin. “It’s so challenging and so competitive and so hard to pass – especially at a place like this – that starting up front really helps,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “The cars drive a lot better when they’re up in the clean air.” Texas Motor Speedway full of memories for Hendrick Motorsports' Dale Earnhardt Jr. Hendrick Motorsports driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. said Friday at Texas Motor Speedway that there is not much to be done to improve racing in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series as long as there are so many opinions on how to make the new model car better. “I feel like that we can do a better job of being creative and open-minded toward producing a car that was going to race better, but everybody has a different opinion on what creates that – whether it’s front downforce, whether it’s more motor, whether it’s different tires," Earnhardt Jr. said. "You can’t get everybody in the same agreement to be able to start being more productive instead of counterproductive.” As long as teams have resources and technology, the racing will be pretty close, Earnhardt Jr. said. “I would guarantee you that there’s not a driver or a guy that works with NASCAR that wouldn’t like the racing to be better,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We all would. But is it even possible to create that?” The problem isn’t necessarily with the car, he said. “To me, the COT has a lot of plusses, and it can put on a great race,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I think it’s great race car for short tracks. We put on some really good races for those tracks, but we just keep cutting them from the schedule. We keep racing at every mile-and-a-half that we can produce in a big market, and we keep getting the same kind of races. “This car has a lot of limitations on its ability to create downforce and anyone to engineer any kind of downforce into it. We haven’t made what I feel is a concerted effort to make the car a better race car, to make it race better. It’s the same car that we started with from the very beginning.” Texas Motor Speedway full of memories for Hendrick Motorsports' Dale Earnhardt Jr. Hendrick Motorsports’ Dale Earnhardt Jr. is returning to the place where his trips to the NASCAR Cup victory lanes began: Texas Motor Speedway, site of the driver’s initial Cup win in April 2000. At the time, the then-Dale Earnhardt Inc. driver was just seven races into his rookie campaign. He led 106 laps on the way to victory that day. He also posted his first win in what is now known as the Nationwide Series at the track, with that coming in April 1998. So it’s little wonder the place is special to Earnhardt Jr. Since then, he has added more wins to enter this weekend’s Samsung 500 with a total of 18 career victories. "When you first come into this sport and you don't have a win, the anticipation of when that is going to happen is building and building,” Earnhardt Jr. said of that initial victory. “You just wonder if it will and when it will. It's not something you expect to happen, so when it does, it is such a surprise. You've never been in that situation before where you have won a race. “To see how surprised everybody and your team gets and how excited they get just adds to it. It's hard to explain to people how that feels - that first win and how it felt." Current crew chief Tony Eury Jr. was with Earnhardt Jr. for that win, though not in his current role. His dad, Tony Eury Sr., was Earnhardt Jr.’s crew chief that rookie season. “Texas just kind of fits Dale Jr.'s driving style, and Texas is a lot of fun for us,” Eury Jr. said. “We look forward to going there. It's a real fast place. Just got a lot of memories there. It's just so big and the cowboys are from there. All that stuff mixed in - it's got to be a great place." Now, Earnhardt Jr. heads to the track as part of the Hendrick arsenal – one that has a solid intermediate-track program. While he has endured some setbacks this season, Earnhardt Jr. has rallied in the last four weeks with two top-10 finishes and a worst of 14th. That stretch has boosted him from 35th to 16th in the standings. He hopes to continue that type of improvement in the coming weeks, beginning with Sunday’s race. "I want to get us some top-five finishes and challenge for a win or two if not get a win,” he said. “We don't have any top-fives yet, so I'd like to start stacking them up." Dale Jr. overcomes shifter problem to post a top-10 It didn't take long for Dale Earnhardt Jr. to find trouble Sunday at Martinsville Speedway. He was reminded of it often, too -- like every time he shifted gears in his No. 88 Chevrolet. From Lap 43 on in the 500-lap Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500, Earnhardt's shifter was held together by a bungee cord. When it first popped out of gear on him he fell all the way to 38th in the 43-car field after getting it, um, fixed. He appeared to be looking at a long day that likely would be punctuated by a poor finish he could ill afford. Instead, Earnhardt maintained his composure and told his team over the radio, "I can deal with it. Let's just work on getting some of this track position back and I'll take care of everything else." Earnhardt battled all the way back until he was running third at one point before settling for an eighth-place finish in the race won by his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson. When it was suggested afterward that at least maybe Earnhardt salvaged a good racing story out of the day, along with his top-10 finish, he laughed and replied: "Yeah, well, but it ain't nothin' I ain't heard before." That's because it wasn't the first time this season his day has hinged on the sinewy threads of a bungee cord. "I was calm because we've had it happen before, and I knew we could get a bungee cord on it," Earnhardt said. "I just hated to lose all that track position. I knew we were going to have to put that bungee cord on there and lose a bunch of track position in the process. That hurt us pretty bad. But we were able to get something out of it." Earnhardt remains a long way from where he would like to be this season, but by salvaging the eighth-place finish he at least continued a climb in the point standings that has been steady since he began the season by finishing 27th and 39th, respectively, in the first two races. After the second race of the season at Fontana, Earnhardt sat 35th in points. He was up to 19th heading into Sunday's event, and moved up three spots to 16th by virtue of his finish. He said he was proud of the way his No. 88 team worked hard on pit road. But because rain washed out qualifying and he wasn't higher in points (the field was set according to the owners' standings), he was left with an unfavorable pit stall that made getting off pit road in timely fashion a difficult task. "We had a better car. We had it up to third at one point," Earnhardt said. "We made some adjustments toward the end that didn't help, trying to win, and got ourselves beat on pit road a little bit. Our pit stops were fast, but our stall was bad -- because I would beat guys out of their box. But they would run the bottom on the inside of me around [Turns] 1 and 2 and beat me off the line. My tachometer is in the red and I can't go any faster or I'll get caught for cheatin'. "That's just a product of the place. But that was unfortunate. We got beat by the 14 [of Tony Stewart], the 33 [of Clint Bowyer] and the 5 car [of Mark Martin] off pit road like that, and that right there [cost us] the top-five finish we were looking for. That was track position." Earnhardt also lost a door-to-door duel with Ryan Newman, who eventually moved past Martin to finish sixth, in the final laps. For a few laps, Earnhardt and Newman were banging into each other before Newman drove on by. "The 39 [driven by Newman] was real good at the end, running alongside me. He was faster, and I would have done the same thing he did," Earnhardt said. In the end, Earnhardt was somewhat pleased to salvage the finish he did and move up in the points. But he stopped short of admitting he was happy with it. "Not really. We don't want to give anybody the impression we're satisfied. I'm a little frustrated. I wanted to get a top-five. We always seem to run in the top five here," said Earnhardt, who finished second in his previous Martinsville race. "We're just a tick off still from where we were last year at this time. It seems like every race we go to, we're about five spots off of where we were last year. I don't know why that is and it is very frustrating. "We're working hard, though. Everybody is working hard." He added that seeing Johnson notch his first win of the season -- the first for Hendrick Motorsports as a whole -- was encouraging. "I am happy for Rick [Hendrick] that they got a win. I'm especially happy for the company. I am glad to be a part of it," Earnhardt said. "This is excellent equipment. We've just got to know what to do with it. "We've got to get a little bit better as a team to compete. The stuff is right there in front of us, man; we just gotta figure out what to do to make it work." That includes figuring out what went wrong with his shifter so early in Sunday's race. He would like to avoid another date with a bungee cord in future events. "I was pretty upset because we've had it happen a lot this year, and we haven't found what the problem is," Earnhardt said. "Hopefully, we can find what the problem is, because we damn sure don't need that happenin'. Poppin' out of gear as you go into the corner is not a lot of fun." HENDRICK STILL COMMITTED TO EARNHARDT JR DESPITE SLOW START Car owner Rick Hendrick says he is fully committed to Dale Earnhardt Jr. and embattled crew chief Tony Eury Jr. The team has been under fire for its slow start this season. Earnhardt last week asked for relief from the constant criticism Eury has faced from fans and media. Hendrick says the driver and crew chief were part of a three-hour meeting Wednesday to figure out what's wrong with the No. 88 team. He says the squad is under great pressure, but everyone is committed to turning this season around. After five races, Earnhardt has just one top-10 finish and is 19th in the standings. Dale Earnhardt Jr. takes the good with the bad of Martinsville Speedway As much as Hendrick Motorsports' Dale Earnhardt Jr. enjoys competing at Martinsville Speedway, the site of Sunday's Goody's Fast Relief 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race, he's also aware of the angst involved with it. "It's a real, real fun race track," Earnhardt Jr. said. "I love racing on the short tracks, but it's a headache and a pain in the butt at the same time. But you just have a lot of fun doing it." Not only does a driver need plenty of horsepower, but he also needs a good set of brakes. "You've got to be able to get good drive off the corners - especially on the long runs - like 50 to 80 laps," Earnhardt Jr. said. "A lot of times, you get real long green-flag runs, and if you aren't able to put the power down like most guys, there is no way to adjust.” Qualifying well at Martinsville may be equally important. "The only thing about qualifying poorly is you can burn your car up back there in the back,” said Earnhardt Jr., who is currently 19th in the series standings. “You get nervous about going a lap down, so you might run your car a little bit too hard sometimes. You could cook your brakes early and ruin them for the rest of the day." Tony Eury Jr., who serves as the crew chief for the team, said his driver has improved considerably at Martinsville in 2008, his first with Hendrick Motorsports, compared to his past starts, when he drove for Dale Earnhardt Inc. In the fall race at Martinsville in 2008, Earnhardt Jr. started 10th and finished second, four positions better than his previous finish in the spring race at the .526-mile track. Before his second-place finish there last year, Earnhardt Jr.’s best finish was third in the spring races in 2003 and 2004. "We got the struggles out of the way to start with,” Eury Jr. said. “We had a really tough time at Martinsville when he first come into the racing, and the last couple years, he just figured out what you need and which direction to go, and that's helped out a lot. We've had a lot of good finishes here the last couple years at Martinsville, and you enjoy going there. And as long as it's one of the tracks you enjoy, you tend to run really good there." Meanwhile, their opinion varies considerably when it comes to liking the famous Martinsville hot dog. “Yeah, I eat about three or four a day [while in Martinsville],” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I like them." Eury Jr. on the other hand, doesn’t like that the red-colored hot dogs that sell for $2 and points out that they have changed over the years. “They messed the hot dogs up about two years ago,” Eury Jr. said. “The old ladies that used to make them don't make them no more, and they changed the slaw. That's a big problem." Quotes: Bristol "Well, to be honest with you, it's not that hard to stay positive until you get around the media. I mean you guys have got to take a little responsibility for being so hard on everybody, and some people are going to argue that you all are just calling out to the reality of a situation. But we're trying to work hard and trying to do our job and that's what we do every week, and somebody seems to think we still belong here and so we keep showing up."-- Dale Earnhardt Jr., on staying positive Earnhardt wants video of father's 1979 win Dale Earnhardt won his first NASCAR race 30 years ago at Bristol Motor Speedway, and his son wishes he had a video of the monumental race. Earnhardt drove his Chevrolet to victory in the Southeastern 500 at Bristol, a fitting place for his first trip to Victory Lane. “That makes sense, I guess, him winning his first race here, because this track, if there’s a race track that fits his personality, this would be the one,” Earnhardt Jr. said Friday before qualifying at Bristol. “He loved racing here and loved winning in front of the people here in Tennessee. This is such an exciting race track, and (I) just think he fed off of that for all those years.” Earnhardt went on to win nine races at Bristol, but his son has yet to see the 1979 victory in its entirety. “That’d be awesome to get a videotape of that race,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I’ve never seen it, just some clips of him coming off the corner.” His son was present for several other wins, and his favorite was the 1985 victory when Earnhardt lost his power steering 50 laps into the race. The seven-time Cup champion rallied for the win in an unbelievable feat of strength. “The Earnhardt moment for me here was when he ran like 450 laps and won the race with no power steering,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I ran like 20 laps at California with no power steering. I mean, it was difficult, and it was hard to drive the car and get it to where you wanted to go. The whole feel of the car changed. I was having a hard time running any kind of competitive lap on new tires. “For him to have been able to do that here at a place like this for basically the entire race and win, that was pretty cool.” The elder Earnhardt was killed in an accident on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. Earnhardt on Eury: He is the only crew chief for me Dale Earnhardt Jr. can handle the criticism. If you want to blame someone for his rather underwhelming first 40 races at Hendrick Motorsports, NASCAR's most popular driver urges you to point the finger squarely at him. But attacking his crew chief? That's going a little too far. Yet Earnhardt hears it, on a regular basis -- fans, reporters and opinion-makers all blaming crew chief Tony Eury Jr. for the struggles of the No. 88 team, which has won once since Earnhardt moved to Hendrick at the beginning of last year. His reaction is a shake of the head and more solid support for his cousin, who's been on the pit box in some capacity for all but one of the driver's 18 career Cup victories. "I've said it 100 times, and it just doesn't seem to make a dent, but the guy that I feel bad for is Tony Jr., because he gets criticized so badly. And everyone in this [media] room, some of you have criticized him yourselves, know how smart a guy he is, truly know that he's a good mechanic and a solid crew chief. He just wanted to do this for a living, just like I do. I'll take the fall. I'd rather be crucified than him, because every time I read in the paper that people are on his case, I feel like people are sending my brother to jail for a crime I committed," Earnhardt said Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway. "I feel bad for him, because he just wants to work and have fun and just wants to race. That's what everybody in the garage wants to do, they just want to race. But I understand that I need to run better, I understand ya'lls point of view when ya'll say, 'What gives? Where's the results?' I understand that, and I'm out there busting my butt trying to make it happen. And that's my goal until nobody will employ me in this sport. That's my goal, to make it happen. I just wish it was an easier job for him." Right now, that job is far from easy. Although Earnhardt snapped a 76-race winless streak last year at Michigan and returned to the Chase in 2008 after a one-year absence, the breakthrough many expected when he moved to Hendrick has yet to occur. It's all been exacerbated by a slow start to this season, where a blown engine at California and pit-road mistakes at Daytona have relegated him to a 24th-place position in points. Even top-11 finishes in his last two races haven't stopped the wolves from howling. Eury, who has engineered two race wins since becoming Earnhardt's crew chief in September of 2005, often bears the brunt of it. But there are no indications that Earnhardt and his crew chief will be separated anytime soon. "You see certain drivers and you know what they need for a crew chief, and I think it was all unanimous, and still to this day is unanimous, that Tony Eury Jr. is the guy for Junior, and possibly the only guy for Junior," said Jeff Gordon, Earnhardt's Hendrick teammate. "There is a tremendous amount of expectations and pressures that come along with being Dale Jr., as well as being Dale Jr.'s crew chief. There just aren't many guys in the garage area that could withstand that kind of crucifixion that comes along when things aren't going well, and Tony Eury Jr. is one of them. Plus, the uniqueness of their relationship and how they communicate is second to none." That communication is sometime unorthodox -- the two cousins sniping at one another, and then making up. Splitting them up, Earnhardt believes, might ultimately do more harm than good. "There are risks between every driver and every crew chief, and they either work it out or they don't. I think me and Tony Jr. do a pretty good job of working it out. Obviously, through everything we've been through, we still love each other to death and we'd do anything for each other. I don't dread seeing him when I get to the race track. I can't wait to see him when I get to the race track. We really do enjoy working together," Earnhardt said. "I like racing with my cousin. Whether we are the perfect combination or not, that doesn't mean anything to me. I just like racing with him. That's what I want to do for the rest of my life. I like working with him. Whether I get to do that or not, I don't know. I like racing with him, and maybe we're not the best combination out there, but I think if we're both on our A game and doing what we should be doing and get a little bit of luck and a break here and a break there, we'll be just as good as anybody out there." Ultimately, Earnhardt said, it comes down to two sides. There's the side with sponsors and teams where the only goal is performance, and it's all about winning races and championships. And then there's the side of the driver, who's been going to the track with his buddies since his days running late models, and doesn't want to give that up. That's the way Earnhardt feels about Eury. "You just want to have fun, because you did this for fun and people decided to pay you to do it. That's where I'm at," Earnhardt said. "It's up to all the professionals and experts to decide what we need to do to be a winning race team. We'll make the changes, and we have made changes. But I like working with the guy. We trust each other. We go through a lot of crap together, and I know where he's at and he knows where I'm at. We just have a bond." Companies clamor for Earnhardt's magic touch It seemed like the Vegas kind of thing to do. Partner with a local hotel and casino, bank some tickets for the next year's race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and tie it all together with NASCAR's most popular driver. Thus, Dale Jr.'s South Point Jackpot was born. In February of 2008 the track offered tickets to the following year's event, with the caveat that the money would be refunded if fan favorite Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the Sprint Cup championship. Track president Chris Powell even took out an insurance policy to recoup losses just in case the Hendrick Motorsports driver wound up celebrating on the big stage in November. Tickets were limited to a magic number -- 8,888 -- and sold out within two days. Everyone seemed pleased with the promotion -- except, that is, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Perhaps that's because it was followed by another on the part of Memphis Motorsports Park, which in January issued a release offering Earnhardt a lifetime supply of the city's famous barbecued ribs in return for a the driver's participation in the track's October Nationwide Series event. "It would have been cool to get a heads-up that they were going to do that -- hey, man, we're going to use your name in this, instead of getting it sprung on you," Earnhardt said earlier this season. "Vegas did the same thing. What was the deal a couple years ago? Some ridiculous deal for them to try to get people to buy tickets. I told everybody to go buy tickets to Talladega. It's a hell of a better race." Never mind that, according to track presidents, facilities are allowed virtually unlimited use of the names and likenesses of NASCAR drivers in order to sell tickets to their events. For Earnhardt, it all comes with the territory. Everybody wants a piece of him. His often smiling, sometimes scruffy visage has adorned everything from billboards to television commercials to ticket stubs and candy bars, while his signature or car number has appeared on consumer products too numerous to mention. Despite an ongoing recession, despite a streak of just one race victory in his last 102 Sprint Cup starts, Dale Earnhardt Jr. remains a one-man economic powerhouse, a figure who by his very association can lift share prices of a company's stock more than two points or sell nearly 9,000 race tickets in two days. That's the power of Junior. No wonder his management team receives roughly four pitches per week -- ranging from the realistic to the ridiculous -- from companies or business owners interested in having the driver of the No. 88 car representing their product. No, he hasn't enjoyed the best of seasons recently on the race track. But in the marketplace, nobody else can touch him. "He's the single most important icon in this business, and whoever is No. 2 -- and you could argue that about a few other guys -- the gap between them is long," said Eddie Gossage, president of Texas Motor Speedway. "He's it, and everybody else is eating his dust in a big way. That's why it's so important that he have a good year, that he win races, that he contend for the championship. The quickest fix for whatever ails our sport is Junior winning races." But to the brands Earnhardt represents, he doesn't necessarily have to win. He just has to be, well, Dale Jr. Just ask the folks at Amp Energy, the PepsiCo product that serves as co-primary sponsor of his race car. Before it joined forces with Earnhardt prior to last year, the company was a relatively minor player in the energy drink market, and enjoyed only a fraction of the brand awareness of industry leader Red Bull. Now it's ubiquitous, as all those race fans wearing all those green and white caps and jackets will attest. He hasn't won a championship, hasn't come close. He's won only one race in Amp colors. But when it comes to product visibility, Earnhardt has the closest thing in NASCAR to a Midas touch. "Within NASCAR, we've seen tremendous growth," said Ken Strnad, Amp Energy's senior manager. "We've seen over 120 percent growth for the Amp trademark within NASCAR strongholds, so it's just been a huge success for the brand as well for Dale, I would think. I think the results just speak to how powerful he is as a sports property." Growth rates It seemed an incongruous combination -- a race car driver and cologne? This was 2001, before the Daytona 500 became a fragrance, before Jeff Gordon began to pitch Halston, back when the only smells associated with NASCAR were those of tires and fuel. So what on earth was L'Oreal doing, signing Earnhardt to represent its Drakkar Noir brand? Getting way ahead of the curve, as it turns out. The result was an astonishing 46 percent growth rate, which vaulted the fragrance from 18th to second in the market. And this was before most of Earnhardt's Most Popular Driver Awards, before most of his race wins, back when he was a kid with blond highlights living in his father's considerable shadow. "NASCAR was kind of on the upswing in terms of its popularity, and Dale Jr. was just kind of coming out of the box, and we were really the first person to position him not in his uniform, not as a typical race car driver guy, but to position him as a lifestyle," said Thayer Lavielle, who engineered that campaign for L'Oreal, and is now vice president for marketing and branding at JR Motorsports. "That allowed us to open up an entire new market to our department store distribution and to bring NASCAR fans into those department stores for a different reason, and conversely bring our brand into a sport that had never been tapped before." Over at Amp, Strnad can relate. The energy drink had a marketing platform built primarily around extreme sports before PepsiCo's existing relationship with the Hendrick team -- and Earmhardt's admitted affinity for Mountain Dew, of which Amp is a spinoff -- led to the creation of the now-familiar green and white No. 88 car after Dale Jr. joined the super team prior to the 2008 campaign. The six-year-old beverage brand wanted to recast itself around a new image and raise awareness of its product. Thus far, the results have exceeded everyone's expectations. "When you think about that sea of red turning into a sea of green, it's just an amazing testimony to the power of the Dale sponsorship," said Strnad, referring to the colors worn by members of Earnhardt's fan base today, and during his long tenure with former primary sponsor Budweiser. "We know that when you go down to a race, the Amp brand is just everywhere. It's overwhelming. From a business performance standpoint, the results are extraordinary." How extraordinary? Consider that even the best-selling energy drinks, on average, enjoy a household penetration of about 24 percent. Among Earnhardt fans, Amp's penetration is 50 percent. In geographic areas where NASCAR is popular, Amp has experienced a growth rate of 120 percent. Overall awareness jumped 17 points, helping the brand move from sixth- to fourth-most popular in the industry. The rise of Amp, the fastest-growing energy drink in America last year, even helped buoy sales of the entire energy-drink category. Oh, and shares of the company's stock went up 2.5 points, too. That's the Junior effect in action. "We did that with Dale in light of an oil crisis and a recession," Strnad said. "These growth rates are phenomenal. The energy drink category grew about 9 percent in 2008, so we far surpassed category norms as far as growth. With the economic climate being what it is and those growth rates, it shows you how tremendous this sponsorship has been for the Amp brand." With results like that, no wonder the Wrangler jeans brand recently extended its partnership with Earnhardt for a sixth consecutive year. The company -- which enjoys a long history with the Earnhardts, going back to the Wrangler sponsorship of Dale Sr.'s race cars in the 1980s -- features Dale Jr. in every one of its marketing platforms, from television commercials to in-store displays. Unlike an emerging brand like Amp, Wrangler has long been No. 1 in its class. Earnhardt helps it stay there. "I definitely think he has helped us increase our brand awareness," said Jenni Broyles, senior marketing communication manager for Wrangler. "We have a really strong, healthy brand, and he adds to that and helps build that brand awareness and in general brings a positive perception toward the brand. People who can identify with him can also identify with our brand. I think to be realistic, there are numerous factors that help us sell product or sell product to our retailers. But I have no doubt that Dale, or who he is or how natural it is for him to be in Wrangler, has benefited us tremendously." Anatomy of a pitch Four times a week. That's how often Thayer Lavielle, vice president for branding and marketing at JR Motorsports -- and the point person when it comes to control of Earnhardt's image -- is approached by someone interested in having their company or product associated with NASCAR's most popular driver. Some of them are legitimate sponsorship opportunities. Others ... well, not as much so. "It can range from anything from, I have my own fruit basket business and I want to buy a sticker on the car and have Dale Jr. do all my advertising, to, I own a company that makes leather chairs and I want Dale Jr. to be my spokesperson and I'll send his entire company chairs. It really runs the gamut of stuff from lifestyle to racing," Lavielle said. "I'm always appreciative, but we get a lot of people who in their mind think Dale Jr. is a fit, and then in our mind we think, I can see where you're going with that, but that's not really where he is today." Earnhardt's likeness, signature or car number adorns more than 100 different kinds of products, running the gamut from bedding to T-shirts to decals. That licensing empire, overseen at JR Motorsports by Joe Mattes, is separate from the marketing side, where Lavielle and JR Motorsports president Kelley Earnhardt oversee a more stringent vetting process -- understandable, given that they're dealing with companies that Earnhardt Jr. will be personally associated with. Right now there are about nine major partners that Earnhardt represents, ranging from car sponsors Amp and National Guard, to apparel makers Wrangler and Adidas, to the Web hosting site godaddy.com. When it comes to choosing partners, Earnhardt -- who does, after all, have a race car to compete in -- allows his management team to do much of the heavy lifting. Sometimes partnerships will occur organically; that's what happened in the case of Adidas, whose products Earnhardt has worn for years. In other instances, a licensing partner may choose to ramp up efforts and step into the marketing arena. But when it comes to an outside pitch, there's often an initial feeling-out process. Is the company familiar with NASCAR? Is it familiar with Earnhardt and who he is? If the answer to those questions is yes, Lavielle may ask to see a commercial script. After that script has been reviewed, edited and tweaked so both sides are comfortable, it finally lands in the hands of the driver himself. Nine times out of 10, Lavielle said, Earnhardt will give the concept the green light. He also has 100 percent veto power. And it isn't uncommon for Earnhardt to become personally involved in the creative process; this is, after all, a driver with a keen sense of both his fan base and his own image, who oversaw many of the cosmetic details of his No. 88 car when he first moved to Hendrick. "I think all of our partners have been extremely receptive to him being involved as much as he wants to be," Lavielle said. "What we try to do before we get to the place where he's involved is, try to set the foundation with the partner and say, 'Here's what he's comfortable with, here are some of his suggestions, and here are some things he may be comfortable or not comfortable doing.' An ideal situation is Amp, where we collaborated on what that creative was ahead of time, and it wasn't solely the brand coming to us trying to retrofit into it. It was, how do we try to create something that feels true to both brands?" Of course, as some recent race track promotions would suggest, not every advertisement involving Earnhardt receives a prior stamp of approval. A minor flap arose in early 2008 after Texas Motor Speedway erected a series of billboards, each stating different reasons to buy tickets to the Fort Worth track. Four of them declared, "Reason #88: Step-Mom," a reference to Earnhardt's falling-out with stepmother Teresa over control of Dale Earnhardt Inc. Kelley Earnhardt asked that the billboards be changed, and track president Eddie Gossage acquiesced. The billboards may have pushed the limits of good taste, but Gossage said he was completely within his rights as a NASCAR track promoter to erect them in the first place. "We can produce any billboard we want to, any newspaper ad, and radio ad, any TV ad using his name, his likeness, his image," Gossage said. "There is absolutely no limits to what we can do, and even the drivers don't know that, I don't believe. But when they sign that entry form to enter the race, that is part of what they're signing away, the ability of the promoter to use it, as you should. We're paying millions of dollars. We should have their likeness to use, and we do. Whether it was that silly billboard last year or anything else, we don't have to run it by anybody." Las Vegas Motor Speedway president Chris Powell said the same thing about his South Point Jackpot promotion. Powell emphasized that he thought he had cleared the idea with Earnhardt's representatives, but word evidently never got to the driver. Still: "We didn't have to have Dale Jr.'s permission to do what we did a year ago," Powell said. "We [contacted his representatives] as a favor. As a courtesy to say, 'We want to put your name on this promotion.' We don't even have to do that. Because of the agreement each driver has with NASCAR, we are able to use their likeness, we are able to use their name, in order to promote selling tickets. Now, if we try to promote, say, something other than a NASCAR event, then we would certainly owe it to them to get their permission. But to promote a NASCAR event, we can use any driver's likeness or name." And tracks aren't shy about using Earnhardt. Gossage said Texas uses the driver in every type of advertising it does -- outdoor, television, radio, even e-mail blasts. Every year the facility produces a poster that it sends out to hundreds of thousands of potential ticket buyers. Usually, Earnhardt is the driver featured on it. "I'm a promoter," Gossage said. "If I can't feel it here in my gut, then I shouldn't be doing this. It's just clear. I don't know the sales figures, but I anecdotally go, look at the huge crowd out there behind Junior's hauler versus whoever else is down the way. Driver introductions, listen to that crowd. It's just obvious. There are some guys who certainly rival him -- Jeff [Gordon], Jimmie [Johnson], Tony [Stewart], Carl [Edwards]. But they're not there, and I think they'd tell you that, too." The genuine article From her first days at work at JR Motorsports, Lavielle can recall Earnhardt walking into the office wearing Adidas sweatpants and a T-shirt bearing the company's tri-foil logo. So when it came time for the driver to partner with a sportswear company, there really was only one choice. "He's always been an Adidas guy," Lavielle said. "So it was never really an option to go to another brand on that. That's where his heart and soul is." Companies love Earnhardt because of his unparalleled popularity. They love Earnhardt because an association with the driver is almost always followed by increased growth rates and sales figures. And they love Earnhardt for his penchant for using the items he represents, which only helps to tighten the bonds between the product, the driver and his legion of devoted fans. "It's extremely important, because for us, if we're saying our brand is authentic and real and genuine, and then you put someone out there who definitely doesn't wear the product or believe in the product, it's a disconnect," said Jenni Broyles, senior marketing communication manager for Wrangler jeans. "For us, our brand positioning is all about that authenticity. So we definitely wanted someone to be wearing the product and believe in the product." Earnhardt does, often because his association with certain companies stems from a previous association. A lifetime of wearing Adidas -- which declined to be interviewed for this story -- spawned into an Adidas sponsorship. His family's long history with Wrangler, which backed the car his father drove for owners Rod Osterlund, Jim Stacy, Bud Moore and Richard Childress from 1981-87, made him a natural to represent the clothing company. Executives at Amp knew of Earnhardt's fondness for Mountain Dew and the beverage brand's place in NASCAR, as evidenced by the retro paint scheme, taken from Darrell Waltrip's 1981 Mountain Dew-backed car, that Earnhardt drove at Darlington Raceway last year. "He really does use a lot of Amp, as testament to the 4 a.m. e-mails we get from him. He really does use it. He and I have talked a lot about the fact that maybe the fans don't really buy into the fact that he does, coming off of Budweiser. So he spoke at length with the creative team about how to present the relationship with their product in a way that is authentic to who he is. Because it's true. It's nothing contrived, it's not being a salesman, it's him being who he is. And that's Dale Jr. He always is who he is," Lavielle said. "I think that's why he resonates with people. He doesn't stray from that. When a brand that wants to get on board with him is looking for this huge climb, we look at them and say, 'Is it a product that he would use? Is it true to something that is functioning in his world currently?' We're not going to all of the sudden sign up with the fruit basket lady because she thinks it's a good idea." But for an emerging brand like Amp, the Earnhardt connection provides a degree of pertinence the company might not have enjoyed before. After all, how many other drivers would look cool on top of a camel in a Super Bowl ad? Amp continues to build a campaign around Earnhardt, with plans to introduce a can shaped like a race car, and for Earnhardt's real vehicle to carry the signatures of 70,000 fans during the Amp-backed November race at Talladega Superspeedway. It works because people buy into the guy behind it. "I think as a marketer, everyone strives for relevance and authenticity, and I think Dale Jr. is the embodiment of just that," said Ken Strnad, Amp Energy's senior manager. "One thing is clear about Dale, and it's the reason why his fans celebrate him so much. He is the genuine article. He's very relevant within NASCAR and has broad mainstream appeal as well. We know that Dale wouldn't just sponsor any product. Amp is a real part of his daily life. It goes beyond a product shot in a post-race interview. Dale uses Amp, he loves the product. It was the perfect fit for Amp, because we were looking for authenticity and relevance." It's a testament to Earnhardt's ability as a product representative that he's at his commercial peak despite some rather uneven results on the race track. His lone victory in his last 102 starts came last spring at Michigan International Speedway, and a problematic opening to this season has forced him to make a gradual climb from the depths of the point standings. Heading into Sunday's race at Bristol Motor Speedway, he ranks 24th among Sprint Cup drivers, with a single lap led. Earnhardt has his share of critics, people who believe he hasn't done enough on the track to justify all the attention and fan devotion he receives. More victories behind the wheel would surely silence them, not to mention provide his marketing partners with more of the authenticity they're looking for. "I think it would help him, as well as those who are trying to sell anything with his name on it, if his performance improves a bit in the 2009 season, because he is so popular," said Las Vegas track president Chris Powell. "He's wildly popular. We've got a young man on our staff here at Las Vegas Motor Speedway who believes Dale Jr. walks on water, and he is just salivating for the time when Dale Jr. gets back in Victory Lane. He won that one race last year at Michigan, but I think with some people, because it was a gas mileage victory, it didn't get probably the respect it would have gotten if he would have been racing door handle to door handle with somebody and been able to pull off the victory. I think for his legions of fans, Dale Jr. needs to win as much as for himself." For the companies that partner with Earnhardt, race wins are certainly nice. But they know that success on the race track waxes and wanes. The driver's popularity, meanwhile, does not. And that's what they're buying into, more than anything else. "I would say certainly when he's winning, that's great," said Wrangler's Broyles. "We support him and want him to be winning, not just because he's with the Wrangler brand, but because we really believe in him as a brand. But at the same time, he's the No. 1 most popular driver, and he isn't always the winner. I think realistically, winning is great. But his popularity and his appeal and his likability ... is much more important." Kenny Chesney Sings for Dale Earnhardt Jr., Peyton Manning in Key West Kenny Chesney played to a full house at Sloppy Joe's, a bar in Key West, Fla., on Saturday (March 14) as part of his Keg in the Closet series of shows. He was joined by songwriter Mac McAnally to perform their hit duet, "Down the Road," for the first time for an audience. The crowd included Peyton Manning and Jim Sorgi of the Indianapolis Colts, former NFL player Trey Teague, New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton and former Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Jon Gruden. NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. and NASCAR team owner Rick Hendrick were also in the audience. During the set, Chesney and his band covered songs by Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Kinks, Pure Prairie League, Red Hot Chili Peppers, U2 and Joe Walsh. Dale Earnhardt Jr., Mark Martin, Tony Stewart, Ryan Newman, Scott Wimmer share JR Motorsports' ride Ryan Newman, Tony Stewart, Scott Wimmer, Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt Jr. will share the driving duties of the JR Motorsports' No. 5 Nationwide Series car for a 21-race schedule, the team announced Monday. Wimmer will drive six races with Fastenal as a sponsor, while Newman will drive four with that sponsor. Earnhardt Jr., who already has driven in two races this year, will drive in five more races with a variety of sponsors. Martin will have Unilever product Lipton as his sponsor for the Richmond race in May, while Stewart will drive with Delphi as the sponsor at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in October. The driver for the two road-course events has not been announced. "This No. 5 team carries a strong tradition and a lot of expectations, and we are fortunate to attract such quality talent to help carry on that tradition," team co-owner Earnhardt Jr. said. "We had a similar setup with this team last year, and we were able to go to victory lane twice. Obviously with this driver lineup, there's no reason we can't exceed last year's win total." Earnhardt Jr. will drive at Texas in April, Talladega in April, Charlotte in May, Daytona in July and Atlanta in September. Earnhardt Jr.’s sponsorship is split among Fastenal, GoDaddy.com and Unilever. Newman will drive in races at Dover in May, Chicagoland in July, Michigan in August and Kansas in October. Wimmer will drive at Darlington in May, Milwaukee in June, O’Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis in July, Iowa in August, Bristol in August and Richmond in September. "I will be running at tracks that have been good for me in the past and look forward to my first event with JR Motorsports at Darlington in May,” said Wimmer, who drove for Richard Childress Racing in 2007 and 2008 and has started this season with Key Motorsports. Dale Earnhardt Jr. not happy with car's handling in 11th-place Atlanta finish Hendrick Motorsports' Dale Earnhardt Jr. admits he can sometimes get excited when talking with his team during a race. But when one is enduring a race filled with struggle such as Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, there can be differing motivations for those outbursts. Earnhardt Jr. struggled throughout the race, earning the free pass twice to get back on the lead lap and fighting an ill-handling car. While he finished 11th, a showing that actually was better than he seemed to be performing for much of the afternoon, Earnhardt Jr. admitted that things just haven't gone that well for the team in the opening series of races. While he climbed five spots to 24th in the standings after the race, he just wasn't pleased with his car. "We're doing about as miserable as we can do without being too upset about it," he said. "I'd like to run better than that. We struggled all day and we just can't struggle. I look at my teammates and they're running better and we should run the way they run. It's frustrating for me and the team and the only thing you can do is keep working and show up next week with a new attitude. "This weekend off will be good for everybody. We are repairing some damage we did early in the season in the first couple of races with [these finishes], but … running 11th and struggling all day doesn't really do much for your confidence." He didn't seem to mind cars sliding around on the track throughout the race, though he did admit that "I just wish I had as much grip as the guy that was leading the race." Still, his displeasure with his car was clear throughout the race in comments he made to crew chief Tony Eury Jr., including one in which he spoke of a desire to taser him. Earnhardt Jr. said that people constantly tell him that it's hard to read his mood on the radio - and sometimes that can lead to a little confusion. "It's hard to read me, everybody says, and it's hard to tell whether I'm serious or joking but I don't mean any malice toward my team," he said. "I'd never say anything determined to hurt them or upset them. I just try to ... part of it's trying to fire me up, part of it's trying to fire them up, part of it's just trying to tell everybody I'm still in the game; I don't know. It's just a different race in the pits from behind the wheel and everything about the race and everything the driver sees and understands is totally different than what the crew is feeling and understanding and seeing. And it's hard for me to marry the two. "When I was an owner in the Busch Series and sit on the pit box, you see what their side of the story is and you understand a bit more about what they're going through during the race because a lot of times, as a driver, you feel like you're on an island and you get frustrated because you feel like you're on an island. And you're like, 'Can't anybody help me here? Can't anybody hear me? Am I making sense?' I don't know. I'm passionate, man … When I'm out there on the track I want to do as good as I can. Sometimes I, you know, I think it's good to get excited." Still, he points out that the taser comment "was a joke" and made light of the incident. "If you want to get specific, those are jokes for sure," he said of any comment of that nature. "I would like to taser him. But, hey, I don’t think I would get my shot." Quotes: Las Vegas "You don't normally look at points unless you're in 35th."-- Dale Earnhardt Jr., on point racing so early in the season. Quotes: Atlanta "I look at my teammates, and they are running better. We should run the way they run. It's frustrating for me and the team. The only thing you can do is keep working and show up next week with a new attitude."-- Dale Earnhardt Jr., on his dissatisfaction with his car and team's performance Dale Earnhardt Jr. dealing with adversity the best he can Hendrick Motorsports' Dale Earnhardt Jr. is hoping a little luck is on his side in Sunday's Shelby 427 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. After the first two races of the season, Earnhardt Jr. finds himself buried deep in the Cup series standings in 35th. The driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet desperately needs a good finish considering he only has two more races to improve before he could be outside the top 35 and would have to qualify on speed to make to show at Martinsville Speedway on March 29. Although Earnhardt Jr. only has two top-five finishes in nine career starts at LVMS, he finished second in last year's race. Things won't be easy, though, considering he starts 31st in the field. “I am looking forward to it," Earnhardt Jr. said. "They did a pretty good job when they changed this race track. It has a lot of bumps now, but it is still a pretty good race track. Reminds me a lot of mid-90s Charlotte [Lowe's Motor Speedway]. It is getting bumpy out there but it is pretty fun." Despite his poor start to the 2009 season, Earnhardt Jr. remains confident that he can improve and credits team owner Rick Hendrick for keeping him focused. After causing a wreck and messing up on pit road in the Daytona 500 on Feb. 15, Earnhardt Jr. came under intense scrutiny from both the media and race fans. His lack of focus and concentration was questioned, and Earnhardt Jr. took the blame for the Daytona wreck last week in California. He suffered another blow when his engine blew resulting in his first DNF of the season. "[Rick Hendrick] is really good at giving you motivation, saying the right things, kind of pointing your head in the right direction," Earnhardt Jr. said. "You have to look at the way the season started for us and you try to find a silver lining in everything. We can’t really control how things went last weekend. We had a pretty good run going. I felt like we were [going to] get us a top-10 finish." Dealing with adversity is something else Earnhardt Jr. learned from his father, the late Dale Earnhardt. During his rookie season in the Cup series in 2000, Earnhardt Jr. had to take a provisional to make the field because of a poor qualifying effort in the fall race at North Carolina Speedway and was extremely upset until he talked to his father about his bad day. "I told him it was like the worst day ever in motorsports for me," Earnhardt Jr. said. "I was only a rookie. He said, 'Your best day will be tomorrow.' He said, 'You are going to have bad days and the next day will be better, you are just going to have them.' I don’t think I am any better at dealing with it today than I was then because there are other people in your life that are the opposite." Earnhardt Jr. doesn't blame crew chief Tony Eury Jr. for his disappointing start to the season. He said Eury Jr. will give his team a pep talk prior to the race, something Eury Jr.'s father had perfected while a crew chief. Tony Eury Sr., who used to be a crew chief for Earnhardt Jr. early in his career, is a crew chief for JR Motorsports driver Brad Keselowski. "He is pretty good at motivating, not as good as ol' Pops (Eury, Sr.) was but, Tony, Jr. has to get old and ornery like Pops was then we’ll we will have basically the same package in him one day that we have in Tony, Sr.," Earnhardt Jr. said. Nonetheless, Earnhardt Jr. is doing his best to keep his chin up and deal with his rough start this season. "You have a lot of different people giving you a lot of different impressions on how to deal with stuff like that. I think that when you feel like you are right, even when you know you might be wrong, you try to stand up for what you believe in, you know," Earnhardt Jr. said. "But I always try to be honest and I have never really tried to intentionally lie to somebody, especially when it comes to the media. But I have never said I was always right about everything." Doug Duchardt blames Fontana engine failures on faulty parts A Hendrick Motorsports official says the team has discovered the source of engine failures in the cars of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mark Martin during last Sunday’s Auto Club 500 at Auto Club Speedway and is confident the problem won’t happen again. The engines in the No. 88 Chevrolet of Earnhardt Jr. and the No. 5 of Martin failed within a few laps of each other in the race. Doug Duchardt, vice president of development for Hendrick, said the problems were traced to a set of parts from an outside supplier. "Both cars had valve train failures that were related to a specific batch of parts from a vendor,” Duchardt said in a news release. “All of our engines, lease programs included, had parts from the same batch, so we're glad it wasn't more widespread.” Duchardt said the team has taken steps to make sure the problem won’t occur again. “It's always extremely disappointing when something like that happens, but, fortunately, it's a problem we can quickly address and fix,” Duchardt said. “Our engine team did a great job identifying the root cause, and it shouldn't affect us moving forward." Quotes: Fontana "Something broke in the motor and they are looking at it right now. We were just sittin' there runnin' good, just had a caution and got caught back up. I drove from last to 14th!"- Dale Earnhardt Jr., on his up-and-down day ending in disappointment Pit-box rule Dale Earnhardt Jr. violated exists for safety, competition issues Some of Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s fans might have wanted just a warning for their driver when he was inches outside his pit box last week in the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway. But in NASCAR’s mind, there are no warnings and there is no leniency in that rule, NASCAR Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton said Friday. During the race last week, Earnhardt Jr. could see the official waving him to move backward but his team had already started pitting the car. The official then held Earnhardt Jr. for a one-lap penalty. There was no question that Earnhardt Jr. was in violation of the rule. Each team is given a card that lists pit-road rules and even has a diagram of what is legal and illegal on a pit stop. Above the diagram in bold letters: “NO WARNINGS.” The rule reads that it is a one-lap penalty if: “If any part of the car is on top or over the line in front of the pit box. The outside front tire of the car is on or over the outside line of the pit box. The inside rear tire of the car is on or outside the outside line of the pit box. The rear tire(s) is on or rearward of the back line of the pit box.” Pemberton explained the reasoning for the rule: “It’s pitting too close to the pit in front of you, it’s pitting too close the pit in back of you and [then] interfering with their pit stop – and you can be outside the box and you’re putting your crew in jeopardy,” Pemberton said Friday at Auto Club Speedway in California. “If everybody knows you’ve got to be within your box, they know an estimate of where your crew members are going to be. If there are a series of guys who are pitting, the driver is estimating where his competitor’s box is going to be as he is trying to get in his box.” So why is the penalty one lap? Earnhardt Jr. questioned the severity of the penalty after the Daytona 500. “The penalty is that because we want the guys to pit in the box,” Pemberton said. “An inch here or an inch there? If we start putting it on a sliding scale, you’ve lost [the effect of the rule]. When you’re in competition on pit road, you want to make sure everybody gets a fair shot to compete and you want to keep it as safe as you can.” Earnhardt Jr., who also drove past his pit on one stop, took responsibility for those mistakes Friday. “That’s just my responsibility,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I take full responsibility for everything that happened on pit road. There’s nothing that they [on the crew] can do better to help me and it’s up to me to make sure that I get the job done which I obviously wasn’t getting it done. “There’s nothing they did wrong or weren’t doing right or weren’t doing enough. I mean they do their job just fine. I just was having too much fun I guess.” Although he saw the official telling him to back up because he was in front of the line, it was too late. “I wanted to back it up but they were already jacking me up so I can’t drive off the jack,” Earnahrdt Jr. said. Junior shakes off rare criticism Dale Earnhardt Jr. found himself early this week in the rare position of being the object of a chorus of criticism from fellow drivers, the media and even fans who normally support him unconditionally. "I did get ripped up quite a bit," NASCAR's most popular driver said Friday at Auto Club Speedway. "I didn't even want to go on the web. "It's interesting to be on this side of the fence," Earnhardt added. "I'm not on this side too much." The complaints arose after Earnhardt ignited a 10-car wreck on a restart late in last Sunday's Daytona 500, the low point in a race filled with mistakes by the Hendrick Motorsports star. Junior was trying to pass Brian Vickers with both of them a lap down but near the front of the lead pack. Vickers blocked the move by pushing Earnhardt down below the yellow out-of-bounds line. He hit Earnhardt in the process, and when Earnhardt came back onto the racing surface, he clipped the left-rear corner of Vickers' car. That sent Vickers shooting across the track and the melee was on. That's when the finger pointing began. Earnhardt called Vickers "a damn idiot" and Vickers returned the compliment, saying that Earnhardt should have been penalized by NASCAR for aggressive driving and had crashed him intentionally. Other drivers criticized both Earnhardt and Vickers for making such aggressive moves while a lap down. The Internet and sports talk shows were swarmed all week by fans who wanted NASCAR to suspend, fine or take points from Earnhardt for the incident. "I definitely could have used better judgement coming back up on the racetrack, but it's hard to tell," Earnhardt said after the opening practice for Sunday's Auto Club 500 at the Southern California track. "I mean, there was rain coming, I was a lap down (and) I had to get my lap back to even have a shot at winning the race." He further defended himself saying, "It all happened pretty fast and it was unfortunate how it went down. (But) my statistics at the plate tracks speak for themselves and I don't really have to defend myself at how good a plate racer I am and what kind of moves I make out on the racetrack. "I got just as much right to be on that racetrack and do whatever the hell I want to do on it as anybody else out there. And I race just as hard as I choose to race and want to race, and I race people how I want to be raced. I've always raced with a lot of respect and I'll continue to do so in the future." Jeff Burton, who was involved in a later crash, confronted Junior after the race, accusing Earnhardt of forcing him into a three-wide situation that pushed him back in the pack and, three laps later, put him in the wrong spot at the wrong time. "We sat there and debated my ethics and my values and all of those things and ended up agreeing that I'm not a jerk and don't race like a jerk," Earnhardt said. "He was just kind of hot under the collar a little bit." Burton was long over it by Friday. "I thought (the Earnhardt-Vickers wreck) was a typical Daytona, Talladega wreck where one guy tries to protect his spot and the other guy needs the spot and you misjudge by six inches and there's a wreck," Burton said. Earnhardt said he called Vickers early this week to make sure there were no hard feelings. "He said it was intentional on the television and I wanted to make sure he knew it wasn't intentional, that I didn't have a problem with him and that I wouldn't wreck him intentionally," Earnhardt said. "Just trying to clear that up with him. Me and Vickers have actually been friends for quite a while." Asked if he talked to any of the other eight drivers who were collected in Sunday's crash, Earnhardt winced and replied: "I wasn't going to call them all up." But Earnhardt said he finds it a little ironic that he is being called a bad guy on this one. "I've always been too nice," he said. "And that was the Daytona 500 and I felt like I had the car to win. I felt that way 100 percent. I wanted to go out there and win the race and I felt like if I could get my lap back, I could get it done. "I was racing everybody as smart as I could, but I was racing as hard as I could. I'm still a good guy, but when I feel like I've got a real good opportunity to win, and I've got to make up a little ground, you've got to race hard. And the Daytona 500 is a little different situation." Jeff Burton: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Brian Vickers crash a product of restrictor-plate racing Richard Childress Racing's Jeff Burton is not offering any criticism concerning the multicar wreck sparked by contact between Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Brian Vickers in last Sunday's Daytona 500. While Burton deems it to have been a mistake when Earnhardt Jr. tagged Vickers as he attempted to come back up onto the track, he also sees this as just a typical restrictor-plate racing incident. Take out the names of those involved, and Burton thinks this is just another incident caused by a track on which blocking has become a way of life and when instant decisions can spark crashes. "I thought it was a typical Daytona/Talladega wreck, where one guy tries to protect his spot and the other guy needs that spot, and you misjudge by six inches, and there's a wreck," Burton said Friday at Auto Club Speedway in California. "Take out who the participants were, and at the end of the day, that's what happened." "Vickers put a big block on, and Junior had to come back across to get above the yellow line, he couldn't go under him, and when he did, he caught him. You can say Vickers shouldn't have done that, you can say Earnhardt shouldn't have hit him, but at the end of the day I don't think either one of them meant to cause a wreck. Blocking is part of speedway racing … I think that's all there is to it. Same kind of wreck you see at a lot of restrictor plates." "The 88 [of Earnhardt Jr.] didn't mean to wreck him … He just misjudged him; he just made a mistake. He got blocked, and he was trying to get back in line. It happened so quickly. That's one thing that's hard to explain … On TV, it's like, 'Well that was easy, I wouldn't have done that if I was driving the car.' You've got to understand that in real life, behind the wheel, those things happen at a really high rate. It's a wreck that was avoidable, but it wasn't an intentional wreck." Burton says that people shouldn't be overreacting when it comes to blaming Hendrick Motorsports' Earnhardt Jr. for the incident. After making a pair of pit-road errors and then being caught up in the crash, the sport’s most popular driver has drawn quite a bit of criticism this week. Not from Burton. He says that he spoke with Earnhardt Jr. following the 500 about another incident they had because he feels that the two of them can talk when they need to. He says that talking privately with other drivers - once emotions have settled down following an incident - is the best way to diffuse any situation. As far as the fan reaction to Earnhardt Jr. following the crash is concerned - Internet message boards and comment sections have been filled with discussion of the incident and a significant amount of blame and criticism has been heaped on the driver - Burton says people need to consider the situation. While it's easy to jump on a driver when he makes a mistake, Burton says that people need to recognize that every driver has erred at some point and to keep some perspective on this. "We all make mistakes ... ," Burton said. "There's not a driver in this garage that hasn't caused a wreck, that hasn't been in a wreck that they were responsible for … We are people, we make mistakes, we are trying exceptionally hard to succeed in the sport. When you put [in] a lot of effort and a lot of desire and a lot of dedication, you're going to have accidents. And that's what happens. "I don't think people ought to be critical of him. I think it is what it is. It's not like Junior's a constant problem. It's not like Junior causes a bunch of wrecks. It's not like he doesn't have respect; he's one of the most respectful race car drivers out there. He and I had an incident in the 500. I was upset about it. He and I had a great conversation because I respect him, and he respects me … He's going to make mistakes the same way Jimmie Johnson is, the same way Tony Stewart is, the same way I am. We make mistakes, and the question is how many do you make. And Junior doesn't make a lot of them." Dale Earnhardt Jr. ready to rebound in California Dale Earnhardt Jr. is ready to put last Sunday’s Daytona 500 behind him. The Hendrick Motorsports driver, who grabbed headlines in NASCAR’s biggest race for all the wrong reasons – first for a pit-road miscue that resulted in a one-lap penalty and later for triggering a 10-car wreck that eliminated several top contenders - hopes to bounce back with a strong outing in Sunday’s Sprint Cup race at Auto Club Speedway in California. "We were good all week at Daytona, but we didn't get the results we wanted,” said Earnhardt Jr., who ended up 27th in the Daytona 500 when the race was shortened 48 laps because of rain. “I'm ready to move on, and we're looking forward to seeing what we can do in California." Historically, California hasn’t been one of Earnhardt Jr.’s better tracks. In 14 Cup starts at the 2-mile oval, NASCAR’s most popular driver has three top-five finishes and four top-10s while leading 25 laps. Last February’s California race was a particularly tough one for Earnhardt Jr., as he was involved in a crash with then-teammate Casey Mears and limped home 40th. "We haven't had much luck over the past several years at California - because of the late afternoon start, the night-time finish, the track changes,” the driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet said. “You've got to have that adjustment in your setup. [Teammates] Jimmie [Johnson] and Jeff [Gordon] have been good there, and they are a good reference." Heading to California, Earnhardt Jr. and his team are determined not to forget the positives from Daytona, where they were fast throughout Speedweeks, but plan to focus on the here and now. "We had lot of stuff happen down there in Daytona, but I'm pretty excited with how the car ran,” crew chief Tony Eury Jr. said. “The team had some pretty good pit stops. Overall, it was a really good weekend running-wise. “There were no results to come along with it, so we were disappointed about that. We'll put it behind us and move on." Pit mistakes, controversial wreck damaging to Junior The first 55 laps of Sunday's Daytona 500 went just fine for Dale Earnhardt Jr. But those last 97 laps of the rain-shortened event eventually won by Matt Kenseth? Um, to call them disaster-filled for Earnhardt almost doesn't do his performance the injustice it deserves. The trouble for Earnhardt and his No. 88 Chevrolet team started long before he and Brian Vickers triggered a controversial wreck that took out several contending cars. They blamed each other, but consensus in the garage area leaned heavily toward it being mostly Earnhardt's fault. "One guy that had problems all day on pit road made his problems our problems, and then our problems a big problem," driver Kyle Busch said in reference to Earnhardt. Busch's No. 18 Toyota, which led a race-high 88 laps and earlier in the race seemed to be the dominant car, got caught up in the wreck caused by Earnhardt and Vickers, ending his day and relegating him to a 41st-place finish. And it was a horrendous day for Earnhardt. Make no mistake about that. But it didn't start out that way. Earnhardt actually took the lead in his No. 88 Chevrolet on Lap 53, although he held it for only one lap before being passed by Tony Stewart. Three laps later, he still was running third when he headed in for what was supposed to be a routine pit stop. That was when Earnhardt's promising day turned for the worse. Inexplicably, he couldn't find his pit stall. He drove through pit road without ever stopping, forcing him to go around the track one more time and enter the pits again before he found his stall and received the service he needed. That dropped him from third to 36th at the time. "If you look down this pit road, my sign's pink," Earnhardt said. "And every other sign is pink -- so it's hard to see when you're going down there [because] they're all about the same color. "So everybody says, 'I'm going to make mine yellow' -- and two weeks later, everybody will be yellow." Then, perhaps, Earnhardt actually shed more light on his dark day and finally was honest -- with himself, probably as much as with anyone else. "I was under a lot of pressure, too," he added. "I was putting a lot of pressure on myself trying to get up in there and lead laps and all that. I just wasn't thinking good enough. I can't lay it on anybody but myself." Earnhardt attempted to recover from that mishap, only to encounter another costly pit-road mistake on Lap 120, when he pitted just outside his box. Crew members already had changed his right-side tires before a NASCAR official signaled that he was outside the box, resulting in an automatic one-lap penalty. "We had a pit stop where I was told the right-front tire was only an inch over the line," Earnhardt said. "I was held a lap for that and I don't feel like that was a fair trade. Maybe it's time to re-evaluate that rule." That set up the biggest disaster of the day for Earnhardt. Battling with Vickers desperately to get his lap back, the two tangled coming down the backstretch on Lap 123. Earnhardt went low to attempt a pass and Vickers went low to block him, appearing to force him below the double yellow line that represents out of bounds at Daytona International Speedway. Vickers later charged that Earnhardt apparently wrecked him intentionally to bring out a caution and insisted that it was "really kind of dangerous." Earnhardt, naturally, saw it differently -- blaming Vickers for pushing him down on the track to where he could not control his car as well as he would have liked. Finally, there was another incident where driver Jeff Burton apparently felt that Earnhardt did not race him cleanly. Again, Earnhardt deflected the criticism and made it clear that he believes he simply was doing what he had to do. "I was trying to get my lap back and I made it three-wide, putting him in the middle some type or another on a restart," Earnhardt said. "He got shuffled back and got in a wreck and he was upset at me for making it three-wide. [He thought] I should have worked with him and all that. "The rain was coming, it was time to try to win the race and I was trying to get back on the lead lap. So I had to run hard." He ran hard, all right. He even finished on the lead lap, albeit in 27th place. He also ran into some people and ran into other troubles during a Daytona 500 that he no doubt would like to forget. Dale Earnhardt Jr., Brian Vickers trigger multicar crash in Daytona 500 A multicar accident triggered by the lapped cars of Brian Vickers and Dale Earnhardt Jr. eliminated several top contenders, including Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch, during Sunday's Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway. Busch led 88 of the first 124 laps before getting caught up in the crash. Vickers and Earnhardt Jr., racing to become the first car one lap down and therefore eligible for the free pass, tangled on the backstretch as Vickers moved down to block. Earnhardt Jr.’s Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet ducked under the yellow line signifying the out-of-bounds line, and when he moved back up the track to get in line, he hit the left rear of Vickers’ car. Vickers’ Red Bull Racing Toyota shot back up across the track in front of most of the leaders. Other drivers involved in the wreck were Penske Racing’s Kurt Busch, Robby Gordon Motorsports’ Robby Gordon, JGR’s Denny Hamlin, Roush Fenway Racing’s Jamie McMurray, Hendrick’s Jimmie Johnson, Red Bull’s Scott Speed and Roush Fenway’s Carl Edwards. The cars of Vickers, McMurray and Busch went to the garage to try to make repairs. The others stayed on the track. “I think I was doing what I had to do,” Vickers said. “The 42 [of Juan Pablo Montoya] blocked me, and Junior blocked the guy behind him to get a run on me. That’s superspeedway racing. You watch your mirror, you try to keep the guy behind you behind you. “My goal is to not let him pass me. People blocked me the whole race. When I’d go to pass, they’d turn left and try to keep me behind them – that’s part of superspeedway racing. I don’t just hook them in the left-rear and turn them in front of the field. I don’t think that’s an excuse to do that. Everybody has their own opinion, I guess.” Vickers also pointed out that Jason Leffler was penalized five laps for a similar incident in Saturday’s Nationwide Series race after he tapped Steve Wallace while trying to get back in line. Leffler denied it was intentional. And Earnhardt Jr. had the same take on Sunday’s crash. “I was a lap down trying to get my lap back,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I had a really, really good run, and he was side by side with somebody. I went to the inside, and he drove down almost into the grass below the [yellow] line. I didn’t have much control over my car at that point. “I was just trying to get back on the race track and hit him in the quarterpanel and spun him out. If he would’ve just held his ground, we’d have been all right. I was lapped and wasn’t even racing for position.” Earnhardt Jr. apparently did not know Vickers was also a lap down. Earnhardt Jr. had just gotten a one-lap penalty for pitting outside his stall under the previous yellow, taking the blame for that. A frustrated Busch said the accident should have been avoided. “It’s not very difficult to ease back in,” Busch said. “You just roll out of the throttle and fall back in line.” NASCAR's highest-earning drivers NASCAR’s track attendance and revenue may be stalling, but top drivers’ paychecks continued to climb last year, thanks to large, multiyear sponsorship deals and heavy spending on apparel and gear by loyal fans. Overall, earnings for the top 10 drivers were $180 million, up 4.7 percent from our previous list. Winning is not always the most important factor to making money. Top drivers generate between eight percent and 31 percent of their earnings from the track. The rest comes from salary, licensing and sponsorships. This explains why Dale Earnhardt Jr. was the highest earner at $35 million (or $830 for each left turn) despite winning only one race, the LifeLock 400. Earnhardt’s endorsements and licensing royalties made him $23 million, as merchandise emblazoned with his new, No. 88 race car was NASCAR’s top seller. His salary and race winnings accounted for another $12 million. Earnhardt received a 30 percent bump in earnings last year, his first as a member of Hendrick Motorsports. This while the sport has seen declines in race attendance, TV ratings and new spending from corporate sponsors. Jeff Gordon, NASCAR’s all-time leading money winner, was the second highest-earning driver, at $30 million, including $16 million from licensing and endorsement income from the likes of PepsiCo, DuPont and Electronic Arts. Both Earnhardt and Gordon have made fortunes while turning away millions in endorsement offers, instead choosing to partner only with select sponsors. Says John Bickford, Gordon’s business manager, “Both drivers have carefully cultivated their [respective] brand for years.” Accomplished drivers are insulated from the economic downturn facing the sport, at least in the short term, because of the structure of their contracts. Deals are multiyear and typically contain salary guarantees and establish minimums for endorsement and licensing income, regardless of how the logoed goods sell. Racing purses continue to grow as well, since they’re fueled in large part by revenue from TV deals, which were negotiated in 2005 during the sport’s boom. A recent trend is for popular drivers to leverage their brand during contract negotiations to obtain team ownership positions. Gordon holds a minority stake in Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson’s car as well as his own. Tony Stewart reached a groundbreaking deal that gives him 50 percent of newly formed Stewart Haas Racing, which will debut this month. Ten drivers surpassed the $10 million pay threshold last season, forming an exclusive club that’s about to grow larger. Prior to the economic tumult in late 2008, four drivers agreed to new deals worth in excess of $5 million a year – each to take effect this coming season. Included in this group is last year’s second-place driver Carl Edwards, who will be paid as much as $7.5 million in salary from Roush Fenway Racing. We’ve also identified five drivers to watch in the coming season. To determine NASCAR’s rising stars, we calculated the average prize money per race for drivers who have competed in no more than 20 Sprint Cup contests. We included only drivers who have won races in either NASCAR’s Nationwide or Camping World Truck series, or in an open-wheel circuit, and those who have rides lined up for at least half of the races on the Sprint calendar this season. Among the most notable drivers to watch is Joey Logano, who has averaged $87,000 in prize money over three career races. At 18, Logano has the pressure of being the youngest driver in the series, as well as the high expectations attached to his No. 20 Home Depot car, which Tony Stewart rode to prominence for a decade. Junior sounds off on Daytona's old pavement Dale Earnhardt Jr. believes Daytona International Speedway could use a facelift. It will have to wait at least three years. Earnhardt said Wednesday that NASCAR's most storied track, which hasn't been repaved since August 1978, is long overdue for a new surface. "The track is old," Earnhardt said. "It's a terrible time to ask anyone to pave a race track, but if anyone needs it, it's probably Daytona." DIS president Robin Braig said the track has a $20 million repaving project planned for 2012. Braig said it has not been decided exactly when the track would be resurfaced -- either after the season-opening Daytona 500 or after the July race -- and added that information from NASCAR and tire manufacturer Goodyear could alter the plan. "There's no issue with money, there's no issue with technology," Braig said, pointing out that DIS parent company, International Speedway Corp., repaved Talladega Superspeedway and its steeply banked turns in 2006. "NASCAR and Goodyear are saying tire wear is fine. It's a $20 million project, but it's not money we're talking about. If we don't need to do it, we're not going to do it." Earnhardt says the 2.5-mile tri-oval is safe, even with its famed bumps in turns two and four, but figures a smoother surface would make for better side-by-side racing and maybe reduce wrecks. "You just don't put on a good show," Earnhardt said. "I like the bumps. If you're going to ask guys in here, they're going to say, 'Aw, man, come on, the bumps are cool.' They are cool, but they'll be back. When you pave a track, the dirt underneath always settles. It'll create new bumps." Earnhardt knew it had been a long time since the track was repaved, but was surprised to learn it has been three decades since the last facelift. "Highways get paved more often than that, and they're only going 55, 65 [mph] down them," he said. "I'm sure if I own a race track, I'm going to pave that damn thing and get blasted because it cost a lot of money to pave it. I can understand why it doesn't happen more often, paving a race track, but they did pave Talladega and that got great reviews, everybody was real happy about it, it's real smooth, puts on good races. Maybe we'll get this thing paved before I retire." Not everyone agreed. Roush Fenway Racing driver Carl Edwards said making the tracks smoother takes away some of racing's fun. "The rougher the better," Edwards said. "When you're out there sliding around and moving, it makes it harder. If the track is like Talladega ... it wouldn't be nearly as fun. I think repaving Darlington was the most frustrating thing they've done." Hendrick Motorsports' Dale Earnhardt Jr. says car is strong for Daytona 500 Hendrick Motorsports' Dale Earnhardt Jr. says his car felt strong in the opening practice session today, giving him confidence for Sunday's season-opening Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway. Earnhardt Jr. who was third fastest in Wednesday’s first practice session, says he is fighting a cold and a sinus infection and that he "laid in bed all day Monday and Tuesday, which I was going to do anyway, but I'm feeling better getting in the race car. That way helps you feel better." He says that sweating in the car helps him heal, and so does the performance of his car. "My car is real good," he said Wednesday following the opening practice session. "We're a little tight. We're going to work on that and try to get better for the second practice here today. But, man, on the straightaway, [I've] got plenty of power, really, really good horsepower. … I'm pretty excited. We tore the right front tire up pretty bad, real bad, so we'll get working on turning in the center, and we'll be all right." Earnhardt Jr. seemed confident his team could make adjustments needed to save the tires. He says that his goals for tomorrow's Gatorade Duels, which will set the lineup for most of the field Sunday, are simple: “Just don't tear my car up, that's probably the first thing, no banging around, hitting the walls, hitting people, spinning out. Other than that, just have some fun, make a cool pass for the lead a couple of times. I'd like to finish around the top three if I can't win it." He doesn't want to hamper Sunday's race by ending up in a crash, as he did during Saturday night’s nonpoints Budweiser Shootout. That, he says, will be one of his primary goals Thursday. Earnhardt Jr. also caused a stir by saying that the Daytona’s owners should consider repaving the facility, which was last paved in 1978. "It's a terrible time to ask anybody to pave a race track, but if anyone needs it, it's probably Daytona ...," he said. "I think highways get paved more often than that, and you're only going 55, 65 [mph] down them." Passion of Dale Jr. fosters sweeping business empire Dale Earnhardt Jr. once said if you can have a good time doing business and break even you're doing well, but if you're not having fun you better be making some money. Needless to say, the scrawny towhead kid from Kannapolis, N.C., raised on simple family values is having his cake and eating it, too; Earnhardt is having a blast and making too much cash to count. The 34-year-old community-college graduate is a proven entrepreneur and can walk into a boardroom with the same confidence and passion he carries climbing into the driver's seat of a race car. He forges multi-million dollar partnerships and signs NFL-sized endorsements all while chilled out in a pair of jeans and the shelltoe adidas Superstars. Earnhardt's face is virtually on every purchasable product in America from candy bars to clothing. Be it a Dale Jr. binky or a Dale Jr. garden accessory, the selection is so vast you could furnish your entire house with his likeness. He controls 40 percent of the marketplace for licensed product sales for NASCAR drivers and sold at least 20 million units last year. But Earnhardt set a major tone for his business future and career in 2007 when he opened up the JR Motorsports shop in Mooresville, N.C. Housing not only his Nationwide Series team but his licensing, marketing, fan and brand initiatives, the building is 66,000 square feet of massive venture space. All while keeping the Earnhardt business model at the forefront: authenticity, common sense and a strong handshake. These are all the tools on which Junior relies to run his business empire. "Heads will roll. No, that's my motto at JR Motorsports," laughed Earnhardt, waiting to answer dozens of reporters at Daytona International Speedway. "Heads will role, that's what we like to say." Hardly. A narcissistic dictator is far from Earnhardt's in-the-office demeanor. His employees say he handles the day-to-day pressures with a "laid back grace" and maintains the down-to-earth persona fans have grown to love since the driver appeared on the NASCAR scene nearly a decade ago. Reflections of Junior "They know I'm just a normal damn dude. I can't fool them," said Earnhardt, who just like his father wanted to pursue his own business. Both began their ventures through team ownership and grew their brands through marketing, endorsements and licensed merchandise. Now, Earnhardt is expanding his portfolio into assets he knows will be around long after he retires from racing. It's a thought the driver is not fond of as the pressure and desire to win a Cup title is top of mind, but so is the future of JR Motorsports and the opportunities to follow. Among the first has been Whisky River, Earnhardt's signature nightclub that opened last spring. "It's more successful than I anticipated by three or four times. I had a pretty good idea where I felt like I was going to be but it just quadrupled," Earnhardt said of the club's overnight popularity in Charlotte's uptown. A contracted management team runs the 10,000-square-foot watering hole where country stars and athletes come to play, but Earnhardt himself likes to keep his hands on the direction and feel of the club. It's a direct reflection on Earnhardt's eclectic style and broad sweeping tastes. The ambiance inside is comparable to a scene from Urban Cowboy only updated with a uber modern décor and the swanky offerings that today's comforts demand. "I think I enjoy the bar the most. I'd always wanted to get involved in ownership of a nightclub of some sort, because I really enjoy the entertainment side of it and I enjoy the camaraderie," Earnhardt said. "It's kind of fun to be there and to see the employees working and see them taking pride in what they're doing, the meetings they have after every night, hearing everybody, how uniform everything is, how structured it is. "I take a lot of pride in it." Pride in his work is what also led Earnhardt in 2006 to create his own production company, Hammerhead Entertainment. It's a small, unimposing building surrounded by woods and an unexplainable number of souped-up cars, but inside shows like Back in the Day and Shifting Gears are produced. Taking a cue from John Madden's playbook, Earnhardt formed the production company to maintain more control over his footage and content in light of numerous video and commercial projects the driver performs each season. "It was also a way to have direction over the production of footage. He loved watching Back in the Day and wanted to bring it to life and he did the pop-ups. That was his idea. Through Hammerhead, the production crew scripts it out so from a creative standpoint it's all Hammerhead and Dale Jr.," said Kelley Earnhardt, president of JR Motorsports. "Dale doesn't attempt anything unless he is passionate about it. He can't script or make up anything. He is as real as they come." Earnhardt also has real estate interests. Besides owning a company, he also has partnerships in two tracks: one in Paducah, Ky., and another in Mobile County, Ala. The Alabama Motorsports Park is under construction and boasts three racing venues: a road course, a karting track and an oval track that's being branded "A Dale Earnhardt Jr. Speedway." Gates at the 2,400-acre complex are expected to be fully operational by 2011. Down to business "Having the right people in the right place to handle the business side of it, because, I mean, I like to do different types of things, but to be honest, my business experience isn't as good, I guess, as my racing experience," Earnhardt admits. "I have to lean on a lot of people, lean on some people's judgment. You put good people in the right place; they'll run those types of deals for you, where you can focus on the racing." Kelley Earnhardt is her younger brother's counselor in all things professional and personal. She is the one woman that can keep him balanced between his two worlds: Dale Jr. the driver and Dale Jr. the entrepreneur. Kelley, who left her career in the licensing industry and took a major pay cut to help Junior in 2001, oversees virtually every contract, project, agreement and appearance Earnhardt makes. "My role grew," she said. "I almost see us as Siamese twins locked at the hip. I'm the one who carries it through and sees it through, because we want him to be able to concentrate on being able to drive." But the balancing act begins on Tuesday. "I try to give him Mondays to get back into this world, our world at JR Motorsports; we don't schedule anything for him on Mondays. And when he is at a race track we try not to talk about business of any certain kind," Kelley said. "We conduct our business during the week, Tuesday and Wednesday, so he has the ability to concentrate on racing." Operating as two different entities can be a challenge and the hats Earnhardt wears tend to stack up and even topple over at times. "Well, you sort of go into it real easy, I guess. I don't know," Earnhardt said. "When I first started doing any type of business venture, even if it was really small, you know, you really worried about how it might affect the driving, because the driving is my real passion and that's what I really like to do. I don't want to affect that in any way, because I want to do that as long as I possibly can. You go into it slow and you learn." Thayer Lavielle, vice president of marketing and brand development for JR Motorpsorts, was hired in 2007 to grow and manage Earnhardt's image and steer the brand in the right direction. "I represent more work to him. At the end of the day, it's a joke; I have a pile of work for him every time he comes in. With that, he's itching to get out of my office and spend hours in the shop with the guys. He and I figured out a way to work together quickly and I understand what makes him tick," said Lavielle, who along with Earnhardt formed the partnership with adidas and the personal clothing line. "We sort of have a tug of war, me and her," Earnhardt said of Lavielle. "She comes up with some great ideas, things that we need to do, some areas that we may have opportunities in, success in. She doesn't really try to change the perception of me and what I think I am, what I like to do, what I like to be, how I like to act, what I choose." Partnering with brands and companies that are true to Earnhardt and his persona is Lavielle's main mission, as well as taking the driver's brand into the future, which means reaching the youth fan base. "We already have a lot of product for kids, but this will be beyond licensed products. We have a lot of different outlets and our own fan club," Lavielle said. "One of the things that is exciting for her, in our sponsorship change in the last year, we're able to drive down a lot more avenues, do a lot more things, especially with the younger adults," Earnhardt said. "So that's exciting for her and we're working in that area a little bit. But for the most part, me and her have a lot of fun. You know, she's definitely a big asset to our company." The Earnhardt product Another asset to Earnhardt's business plans was the 2007 hire of Joe Mattes, who as vice president of licensing at JR Motorsports oversees any and every piece of merchandise with Junior's name or likeness on it. From the tiniest No. 88 earring to the largest two-person tailgating chair and matching tent, Mattes manages and promotes the sale of these items with Earnhardt's approval and input. Mattes first worked with the family in 1995, helping Dale Earnhardt plan, build, and launch his first souvenir company, Sports Image. He knows how great the demand is for the Earnhardt product and respects the position in which Junior finds himself. "We have to keep in mind it's a business, a privilege and responsibility that commands such a significant part of the marketplace, your decisions affect the sport in total," Mattes said. "We also understand we have a responsibility to his sponsors and car owner. Dale Jr. sets the tone." And that tone for this season is being mindful of the economic hardship NASCAR fans are enduring, Mattes said. Products are going to have to be functional in terms of lifestyle products. "We are concentrating on functional licensed products that makes sense for day-to-day needs," he said. The changing market and climate of NASCAR is something Earnhardt must always be aware as each of his business ventures is always tied to his racing career. One might think it takes two very different people to be Earnhardt the entrepreneur and Earnhardt the driver, but really he is one in the same person and operates as such, Kelley Earnhardt said. "He just slides in as Dale Jr. for whatever it is and wherever he is," she said. There are times when two or three different things are going on, a meeting with Big Mo' candy bar and then something else for adidas and he doesn't change. He's very adaptable, he's just Dale Jr." Mattes said it's a trait all successful businessmen possess and one he saw in Dale Earnhardt. "It's the Earnhardt factor. [Junior] does everything right," Mattes said. "He and his sister, Kelley, they've made the right decisions. They've been careful and done the right things." More than that, Earnhardt said, "When you're a businessman you have to make decisions based on common sense and not emotion. It's so easy to choose something on an emotion." When his business began with just one street stock car at Concord Motorsports and the shop was in his backyard, it didn't matter. "When I started things, I could choose everything on emotion, because there were no real repercussions if I failed or if the company failed because we were so small. Well, now we are so big, you can't take those chances," Junior said. You have to choose wisely." Choose wisely and remember "impossible is nothing." "Once you get the ball rolling," he said, "the thing pretty much takes care of itself." Earnhardt Jr. takes on leadership role in NASCAR Dale Earnhardt Jr. never wanted to be the voice of NASCAR, the one getting all the questions and shouldering the responsibility for speaking for teammates, colleagues and everyone else in the garage. “I just wanted to drive, but that’s not all there is to it,” Earnhardt said. Not even close. Earnhardt has figured that out, evidenced by all he’s done leading up the Daytona 500. He took track promoters to task, suggested ways to make races more affordable to fans and even offered to drive for free if his team needed to cut costs in a foundering economy. NASCAR’s most popular driver the last six years, the guy who gained instant fame because of his iconic father and grandfather, has reluctantly accepted his position atop the sport. “I feel like I take a big role in this sport,” Earnhardt said. “I am glad to be part of this sport. I am glad to represent the sport, either on my good days or my bad days. I love being a part of it and whatever I got to shoulder that I feel is fair, I am fine with. If it isn’t fair, I am not fine with it.” Lately, Earnhardt has found more unfair. He ripped track promoters last week for demanding more of drivers’ time to help sell tickets. Bruton Smith, chairman of track conglomerate Speedway Motorsports Inc., and his chief lieutenant, Texas Motor Speedway president Eddie Gossage, criticized drivers for not helping create buzz and fill seats. “That’s not true,” Earnhardt said. “We’re constantly doing things every week for this guy and that guy to help racetracks. … They gotta take a little responsibility for themselves.” Earnhardt’s annoyance started in the offseason, when promoters at Memphis Motorsports Park offered Earnhardt free ribs for life from the track-sponsored barbecue restaurant if he raced in their Nationwide race. Earnhardt was upset they didn’t ask him if they could use his name. He also took exception with billboards in Texas and Las Vegas that offered rewards for something Earnhardt does on the track. “I like those kind of things, but damn, you know, notify us a little bit,” he said. “Let’s get a little more creative.” He thought track owners should do more to try to help fans, too. He suggested they buy or build hotels, so the tracks can control the rising cost of rooms during race events. It’s a farfetched notion, but it shows how much Earnhardt wants to see change in a sport struggling to sell tickets at nearly every racing venue. “I just wish it was easier to go see a race, and I want the fans to have whatever they want,” Earnhardt said. “You remember how it was 10 years ago? It seemed like nobody was really complaining about little things like camper parking and traffic, the cost of a parking pass for the infield. Now, these are big issues for some reason. They have to figure out how to fix that.” Some thought his move from Dale Earnhardt Inc. to Hendrick Motorsports before last season might prevent him from ever taking on a leadership role. Would team owner Rick Hendrick try to turn Earnhardt into a clone of clean-cut, rarely controversial drivers Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon? “From the very first time we talked, I told him, ‘Be yourself. We want you to be comfortable being you and we won’t change you.”’ Hendrick said. “That’s what the attraction is to him. When you get around him, you find out what a neat person he is and you find out why the people gravitate toward him. “This sport needs him. The sport needs him to be Junior and what really impresses me about him is if you try to insinuate that he needs to be like his daddy, he’ll tell you quickly, ‘I’m not my daddy. He’s one guy and I’m somebody else.’ He’s real comfortable in his skin.” It wasn’t always that way. Junior didn’t want to be responsible for speaking for anyone other than himself. But when your last name is Earnhardt—his father was seven-time NASCAR champion Dale Earnhardt and his grandfather was short-track sensation Ralph Earnhardt—you don’t really have a choice. Everyone in the garage area looks to him to lead the way. “I am not telling anyone how to do their job,” Earnhardt said. “I have an opinion and you all asked me what it was. If people agree, they agree. If they don’t agree then they don’t agree. I am not the damn voice of reason by no means.” Maybe not, but new teammate Mark Martin said Earnhardt has “the broadest, strongest shoulders of anybody probably ever in NASCAR.” Earnhardt might be able to ease the load with a championship. He has 18 Cup victories in nine full seasons, but has just three wins the last four years. With all the hype that surrounded his move to Hendrick last season, in many ways he failed to meet expectations. He made the Chase for the championship (started fourth) but finished 12th. Earnhardt feels much more comfortable this season and believes that if a few things go his way, the voice of NASCAR could become a champion of NASCAR. “We kind of have an idea that we are a pretty good team,” he said. “We make a few adjustments, do some things right, catch a few breaks and we are a great team. We are going to try and make that happen this year. I feel pretty comfortable though, no real worries.” Daytona 500 heroes meet SI Swimsuit Issue models It looks like a scene at a high school dance. Boys huddle in a corner, joking while trying to ignore the unignorable on the other side of the room: beautiful girls waiting for an introduction. Soon, those introductions are made and the "boys" -- NASCAR stars Dale Earnhardt Jr., Clint Bowyer and Martin Truex Jr. -- mingle with the girls. After all, it's not every day that you get to meet top Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue models like Brooklyn Decker and Julie Henderson for USA WEEKEND's annual NASCAR cover/poster issue. Spirits are high, given what's kicked off this week: the Budweiser Shootout and other racing events leading to the Daytona 500 on Sunday, and the swimsuit issue, which hits newsstands on Tuesday. Earnhardt confesses that, like the 500, the swimsuit issue was an irreplaceable part of his formative years. "It's an icon," Earnhardt said at the shoot, which took place at the Richard Petty Driving Experience headquarters in Concord, N.C. "A lot of women have become very famous because of it. My all-time favorite would have to be Tyra Banks." Both events could not come at a more opportune time: It's cold. The Super Bowl is history. March Madness is a month away. Then, for one wonderful week, we get a reprieve as welcome as a beach blanket under the Florida sun: fast cars, beautiful women and tropical beaches. "You can bet that it was a great day in Kansas when that issue arrived," said Bowyer, who hails from Emporia, Kan. "You went right to your mailbox to see who got on the cover. But whether they made the cover or not, every model looked great, and the photography was always excellent. The swimsuit issue is just a great tradition." Added Truex: "It was a huge honor. They only chose three drivers and I was happy to be one of the three. I didn't know what to expect working with super models and it ended up being really cool. In fact by the end of the shoot they were just one of the guys." Raised in Charlotte, Decker realizes how big this week is for race fans. "Cars get decked out with the drivers' stickers and flags," she says. "All the storefronts would get decorated, and the kids in school get their faces painted in their favorite racer's color scheme." So start the engines, folks, and break out the sunscreen while you're at it. It's going to be a great week. Factoids • About our models: Brooklyn Decker is making her fourth appearance in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. She is engaged to tennis star Andy Roddick, who also attended our photo shoot. This is the third appearance in the swimsuit issue for Julie Henderson. • About our drivers: Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Clint Bowyer made NASCAR's championship run, now known as the Chase for the Sprint Cup, last year, and Bowyer and Martin Truex Jr. made it in 2007. Earnhardt has received the Most Popular Driver Award -- as voted by fans -- six consecutive times. • Who's been on the swimsuit issue cover: Tyra Banks, Christie Brinkley, Rachel Hunter, Kathy Ireland, Heidi Klum, Beyonce Knowles, Elle Macpherson, Marisa Miller, Petra Nemcova, Paulina Porizkova, Rebecca Romijn and Cheryl Tiegs. Daytona A Healing Experience for Junior When it comes to the Budweiser Shootout, the leaf doesn't fall far from the tree. The late Dale Earnhardt dominated what began as the Busch Clash before it was renamed in 1998, winning six times in the first 17 episodes of what has become a staple of Speedweeks at Daytona International Speedway since it began in 1979. Like father, like son. Dale Earnhardt Jr. has picked up the Shootout knack from his late father and has won twice since 2003, including last year's emotional triumph in his first race for Hendrick Motorsports. Even though the Shootout is a non-points race, it still carries a great deal of significance for Earnhardt Jr., not only because he approaches it like any other race -- he wants to win -- but also because it reminds him of his father's success in the Clash/Shootout. Even now, nearly eight years following his late father's tragic death in a crash on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500, not one day goes by that Junior doesn't think of his father. "Yep, every day, because that was part of my life," Junior said. "He was an awesome SOB." Junior's angst that it was here at DIS that his father lost his life at the far too young age of 49 has softened over the ensuing eight years. Instead of being angry or holding a grudge at the track, Junior now uses every return visit here as a memorial of sorts to his father, feeling that the best way to remember him is to emulate some of his feats. "I think about him the same way you would, just in conversation, something he did, something cool he did on the track, something he won or how he won it or what he said," Earnhardt said. "(I) think about that all the time." That's why Earnhardt is excited to attempt to defend his victory in last year's Shootout. He went on to win one of the two Twin 150 races a few days after that, only to watch his performance in the regular season be far different -- mediocre at best. "I'd grade last year about a C," Earnhardt said. "I was a little disappointed in how it ended -- pretty disappointed, actually. We should have done a lot better in the Chase. I anticipated being stronger in the Chase, and we weren't nowhere near as good." Some critics said the reason Earnhardt failed to impress last season was going from a relaxed atmosphere at the company his late father founded, Dale Earnhardt Inc., to a more buttoned-down, businesslike tone at Hendrick Motorsports. In so doing, Junior might have tried to overcompensate in shifting from a free-wheeling, easy-going type to more of a stiff, tense persona. "I think tense wouldn't be the way to describe it," Earnhardt said. "I was nervous but not tense. Tense, to me, is a sort of a negative nervous. I was apprehensive and excited, but I was unsure in some areas -- where now I know I've got an idea of what to expect and how well I feel we may be able to perform." The first-year jitters and nervousness of his highly publicized move from DEI to HMS for the 2008 season are long gone. "I feel a little more comfortable and a little less concerned," Earnhardt said. Earnhardt feels so much more comfortable coming into his sophomore season for HMS that he's making a bold prediction about Saturday night's race. "I think I am the man to beat," Earnhardt said with no hesitation in his voice. "They have put more cars in the race (28 cars, with six representatives of each of the four major manufacturers as well as four wild-card entries), which makes it more of a challenge. It sort of lessens everyone's odds a little bit. "It is going to be quite a challenge. You just have to put yourself in the right position at the end. I feel like I know what to do." Tony Stewart couldn't have said it better. "(Junior) always has been the guy here," Stewart said. "He's picked up where his father left off as a restrictor-plate driver. He knows the air very well." But Earnhardt doesn't want another Shootout win if it means he'll go on to another mediocre season like last year, when he won just one race -- even though it broke a 76-race winless streak -- and finished last (12th) in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. "We need to do better than that, but I don't really know what to put my finger on for what we need to do better," he said. "We just need to show up at the race track and see what's up and how we do." Rather, he's hoping to do in 2009 what he wasn't able to do in 2008: use a win in the Shootout as a springboard toward a potential championship-contending season. "The last three years, I haven't really done the things that I thought I would be doing and haven't competed like I felt I should be competing," Earnhardt said. "I felt like I was on an upswing ever since I started in the Cup Series in 2000 all the way to 2004. "I made some choices and I let some other people make some choices and I started to go in the wrong direction performance-wise. That has been the biggest hurdle to try to get over. The biggest thing is to try to reverse it." Indeed, Earnhardt has ridden a roller-coaster of results since his first win in the Shootout, in 2003. He finished third that season, fifth in 2004, suffered through the most miserable season of his career to date in 2005 (finished 19th and missed the Chase), rebounded to fifth in 2006, missed the Chase again in 2007 (finished 16th) and, even though he made the Chase last season, was never a factor. The driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet Impala can't wait for the green flag to drop Saturday night. He's more than ready -- not just to earn a third Shootout victory, but also to kick off a season that he hopes will make last year a distant memory. "We kind of have an idea that we are a pretty good team," Earnhardt said. "We make a few adjustments, do some things right, catch a few breaks and we are a great team. We are going to try to make that happen this year. I feel pretty comfortable -- no real worries." From one Junior to the other: 'I've got your back' Whenever new members join the family that is the No. 88 Chevrolet team of Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Hendrick Motorsports, crew chief Tony Eury Jr. welcomes them with a stern warning. "You guys are going to get more attention, you're going to get talked about more, when you do wrong you're going to get that magnified. When you do good, that's going to get magnified, too -- but you've got to be able to take both, because you're going to get both. It's not going to be one or the other. Both of 'em are coming, so just be prepared," Eury said he tells the new recruits. If anyone knows about all that, it should be Eury. The two Juniors not only are cousins, but they have been longtime companions at the race track. They spent eight seasons together at Dale Earnhardt Inc., the first six with Eury as Earnhardt's car chief and the last two with Eury serving as crew chief for the No. 8 Chevy Earnhardt used to drive. They moved to Hendrick together last year, along with high expectations. They started strong, winning both the Budweiser Shootout and Gatorade Duel non-points events during season-opening Daytona Speedweeks. But after winning at Michigan last June to break a 76-race winless streak, and spending most of the first half of the season second in the standings, the Juniors faded in the second half of the season. They didn't win another race and eventually dropped all the way to 11th in the final standings after faltering badly down the stretch in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. Much of the blame for the swoon was laid at Eury's toolbox by fans and media -- if not by Earnhardt, who continues to say he stands by his crew chief. And no one likes to spread the blame for Earnhardt's shortcomings like the faithful of Junior Nation. "Well, I've tried to put that to rest. I've tried and tried and tried. I give up, really, on putting it to rest," Earnhardt said. "I feel so bad for Tony Jr. because he's just trying to make a living. He never asked for this. I don't know if I would be as strong as he is, to put up with all the criticism he has to put up with. I don't think I would be." Eury said he is fine and he understands that it comes with the territory. "Most of the time I'm doing all right. You're always going to have criticism. I just try to take it as constructive criticism," said Eury, who has been in charge on the pit box for only two of Earnhardt's 18 career Cup wins. "One thing I've always said is if you give 110 percent, that's all that matters. I've really only got two people that I need to make happy -- and that's Dale Jr. and Rick Hendrick. As long as they're happy with the job I'm doing, I feel like I'm doing my job. "If they aren't happy, I would hope that they would have enough respect for me to come up and tell me they don't think I'm doing my job. A lot of it that's out there on the Internet or whatever, you just don't read it and don't worry about it." Like Earnhardt, Eury said he expects better results from the No. 88 team in 2009. "I think we're getting better and better the longer we're in this deal together. When he first stepped into the [88] car, I think he had some jitterbugs about how it was going to be around Jimmie [Johnson] and how it was going to be around Jeff [Gordon], and some things like that," Eury said. "And I'm still learning my way around here, too. We're still bringing in some people that we think might be able to help us out in certain situations. "I'm just looking forward to getting started. I think this year is going to be better than last year, and I think the whole team is starting to gel together. I'm really looking forward to it. I'm ready to go." Earnhardt admitted he was frustrated by the way last season's high hopes gradually faded into the sunset without the end results to match them. He also sounded like he was more than a little mystified by it. "We threw away probably two or three races there in the first half of the season when we were running well enough to win. The second half of the season, we never really were around to compete for wins. We had a few good runs, but we weren't up in the top five consistently like we were the first half of the season," Earnhardt said. "The first half of the season, we were leading, running in the top five every week, doing a real good job in the points. But then that just sort of went away." As it went away, the criticism of Eury and the entire team intensified. "I don't get too bothered by it," Earnhardt said. "I don't really mind criticism coming from the fans. It's tougher when it comes from the media, because it just makes you wonder. It's hard coming from a reporter or a certain individual, because the fans trust you guys [in the media] to give them the truth and a good story, and normally they believe everything you write. "But coming from the fans, you know you can't please everybody. You just try to be yourself. You don't know if that's going to work or not. I can handle the criticism of the driver, because I'm having a pretty good time. But sometimes I wonder whether Tony Jr. is always having a good time -- and half the time, he's probably not because we're not running the way he wants. And he takes that personally." Eury insisted that he still has fun -- most of the time, anyway. "When it becomes not fun for me anymore, then I think I'll go look to do something else," he said. "But as long as I'm having fun doing it, I'll keep doing it. The day I don't, I'll quit." He said he has some goals in mind for 2009 that hopefully will quiet his and the team's many critics. "You always set your goals high. Basically, you just want to do better than you did last year. I think we had the chance to win three or four races last year, and we only won one of those. The first thing I'd like to do is fix those and win the ones we're in position to win," he said. "And definitely we want to have a better Chase. First we want to make the Chase again, and then we want to make sure we have a better Chase than we had last year." Meanwhile, he insists he can take the heat so he'll stay in the kitchen -- or in this case, on top of Earnhardt's pit box. "Nothing has surprised me as far as the attention we get as a team or I get as an individual because it's been like that since Day One," Eury said. "Everything has been magnified since he was back in the Busch [Series] days. You kind of get immune to it, and used to it. "You know if you have a bad pit stop, they're going to wear you out about it. If someone else has one, it's not as big a deal. And that's just part of the game. That's part of being with the most popular driver, taking it on the chin sometimes. That's what I tell our guys when I bring 'em in here." Junior looks to shake off '08, build on his successes This time, for once, Jimmie Johnson followed the lead of Dale Earnhardt Jr. But growing a beard during the Sprint Cup Series offseason is small-time stuff. It's Earnhardt who wants more of what Johnson has as the three-time defending champion in NASCAR's top series. Last year, during his first season as a teammate with Johnson and four-time champion Jeff Gordon at Hendrick Motorsports, Earnhardt got off to his own fast start, only to fade at the finish in 2008. After running second in points much of the season and entering the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship seeded fourth out of the 12 drivers who qualified, one poor finish after another during the Chase's 10 races sent Earnhardt tumbling all the way to 11th in the final standings. Asked to grade himself and the No. 88 Chevrolet team on the season, Professor Earnhardt did not hold back. "It was about a 'C.' I was little disappointed in how it ended -- pretty disappointed, actually," he said. "We should have done a lot better in the Chase. I anticipated being a little stronger in the Chase, but we weren't. We weren't as good as any of us had hoped." Even now, going on three months later, Earnhardt said he is not sure why. "We didn't finish good in the Chase. We need to do better in that. But I don't really know what to put my finger on exactly what we should do better," said Earnhardt, whose highest finish in a season's final standings is third way back in 2003. "We'll just have to show up at the race track and see what's up, see if we can do better." It should help that he has a year under his belt at Hendrick Motorsports. Earnhardt admitted that last year he was just a little uneasy, stepping into a new situation with a new team and a new employer after driving for Dale Earnhardt Inc. -- the company founded by his father -- for the first nine seasons of his Cup career. "I was nervous, but not tense coming into last year. Tense is sort of a negative term to me," Earnhardt said. "I was apprehensive and excited, just a little unsure and uncertain in some areas, whereas now I have a real good idea of what to expect and how well we may be able to do." Expectations always are high for Earnhardt, simply because of his last name. New Hendrick teammate Mark Martin said he finds it remarkable that Earnhardt bears the burden of those expectations -- and the scrutiny of fans and media -- as well as he does. "I look at Dale Earnhardt Jr. and I see, honestly, the strongest set of shoulders in NASCAR," Martin said. "Not many race car drivers could shoulder the weight that he carries as being NASCAR's most popular driver and just being Dale Earnhardt Jr." Despite winning only one race last season -- a victory that broke a 76-race winless drought -- Earnhardt continues to be the sport's most popular driver with the fans, hands down. He was voted Most Popular Driver by them for the sixth consecutive season in 2008. He said he doesn't take that popularity lightly or for granted. "I really appreciate the award. And having received it for a few years in a row, it's meant a lot to me that the fans appreciate us like they do and support us like they do," Earnhardt said. "We've put them through a lot over the last several years, and they've stuck by us. "It means a lot to me, and it motivates me. The fans are a huge motivational factor. When you go to the race track and you're standing there, getting ready to get in the car, and you've got a lot of 'em on your side, it boosts your work ethic and makes you want to go out there and try your best." He added that he expects his best this year to be better than what his best turned out to be a year ago. Reminded of the grade he gave himself and the team, Junior was asked what it would take to earn an 'A' this season. "Half a dozen wins. I sort of put that five- to six-win mark as a really extraordinary, excellent, exciting season. And typically that will put you right in the Chase," Earnhardt replied. "Every year you raise your expectations. I never set specific goals, but you definitely don't want to do the same or worse than the year before. "We've got to get it done eventually, and this year would be just as good as any. I definitely think we got out there last year and ran good for the most part, especially the first half of the season. But when the chips are on the table, we're not getting it done. When the Chase started, we didn't get it done. We ran second in points the first half of the season. We've got to fix where it went wrong -- whatever and wherever that is. "I don't think it's one or two tiny things. But I don't think it's a big fix that's required, either. I think it's a couple of tweaks here and there and some patience, and a little more professionalism, and we'll be fine." Countdown to Daytona - Junior Nation Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s debut season with Hendrick Motorsports exploded out of the gate at Daytona with wins in his first two races, but sputtered to a disappointing conclusion in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, where he dropped to the 12th and final spot among the Chase drivers. Now for some drivers, that would mean wholesale changes on the team, and Internet chat boards have buzzed for years that Earnhardt will never win a championship without getting a crew chief who isn’t a blood relative and therefore doesn’t have the kind of combustible relationship that Earnhardt and his cousin Tony Eury Jr. have. Not that Eury is deficient as a crew chief, mind you, it’s just that he and Earnhardt tend to be pushing each other hard — too hard, some might suggest. But anyone expecting big changes from Earnhardt and the rest of the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports team is likely to be disappointed. Always someone fiercely loyal to his inside circle of family and friends, Earnhardt will have Eury atop his pit box again this season, with most of the team intact as well. Still, NASCAR’s perennial most popular driver will be hoping for better results this time out. Earnhardt began the 2008 season with victories in the Budweiser Shootout and his Gatorade Duel 150 qualifying race, both at Daytona International Speedway. During NASCAR’s 26-race regular season, Earnhardt cracked the top five in points after the spring race at Bristol Motor Speedway and stayed there for 23 consecutive races, despite winning only once in that stretch. On the other hand, Earnhardt’s Chase run was a disaster for the most part. After a solid fifth-place effort at Loudon, N.H., to open NASCAR’s playoff round, Earnhardt finished 24, 13th, 28th and 36th in the next four races. Worse yet, a wheel-bearing failure in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway resulted in a 41st-place finish in the race and a 12th-place result in the Chase. “When the season is coming to an end it's like a double-edged sword,” says Earnhardt. “It's just like it is when the season is getting ready to start: Part of you wants to keep going and part of you is ready for some time off. At the end of last year you don't want to end the season on a bad note like we did with a part failure. We certainly would have liked to have gotten a top 10. I would have been able to settle with that a lot more easier than I did with how we finished. It's very bittersweet to make the Chase and to have run well the first half of the season and to have such a struggle especially with the Chase there at the end.” Earnhardt said the NASCAR-mandated lack of testing ought to play into the hands of the powerhouse Hendrick organization, which has won eight NASCAR Sprint Cup championships since 1995 and has deeper pockets than any other team with the possible exception of Roush Fenway Racing. “We have all the technology, all the things, all the engineers, all the stuff we need to really simulate testing, have an idea of what the cars are going to do, how they're going to react, so we should show up in the ballpark,” said Earnhardt. “ It should be an advantage for us, due to the technology and personnel we have that can simulate and guesstimate where we are and get us in the ballpark when we show up for the racetrack.” And Earnhardt said his No. 88 squad doesn’t need a new crew chief or much of anything else. “I feel confident in my team, confident in my crew chief, my owner and everything,” he said. One change Earnhardt does welcome for 2009 is new teammate Mark Martin, a man who Earnhardt has known since he was a young boy and his father was dueling with Martin for championships. “I am glad he is here,” Earnhardt said of Martin. “He is an awesome race car driver. He's going to be fast and he's going to be hard to beat, but he's going to bring a lot to the table, too. Just like being able to work closely with Jeff (Gordon) and Jimmie (Johnson) last year was exciting, it's going to be exciting to work with Mark on a teammate basis. I am looking forward to that.” So where will Earnhardt finish this year? It depends on whether he and Eury can finish the season more like the start of 2008 and less like the end of it. “I was real happy how we started the season,” said Earnhardt. “The first half of the year was great. We were second in points, we ran great right out of the box. We were actually one of the better teams in our stable for the first couple, two, three months. Then the last half of the season was a steady stream of disappointments, especially in the Chase. I was very disappointed with how we ran, but the whole team was. I was not disappointed in any one individual or anything, we just didn't get it done. We damn sure didn't get it done.” Top 20 countdown: No. 11 Dale Earnhardt Jr. 2008 finish: 12th 2009 outlook: Dale Earnhardt Jr. comes into 2009 riding as high as ever thanks to his immense popularity. His fame spreads far and wide; your non-NASCAR-following grandmother knows who he is, if only because she’s seen him fight a gorilla or carry a camel in commercials. Problem is, there are no Chase points available for filming commercials, and there are no gorillas to fight on the track. Back in the early ’00s, when Earnhardt Jr. finished in the top 10 in three out of four years, it appeared he had ascended to his rightful place atop NASCAR. Since then, though, he’s been caught and passed – very much literally – by the likes of Jimmie Johnson, Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch. Obviously Junior isn’t going anywhere anytime soon; he’s far too popular and he still has plenty of skill behind the wheel. But nobody’s doing him any favors on the track because of his name. He got something of a mulligan year in 2008 thanks to his switch to a new team, but that honeymoon is over. This season, Rick Hendrick is going to expect more than just a fuel-mileage win out of Earnhardt Jr., which is how he claimed his only victory in 2008. And fans aren’t going to put up with much more of Junior turning the other cheek, as he did after Busch spun him with three laps to go at Richmond. In short, there are no more excuses for Earnhardt Jr. It’s time to fight. It’s time to win. What you need to know: In the past four seasons, Junior has finished 19th, fifth, 16th, and 12th. Over that same period, he has exactly three wins. At some point, somebody’s going to have to start asking some hard questions of Junior. Junior Wants To Meet Obama Dale Earnhardt Jr. said Wednesday that he was disappointed that he was unable to attend Tuesday’s inauguration of President Barack Obama, but hoped the two could meet at some point in the future. Earnhardt said he welcomed Obama’s arrival as leader of the most powerful nation in the free world. “I’m as excited as everybody else is,” Earnhardt said during the Hendrick Motorsports stop on the Sprint Media Tour presented by Lowe’s Motor Speedway. “I wish I could have been there for the inauguration. That would have been nice. Wish I could have been there, but I was pretty busy.” Like many Americans, Earnhardt has serious concerns about the economy. He recently was forced to cut back the employment levels at his JR Motorsports NASCAR Nationwide Series team due to a lack of sponsorship. “I feel like we all understand that we’re in a difficult situation, and even more than that, the people with the bailouts and stuff, it hasn’t totally fixed everything,” said Earnhardt. “Chevrolet is saying that by the end of March, they could again be out of money. We’ve still got a long ways to go, and we’ve still got a lot of different areas that could get uglier. Hopefully, we’ll all survive the worst of it.” Despite the woeful economy — or perhaps because of it — the third-generation racer is hoping to someday connect with President Obama. “I’d love to meet the new president,” said Earnhardt. “That would be a great honor of mine. (I’m) positively as excited as everybody else.” Junior Glad Daytona Near Like his father, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has always excelled at restrictor-plate racing, so it’s no surprise that the younger Earnhardt is fired up about next month’s Budweiser Shootout and the Daytona 500. Earnhardt is the defending Bud Shootout winner, having triumphed last year in his first race with Hendrick Motorsports, and he will be one of the favorites in the Daytona 500 this time around. Earnhardt was at the fabled 2.5-mile speedway last weekend for Daytona’s annual fan fest, and that was enough to get him in the mood to go racing again. “Just being around the racetrack today has been exciting, truly, to drive in and see the banks and the school cars going around, to sit here with the trophy and see some of the press and some of the other drivers really sort of gets your blood boiling a little bit and gets you excited about coming back and getting going,” Earnhardt said Saturday at DIS. “I'm looking forward to just getting in the car for the first time and that will be in drafting practice for the Shootout soon, and I'm looking forward to getting two or three laps in and getting excited and seeing how good our stuff is, and hopefully it's really, really good and we're very, very happy.” On balance, Earnhardt had a successful first season with Hendrick Motorsports in 2008, winning one race, earning 10 top-five and 16 top-10 finishes. But he faded badly in the second half of the season and that’s what he and his crew chief and cousin Tony Eury Jr. will be looking to reverse this season. “As far as last year, I mean, I was real happy how we started the season,” Earnhardt said. “The first half of the year was great. We were second in points, we ran great right out of the box. We were actually one of the better teams in our stable for the first couple, two, three months. Then the last half of the season was a steady stream of disappointments, especially in the Chase. I was very disappointed with how we ran, but the whole team was. I was not disappointed in any one individual or anything, we just — we just didn't get it done. We damn sure didn't get it done.” And that, Earnhardt said, was tough to cope with. “You know, that was frustrating not to be able to compete like we did at the start of the year, because we always work hard, and I always try to drive really hard,” he said. One thing Earnhardt isn’t looking forward to this year is the new format change in the Budweiser Shootout. “I don't like the new format,” he said. “You had a race for guys who won poles, you had a race for guys who won races in the middle of the season, and now neither one of those are hardly recognizable. … It just sucks because I'm such a historian of the sport, and I just like all the history and I like all the cool things about the history, and I like looking back on the guys who were in this race in the '80s and '90s and why they were in it and how they got in it and who missed it the next year and made it the next year.” JR Motorsports adds Fastenal as sponsor for 5 JR Motorsports on Friday announced it has secured additional sponsorship backing for its No. 5 entry in the Nationwide Series with Fastenal, North America's largest fastener distributor and one of the world's fastest-growing full-line industrial suppliers. The newly formed partnership will continue Fastenal's presence in the Nationwide Series for the second consecutive year. Fastenal will be the primary sponsor of the No. 5 Chevrolet for 14 races, bringing the team's total number of races in 2009 to 21. The partnership will kick off at Texas on April 4 with team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. behind the wheel. Earnhardt will make one other start in the No. 5 at Daytona in July. Fastenal joins Unilever (four races), GoDaddy.com (two races), and Delphi (one race) as primary sponsors of the No. 5 team in 2009. "Everyone here at Fastenal is thrilled to be working with Dale Jr. and JR Motorsports to help continue the success of the No. 5 team," Fastenal president and CEO Will Oberton said. "We're looking forward to a great year on the track, and an opportunity to associate the Fastenal brand with one of the most popular drivers in the history of motorsports." Additional drivers and races for the No. 5 team will be announced at a later date. The No. 5 team earned two victories last year, with Mark Martin winning at Las Vegas and Ron Fellows winning at Montreal. "We've worked really hard putting a program together that will keep this No. 5 car on the track, and we are extremely pleased to bring Fastenal into the JR Motorsports fold for 2009," Earnhardt said. "This team was a two-time winner last season, and I feel all the pieces are in place to keep that momentum going." Make no bones about it: Memphis wants Dale Jr. Dale Earnhardt Jr. likes Memphis ribs. So much so that he has a steady supply FedEx'd to his home in North Carolina. His affinity for the city's most sought-after cuisine was obvious during a repeat episode this month of MTV's Cribs. It is unclear, however, when Earnhardt developed a taste for Memphis barbeque. In his only race at Memphis Motorsports Park, the inaugural Sam's Town 250 on Oct. 31, 1999, Earnhardt drove the No. 3 Chevrolet to a runner-up finish behind Jeff Green. Junior also ran during a 2003 Cup Series test session at the track, and his JR Motorsports teams have competed in the Nationwide Series event at Memphis for three years in a row, with a best finish of fifth by Shane Huffman in the No. 88 in 2006. In an attempt to entice Earnhardt back to the track, Memphis Motorsports Park is extending a standing offer of a lifetime supply of Memphis ribs in exchange for a one-time competitive run in the track's fall Nationwide Series race on Oct. 24. (The Cup Series is at Martinsville that weekend.) Pig-N-Whistle is the Official Barbeque Restaurant of Memphis Motorsports Park. There has not been a reply from Earnhardt or JR Motorsports regarding the offer. For more information or to order season tickets, call 1-866-40-SPEED or visit www.MemphisMotorsportsPark.com. Junior Ready To Roll Dale Earnhardt Jr. said Saturday that the Sprint Sound & Speed Presented by SunTrust festival in Nashville is the perfect way to get ready to begin the long, 36-race odyssey that is the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup season. Earnhardt was in Nashville Saturday for the annual racing and country music event, which benefits the Victory Junction Gang Camp and the Country Music Hall of Fame. “The fun part for me is that this is the first interaction with the race fans in several months,” said Earnhardt, who is perennially NASCAR’s most popular driver. “And they’ll tell you how excited they are about the season. They’ll tell you about how they want you to have a good year. They’ll tell you about how they met you last year, or whatever. It sort of gets you back in the feeling of going back to the race track, getting you excited about going back to the race track. That’s the funnest part for me.” Over the winter, Earnhardt took his uncles, Robert and Jimmy Gee, and his cousin and crew chief, Tony Eury Jr., deer hunting in Missouri, but now it’s time to get back to business. “You sit around and you’ve got a couple of months off and you really get used to being a bum and then this really starts to bring you back to getting to the race track,” Earnhardt said of the Sprint event. “I’m excited about going racing in Daytona, but this is really a little bit of a tease, you know? You’re kind of ready to get there now. Coming out here and doing this, obviously, you get to meet some new people from the country and western world and the music world. You get to see some old friends that you haven’t seen all winter.” But the big thing, Earnhardt said, is the fan interaction. “Just hearing the fans telling you about how excited they are, sort of gets you excited,” he said. Earnhardt said he’s ready for the 2009 season and he thinks the absence of testing will play into the strengths of Hendrick Motorsports, with its vast engineering and financial resources. “We have all the technology, all the things, all the engineers, all the stuff we need to really simulate testing, have an idea of what the cars are going to do, how they’re going to react, so we should show up in the ballpark,” said Earnhardt. “It should be an advantage for us, due to the technology and personnel we have that can simulate and guesstimate where we are and get us in the ballpark when we show up at the race track.” Preseason Thunder set: Fan Fests on Jan. 16-17 Race fans will receive a sneak peek of DIRECTV Speedweeks 2009 as well as the new racing season on Jan. 16-17 with the annual NASCAR Preseason Thunder Fan Fests at historic Daytona International Speedway. Fans can get their racing fix prior to Speedweeks and the Daytona 500 with numerous activities with their favorite drivers from the Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Camping World Truck series in the Sprint FanZone located in the heart of the World Center of Racing. Among the activities planned for both days include: • Interactive fan forums • Autograph sessions • Show cars, displays, music • Online auction • Blood drive In addition, the Richard Petty Driving Experience will be on track with ride and driving packages available. The ride-only packages can be purchased on-site while the driving packages must be purchased in advance at 1-800-BE-PETTY. Tickets, which go on sale at 9 a.m. ET Saturday, are $15 with autograph session availability limited to only 100 people per driver in advance. To purchase tickets and request access to the special autograph sessions, call 1-800-PITSHOP. Drivers scheduled to make appearances beginning at 6 p.m. Jan. 16 include Ryan Newman, Tony Stewart, Jeff Burton, Kyle Busch, Reed Sorenson, Aric Almirola, Casey Mears, Greg Biffle, Travis Kvapil, David Gilliland, Mike Skinner and Jon Wes Townley. Scheduled to appear during the noon-4 p.m. session on Jan. 17 include Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards, Mark Martin, Denny Hamlin, David Ragan, Colin Braun, Erik Darnell, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Paul Menard and Alex Garcia. In the 4-8 p.m. session on Jan. 17, drivers scheduled to appear include Dale Earnhardt Jr., Michael Waltrip, Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski and Ron Hornaday. Additional drivers and more details about the NASCAR Preseason Thunder Fan Fests will be released in the coming weeks. Junior Looks For Answers By his own admission, Dale Earnhardt Jr. didn’t finish the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup season the way he would have liked to. In his first year at Hendrick Motorsports, NASCAR’s perennial most-popular driver began the year strongly, winning the Budweiser Shootout and one of the Gatorade Duel 150 qualifying races, both at Daytona International Speedway. Earnhardt spent 22 of the 26 races in NASCAR’s regular season ranked between second and fourth in points, giving him cause for optimism about his prospects in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. A fifth-place finish in the Chase opener at Loudon, N.H., reinforced that optimism, leading him to believe that this might be his breakthrough season. From there, though, things quickly went downhill, with Earnhardt finishing 20th or worse in five of the final nine Chase races, including a 36th-place run at Lowe’s Motor Speedway and a 41st at the season-ending race at Homestead-Miami Speedway. That dropped Earnhardt to 12th and last among the Chase drivers. Still, Earnhardt said he plans to approach 2009 the way he did this past season. “I don’t change anything,” Earnhardt said. “They’re changing some stuff within the team, personnel-wise, within the pit crew and everything. But I’ll be ready to do my job just like I did last year, when it’s time to show up. I feel confident in my team, confident in my crew chief, my owner and everything. Everything’s going to be ready to go.” Earnhardt’s toughest challenge very like will be within his own team. If he is to fulfill his goal of winning a Sprint Cup championship, he’ll have to knock of Jimmie Johnson, who has won the last three titles, and Earnhardt admits that will be tough. Asked what it would take to dethrone Johnson, Earnhardt said, “Being perfect. Being damn near perfect. He’s hard to beat when it comes down to it.” What particularly impressed Earnhardt was how Johnson and his crew finished the season. “When the Chase started, them guys shifted a gear,” said Earnhardt. “They ran like we hadn’t seen ‘em run all year. It’s pure talent.” Earnhardt Jr. wins Chex most popular driver award NASCAR fans across the nation have once again made a statement about their favorite driver. After tallying more than one million votes, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is the recipient of the 2008 NASCAR NMPA Chex Most Popular Driver award. Throughout the race season, fans voted daily for more than 40 of their favorite drivers online. Earnhardt Jr. was presented with the award Thursday at the National Motorsports Press Association's Myers Brothers media luncheon in New York. The award is Earnhardt Jr.'s sixth consecutive win since 2003. Only Bill Elliott (1991-2000) has more consecutive wins. The NASCAR NMPA Chex Most Popular Driver award has been given annually since 1956 and today is the only award for NASCAR's top drivers given by the fans. The six wins by Earnhardt Jr. moved him past Bobby Allison and now only behind Richard Petty (9) and Bill Elliott (16) for most total awards. "I've been fortunate enough to win this award now for the sixth time, and I can tell you it never gets old." Earnhardt Jr. said. "I've said it many times before that this award is special because it's the voice of the fans. "I think back to [more than] a year ago when I made the decision to go to Hendrick Motorsports, and my biggest concern was whether the fans would support my decision. They did, and I will always be grateful for that. I appreciate everyone who voted, and I want to thank Chex and the National Motorsports Press Association for all they do for the sport." "The fans have spoken, and it's obvious that Dale Earnhardt Jr. truly is amongst the elite of fans' support," said Tom Jensen, president of the National Motorsports Press Association. "He deserves this award, and we're thankful for all the fans who continue to vote and make this award a rich part of our sports history." The top 10 drivers receiving the most votes in alphabetical order were Dale Earnhardt Jr., Carl Edwards, Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson, Kasey Kahne, Matt Kenseth, Bobby Labonte, Tony Stewart and Michael Waltrip. Junior's twin worlds of popularity, performance The official awards banquet isn't until Friday night, but that didn't stop Jimmie Johnson from adding to his trophy collection one day early. At NASCAR's annual Myers Brothers Media Luncheon, the three-time champion received an award for leading the most laps. He received an award for winning the most poles. His crew chief won an award, his pit crew won an award, his sponsor won an award, even one of his engine builders won an award. And Dale Earnhardt Jr. upstaged them all with one thing. Facial hair. Lots of it. "I called him 'Mountain Man' when I first saw it," Jeff Gordon said of the Grizzly Adams-like growth sported by his Henrdrick Motorsports teammate. Hey, Junior is going hunting with some of his uncles in a few days. And he had never grown a beard before. "I figured, I'd see what happened," Earnhardt said. "I got through the itching and I was all right." Besides, it's not like the guy has to be all clean-cut for the annual year-end awards ceremony, a black-tie affair held within the refined, opulent environs of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Despite making the Chase after a one-year absence, despite winning a race to snap that 76-event winless skid, Earnhardt isn't on the program for Friday night. His late-season swoon relegated him to 12th in the Sprint Cup standings, and only the top 10 appear on stage. Junior was in New York on Thursday to pick up his sixth consecutive most popular driver award, a trophy only Bill Elliott (16 times) and Richard Petty (nine times) have won more. It was one of those moments when Earnhardt's popularity and performance, not always directly proportional, stood side-by-side. Clearly, there is no driver that fans adore more. He earned 1.2 million votes in balloting for his latest most popular driver award, which was never in doubt. His value to sponsors is rock-solid even in a recessed economy. He moves merchandise and sells tickets. But even Earnhardt, smart and savvy guy that he is, realizes his on-track performance isn't quite where many believe it should be. "I don't know what I'm doing to get that," he said, sounding somewhat confused by his own popularity. "I don't know what I'm doing to make that happen. I'm just lucky." It's easy to forget, with his two-year-long winless streak and his acrimonious departure from Dale Earnhardt Inc. still fresh in the memory, that this is still a driver who's won 18 times on NASCAR's premier circuit and was a championship contender right down to the wire in 2003, 2004, and 2006. The expectations were stratospheric when he joined Hendrick, then a seven-time championship organization, prior to last year. And he seemed to deliver, running as high as second in points early in the season, benefitting from the months of ground work that crew chief Tony Eury Jr. had laid, and finally unshackling himself from that long winless skid with a fuel-mileage run at Michigan. And then it all went away. In the 20 races after that Michigan victory, Earnhardt finished inside the top 10 only five times. Back flocked the doubters, the cynics who wrongfully believe he's living off his last name, the sizeable anti-Junior contingent that doesn't believe his popularity is justified. And now he nears his second season with Hendrick, and he has to prove himself all over again. "If we could have run the second half like we did the first half, we would have been in the top five in points for sure," car owner Rick Hendrick said. "And we had a shot to win some races we didn't win. We just kind of, I don't know what the deal was, second half, about three-quarters of the way, we just started having all kinds of problems and tire issues. A lot of it was bad luck, and a lot of it was not being as sharp as we needed to be. So we've been working on that. We've been making some changes inside the team, some support people. He's fired up. He was off a week, and he called me. He's bored and wants to go racing. That's different. We haven't heard that in a long time." That stems partly from the fact that he hasn't had much to do this off season; before Thursday's appearance, his sole post-Homestead duty was to ride some contest winners around Charlotte on a Polaris ATV. And of course, it stems partly from the fact that this past year didn't exactly finish with a bang. Earnhardt didn't even complete the final race, going out 21 laps early with a bad wheel bearing. "We sort of didn't finish how we wanted to, and the season before that was a little bit of the same thing, we were struggling at the end of the season. Anytime that's happening, you really don't want it to end," Earnhardt said. "You want to keep going, and so a week later you're ready to go back to the race track. You just get into the grind of going week in and week out, and doing it every weekend. You're used to the travel, your mind is used to that rotation week after week of going home and going back, and going home and going back. It only takes a week or two before you're ready to go back to the race track again." And please, no excuses about needing a year at Hendrick to get acclimated. "We were really, really prepared at the beginning of the season, and I don't think we can use the excuse that we've had a year under our belt and we're going to be much better," he said. "We were actually pretty prepared when we started out. We just have to figure out some of the things that were keeping us from doing better, what those things are, and fix them. But I don't think having a year under your belt so much gives you a better opportunity, because it was really good at the start of the year." Hendrick wonders if all the changes within his team's 5/88 shop last season -- the move of driver Casey Mears to the No. 5 car, crew chief Alan Gustafson moving from Kyle Busch to Mears, Earnhardt and Eury taking over the No. 88 -- had some kind of cumulative effect on everyone there. Already a few pit crew changes have been made to bolster Earnhardt's 2009 campaign. Eury will remain atop the pit box. "I'm a firm believer of, if you can't identify how to make it better, you've just got to try to help it where you can," Hendrick said. "I just have a good feeling about that team for next year." Good enough to finally win a championship? That much is yet to be determined. But for Earnhardt, another shot at the big silver Sprint Cup will have to wait. Thursday he picked up another most popular driver trophy, which for the time being seemed good enough. Would he trade any of them for a title? "Probably not. I don't think I would," he said. "That's a tough question. I would not trade anything that I've ever been involved in, or anything that's ever happened to me for a championship. I want to win a championship, and it's important for me to win a championship, but I wouldn't trade anything that's happened to me in the form of accolades for that. Rick Hendrick 'Disappointed' in Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Chase Results Team owner Rick Hendrick says he is “disappointed” that driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. didn’t finish in the top 10 in the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings in his first season with Hendrick Motorsports. Earnhardt Jr., who began the Chase For The Sprint Cup as the No. 4 seed in the 12-driver field, finished last among the championship-contending group after posting just three top-10s in NASCAR’s 10-race playoff. He won’t be speaking at the season-ending awards banquet in New York City on Dec. 5 when the top 10 points finishers are honored. “I’m disappointed. I felt like we were so good early on, and we just had tremendous little gremlins bite us here from tire problems to things that you just can’t control,” Hendrick said on Tuesday at Lowe’s Motor Speedway following a luncheon honoring the Raybestos Rookie of the Year in each of NASCAR’s three national series. “All of those things that happened to him could have happened to Jimmie Johnson. He could be fifth in the points, and Jimmie could be third in the points. So racing luck has got a lot to do with it, but I think when we look back on the year and we look back at what he’s accomplished and how he’s fit into our organization and how happy he is and [crew chief] Tony [Eury Jr.] is, we’re going to go to work to make it better for next year. That’s the good news: there is next year.” Earnhardt Jr., who joined the team this year after leaving Dale Earnhardt Inc. at the end of 2007, opened the season with a win in the non-points-paying Budweiser Shootout at Daytona and posted 11 top-10 finishes in the first 15 points races, highlighted by a win at Michigan International Speedway in June. But following the victory at Michigan, Earnhardt Jr. recorded just five top-10s over the remaining 21 events and failed to find victory lane again. “I think he learned a lot,” Hendrick said. “There’s no way you can put a team together in their first year and they be as good as the 48 team [of Johnson] because they’ve been together. That’s the chemistry that’s going to get better on Dale Jr.’s side as we roll into next year with a year under our belt. We’ll look at areas and things that we can improve in, and we know him better, our engineers know him better now, and we know what he needs and what he wants, and we’ll be working to make that better. This sport’s always about trying to improve in every area, so we’ve got some improving to do.” Hendrick is hopeful that the addition of Mark Martin to the four-car organization can help Earnhardt Jr. and the entire Hendrick effort in 2009. Martin is taking over the No. 5 Chevrolet driven the past two seasons by Casey Mears, who is moving to Richard Childress Racing. “I think Mark Martin being there is going to help us, going to help us a lot,” Hendrick said. “He is a really strong asset to any organization, and I think we’ll all huddle. We’ve actually been meeting some today and the rest of this week on looking at how we can be better, so that’s the plan. Hopefully, Junior will be. He might get his first championship next year. Who knows?” Earnhardt supports DEI merger with Ganassi Dale Earnhardt Jr. is not sentimental about the demise of Dale Earnhardt Inc., and he supports the company’s partnership with Chip Ganassi Racing. Had this week’s merger not happened, Earnhardt isn’t sure DEI could have survived this current economic crisis. The team was formed by the late Dale Earnhardt in 1995 and was intended to be handed down to his children. “It’s good for them, I hope,” he said Friday at Homestead-Miami Speedway. “It was going to be disappointing if they didn’t merge. Next year would be a tough year. I just hope that they move forward.” NASCAR’s most popular driver left DEI at the end of last season to drive for Hendrick Motorsports, citing a tense relationship with his stepmother, Teresa, and a lack of faith in the race team’s direction. It’s been a rapid descent since, as the four-car team has lost sponsors and struggled to compete consistently. He wouldn’t speculate on what his father, who was killed on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500, would think of the merger or DEI’s poor performance. But Earnhardt does believe his father would have had an easier time keeping the team among NASCAR’s elite. “He would have had better luck in securing the sponsorships that they currently have in this state,” he said. “When my Daddy died, everything about everything changed. If he was here, it would be sad. But he’s 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 gotta do it yourself, and that’s that. “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’ve got going on myself.” Earnhardt, who made the Chase for the championship this season driving for Hendrick, runs his own Nationwide Series team and has been busy trying to secure sponsorship for his flagship No. 88 car that Brad Keselowski drives. The lack of funding forced him to lay off 20 percent of the JR Motorsports work force late last month. Still, he’s committed to keeping his team afloat and is pleased that Teresa Earnhardt took the necessary steps to keep her team running. “I just think I ain’t got much to say about it anymore. I did. But I’m so far removed from it, past it, a little bit farther removed from it, and I don’t have the initial knee-jerk reaction about it no more when these types of things happen,” Earnhardt said. “I’m more on the sidelines with everyone else now where I just view it from a distance. But I have an emotional connection with it. I want it to work and want it to do good, but a lot has changed. “It’s difficult to feel any real close connection to it anymore.” DEI has four cars this season but only one has full funding for next year. Ganassi started the year with three cars, folded Dario Franchitti’s team in July and was headed into 2009 with 1.5 of his cars funded. Combined, Earnhardt Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates will be a four-car operation for Juan Pablo Montoya, Aric Almirola, Martin Truex Jr. and a driver yet to be named. The union resulted in 100-plus layoffs at DEI earlier this week, with no guarantee more won’t come. Although Earnhardt lamented the loss of jobs, he insisted they were coming regardless. “They weren’t going to run four teams next year, or three or whatever,” he said. “You can’t blame a single individual for the layoffs. The sport is going to have a lot of those.” CMT Films, NASCAR Media Group Produce Ride of Their Lives Ride of Their Lives, a new film premiering Dec. 13 on CMT, tells the story behind NASCAR through first-person accounts by the people who helped create the history. Produced by CMT Films and NASCAR Media Group, the two-hour film is narrated by Kevin Costner and features new, exclusive interviews with NASCAR drivers Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip. Ride of Their Lives features never-before-seen footage spanning NASCAR's entire history from the archives of NASCAR Media Group, as well as the final interview with Bill France Jr., NASCAR president from 1972-2000 and son of NASCAR founder Bill France. Other drivers spotlighted in the film include Dale Earnhardt, Kyle Petty, Tim Richmond and Wendell Scott. Dale Earnhardt Jr. To Have Camaro Dale Earnhardt Jr. will have his own signature edition of the 2010 Chevrolet Camaro SS, which will go on sale next spring. The car will be on display Saturday at Phoenix International Raceway, site of this weekend’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. Earnhardt, a connoisseur of vintage muscle cars, said Friday that he had a considerable amount of input into the design of the car, which features, a 6.2-liter V-8 engine that can run on both pump gasoline or E85 ethanol, a six-speed manual transmission, oversized Brembro racing brakes and lowered suspension package. The Camaro also features a custom gray-over-white paint scheme, accented with an orange stripe separating the gray and white sections, as well as 21-inch, five-spoke wheels clad in Pirelli P-Zero ZR-rated performance tires. The Earnhardt Jr. edition Camaro also will feature a host of custom interior and exterior trim options to distinguish it from more conventional Camaros. No word yet on cost or delivery date of the car, but production of the stock Camaros is scheduled to begin next February, with delivery shortly thereafter. Hendrick trio set the mark among the Chase drivers If you're in the Chase, this week's stop at Phoenix International Raceway is going to make you happy. Eight of the Chase drivers have won at least once on the 1-mile oval, and half of the eight have won twice, including point leader Jimmie Johnson. Among those who haven't won at PIR are point runner-up Carl Edwards and third-place Greg Biffle. Johnson won the pole for the Checker O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 with a lap at 134.725 mph, his first pole at PIR. That's a good thing, but interestingly enough, there has only been one race won from the pole at PIR, and that was in last year's spring race when Jeff Gordon turned the trick. Johnson has won the past two races at PIR, taking last fall's race in addition to the spring event. Winners seem to go in spurts there, however, and no one has won more than two consecutive races. Johnson has two victories five-top-fives and eight top-10s in 10 starts for an average finish of 6.0. He was also fastest in practice on Friday morning. Three more Chasers followed Johnson in the top 10. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is another two-time winner at PIR, and he was .005 seconds off Johnson's best time in practice. Earnhardt Jr. has four top-five and six top-10 finishes in 12 starts, but he's also had three DNFs there. That puts his average finish at 18.0, next to last in the Chase. He'll line up fifth on Sunday after a lap at 134.108 mph. Gordon, despite 15 top-10 finishes in his 19 starts, has won only once at Phoenix, in the spring of 2007. His average finish of 8.5 is second to Johnson's unfathomable 6.0, and he has eight top-fives to boot. Gordon put his Chevrolet in seventh at 133.730 mph. Denny Hamlin has finished three of his six Phoenix races in the top five, and all three of those runs resulted in third-place finishes. His last third-place run came in April and his average finish of 12.0 is fifth among the Chase set. His Toyota timed in at 133.685 mph and he'll start eighth. The rest of the Chase drivers were spread out through the field. Kyle Busch won at PIR back in his rookie season of 2005 and has put his car in the top 10 in five of seven starts. His lone top-five, however, was the victory. His average finish of 15.4 is eighth in the Chase. Busch clicked off a lap at 133.323 mph to earn the 14th starting spot. Edwards, for his part, has three top-five and five top-10 finishes in eight starts, and won a pole at PIR. He's been fourth twice, and his average finish of 14.5 is seventh-best among Chasers. He put his Ford in 15th at 133.304 mph. Kevin Harvick is another two-time Phoenix winner, and he's been good in his 11 previous starts. Harvick has three top-five and five top-10 finishes, and his average finish is 13.7, sixth among the Chase drivers. He'll line up 19th on Sunday after a lap at 133.151 mph. Jeff Burton has won two races on the desert mile, the last in 2001. He's another top-10 machine at PIR, logging 10 of them in 18 starts, and half of those were top-fives. His average finish of 11.1 is fourth in the Chase. His lap at 132.836 mph put him 24th. Clint Bowyer made his Cup Series debut at Phoenix a couple years ago, and finished 22nd. He was second in the spring race earlier this year, giving him two top-five finishes in six starts. His lap at 132.636 mph was good for 28th. Tony Stewart loves Phoenix, and has the single-digit average finish to prove it. His is 9.8, third behind Johnson and Gordon, and he has a victory, six top-five and eight top-10 results in 13 starts. His victory came in his first start back in 1999. On Friday, he logged a lap at 132.621 mph to start 29th. Biffle, third in the points, was 28th in practice, and in nine starts at PIR he has managed a pair of top-fives and three top-10s. Biffle's average finish is 16.4, 10th best among the 12 Chase drivers. Biffle averaged 132.329 mph in his Ford, for 31st starting spot on Sunday. Matt Kenseth is worst among Chasers in terms of average finish at 18.8, but his record is better than most. In 12 starts, Kenseth has a victory, five top-five and six top-10 finishes to his credit. It's the three DNFs that have killed his average. Kenseth was the fifth car out on Friday, and he went 132.280 mph to earn the 34th spot on Sunday. Junior Pleased With '08 While 2008 didn’t prove to be the year Dale Earnhardt Jr. finally got his long-awaited first NASCAR Sprint Cup championship, the season was still a success, Earnhardt reckons. Earnhardt dominated the NASCAR headlines last season when he announced he would leave Dale Earnhardt Inc., the team founded by his late father, and move to the powerhouse Hendrick Motorsports team for 2008. His year got off to a brilliant start, winning the Budweiser Shootout and one of the Gatorade Duel qualifying races at Daytona in February. He also won at Michigan in June and was as high as second in the points in early August. But his title run hit a blowout — literally — in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, as a series of tires failures and crashes contributed to an average finish of 17.375 in the eight Chases run so far this season. With two races left in the season, Earnhardt is ranked 11th in points among the 12 Chase drivers. Still, Earnhardt said he’s been pleased with the year overall. In particular, he’s glad to be at Hendrick Motorsports and no longer having to deal with the drama at DEI. “It's been flattering and humbling,” Earnhardt said. “A lot of good things have happened, and a lot of neat stuff happened to me, being with Hendrick, that was flattering to me. There were a lot of little pats on the back and compliments going down the road that were pretty cool. You get appreciated for when you do good; you get recognized for it.” Plus with the resources Hendrick has, Earnhardt had plenty of help to draw from in challenging times, something that definitely was not the case at DEI. “You get help when you do bad,” he said. “You get people trying to remedy why that happened, try to help you keep that from happening again. When we do bad, people want to help us make it right, and that's a really good feeling. Then when you do good, someone says something about it. When you are doing your job, you get rewarded for it — at least some acknowledgement for it, which is good. That makes you want to go out and keep going, keep working.” And if he’s not going to win the title this season, he’s pulling for teammate Jimmie Johnson to get it done. “He's a nice guy,” Earnhardt said. “Jimmie's got a lot of confidence in his abilities and so does Chad (Knaus, crew chief for the No. 48 Chevrolet). They just run good.” This weekend, Earnhardt will try to get things turned around at Phoenix International Raceway, site of Sunday’s Checker O’Reilly Auto Parts 500(k). The one-mile PIR is a place where Earnhardt has enjoyed considerable success, winning twice and scoring four top-five finishes. He led 87 laps here in the spring before fading late to finish seventh in a race that Johnson won by gambling on fuel mileage. “I think Phoenix is a good track for us,” said Earnhardt’s crew chief, Tony Eury Jr. “We've had a lot of success there. Dale and I have won twice there. This past time it was kind of a unique race. We were battling with Mark Martin most of the night. Then on the last run we kind of let the car setup get away from us, and everybody was on some different fuel mileage strategy. I was talking to Chad (Knaus), and he was like, ‘What are you going to do?’ “I said, 'I've got to stop.' I was more worried about points at that time, and Chad took a gamble and it paid off and he got the win. It was a good thing to get the win for Hendrick Motorsports. But going back there, it looks like I'm looking forward to a totally different race.” FINANCIAL WOES FORCE EARNHARDT TO CUT BACK Not even the most popular name in NASCAR racing is immune to the struggling economy. Dale Earnhardt Jr. says a lack of sponsorship will force him to cut back his Nationwide team to just one car next season and force about 20 employees to be laid off. JR Motorsports expanded to a two-car team this year after Hendrick Motorsports merged it's No. 5 team into the operation. At the time, the team elected not to lay off any employees but Earnhardt says the prospects for finding additional sponsorship in the current climate is not good. "It's tough," Earnhardt tells ESPN.com. "Not only is there a lack of interest in sponsoring the Nationwide Series (that) is probably going to be growing over the next year or so, but there's those other hurdles you don't think about." "We had to trim down. Like I said, when we put those two teams together we were really too large in the first place." It was recently announced that the No. 5 team had enough sponsorship for 10 races but it's unlikely the team will increase that schedule. Brad Keselowski will be back for a full season in the No. 88 car, however, sponsorship has yet to be confirmed for that team. Same strategies, differing results for Hendrick duo Two Hendrick Motorsports teammates used the same strategy at the end of Sunday's Sprint Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway, but with very different results. Jeff Gordon parlayed a fuel gamble into a second-place finish, while Dale Earnhardt Jr. was left running on fumes. Winner Carl Edwards wasn't the only one who tried to stretch his final fuel run in the Dickies 500. Gordon and Earnhardt, who both rallied from a lap down to get back into contention on the 1.5-mile racetrack, each used the same tactic to get to the front. It worked for Gordon, who's still winless on the season, but tied his best finish of the year with the runner-up result. Earnhardt, though, ran out of fuel with five laps remaining, stalled his No. 88 car when he ducked onto pit road for gasoline, and finished in 20th place. "I told [crew chief] Tony Eury Jr., you know, don't worry about that," Earnhardt said of the failed gambit. "We all tried to win the race, and we win as a team and lose as a team. We need to figure out the fuel mileage deal because Jeff Gordon stayed out as well, and just figure out what we need to do. We probably just should have started saving a little bit earlier." Edwards set the standard, feathering his throttle to the checkered flag to complete a 69-lap, race-ending fuel run that gave him his eighth victory of the season and trimmed Jimmie Johnson's championship lead to 106 points. But it felt like a win for Gordon, who finished second for the first time since Martinsville in March. It looked bleak early for the Texas pole winner, when Edwards' relentless pace at the front put one car after another a lap down, Gordon's No. 24 Chevrolet included. Eventually Gordon was in position to receive a free pass back onto the lead lap -- Earnhardt did the same -- and make a bid for the front. "Real proud of [crew chief] Steve Letarte and all the guys on this team for not giving up," Gordon said. "We struggled. We were good when we were out front at the beginning, and fell back to fifth, and we just kept trying to free it up through the middle. One time I got too loose and lost all the track position, lost a lap. We had to fight our way back to get on the lead lap. I give them a lot of credit for being patient with everything all day, and Steve Letarte for making that great call to come in and not only work on the car but get as much fuel in it as we could and go for it there at the end." Gordon believes the free pass helped him in more ways than one. The caution that let him back on the lead lap was caused by a Juan Montoya accident that closed pit road, because the crippled No. 42 car was left blocking a part of it. As the field coasted under yellow, Gordon was able to save fuel that he'd need in the end. "The leaders had already come in, and we had to ride around for quite a while, and that gave us the few extra laps," Gordon said. "Then when we pitted, we just took our time with it. We were the only car that had to be at the tail end anyway, and plus I saved on the caution laps. I was turning the engine off, so I felt pretty confident that we could make it if we were only one lap short." Added Letarte: "We just played the hand we were dealt. We didn't have a good enough car to drive up to the front. We got behind on that one run. We got the [free pass]. The guys did a great job. Jeff drove a pretty smart race. When our car was off, he kept it in one piece, and we knew we were close on fuel. I didn't think anybody could make it. I thought we had it won, to be honest." Not quite. Toward the end, it looked like Gordon might come up one lap short. But he made his fuel last. "I conserved a little bit under yellow. So when they said we were one lap short, I really wasn't that worried," he said. "But I was still letting off real early, and we didn't know the No. 99 [car of Edwards] was going to go for it. Obviously a great call by Steve Letarte on this DuPont/Nicorette Chevrolet. Great, great teamwork all day. It was a heck of a fight for us." But it still wasn't the race victory Gordon has been looking for. He's now gone 39 events since his last Sprint Cup victory, at Lowe's Motor Speedway in October of last year. He's 14 days away from his first winless season since his rookie campaign of 1993. Sunday, though, brought hope. Intermediate tracks like Texas have been one of Gordon's biggest hurdles in the new car, and he left Fort Worth with renewed confidence. "We're not going to give up, that's for sure. I know it's late in the season, we haven't won yet, but that doesn't mean we're laying down. We're certainly not going to do that. Just like going for the pole on Friday. I mean, we're doing everything we possibly can," said Gordon, who's won at every active track on the Sprint Cup tour with the exceptions of Texas and Homestead-Miami Speedway, where the season concludes in two weeks. "You know, I'd be a little bit more excited about our chances if we had run up front and ran in that second position all night or all day. The thing is, we're going to look at any possible way to win races. We're going to try to make the car go as fast as we can. When we have that opportunity to make it on fuel, you know, we're going to take the opportunity. That's what we did [Sunday]. But I'm still disappointed that we struggled with the handling. I had my hands full. Some of it's me, some of it's the team and the setup. That's something we've got to work on coming back to Texas. But I look forward to the next two opportunities to try to win. [Sunday] is an obvious sign that we can still win. No matter how the car's running, we can still win. We'll go to the next two and do everything we can to try to win." Dale Earnhardt Jr. Takes Robin Miller For a Birthday Spin Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Dave Despain teamed up Wednesday to give SPEED analyst Robin Miller an unforgettable 59th birthday present and a different perspective on NASCAR. Sunday’s Wind Tunnel with Dave Despain (9 p.m. ET on SPEED) will feature Earnhardt driving the veteran motor sports journalist around Lowe’s Motor Speedway in excess of 180 miles per hour. The hot laps are part of a birthday present Despain gave Miller last Sunday on Wind Tunnel consisting of Earnhardt memorabilia and a message from the driver, inviting Miller to meet him at the track Wednesday for a ride. The motivation behind the gift was to provide Miller, a regular guest on Wind Tunnel and open critic of NASCAR for years, a fresh take on the sport in hopes his appreciation for it would increase. “He definitely gave me the A-ticket ride so I could experience what it was all about at speed,” Miller said. “I was surprised at the G-loads and how well a 3,500-pound car stuck to the track and can only imagine what an Indy car must be like going 30 miles per hour quicker through the corner. But Dale drove it in hard and I got the picture.” Did Miller gain a new appreciation for the heavy stock cars and their drivers? “Absolutely,” Miller admitted. “I knew from watching on the outside of Turn 1 at Indy that the fast guys had to hustle and run a little loose and I had a new appreciation and respect after our run. I told Dale it's too bad all the mechanics couldn't experience what I did so when he told them the car was a handful, they'd understand.” After an evening at the track, even an old critic like Miller can understand the draw of “Junior Nation.” “I'd never met Junior but I always liked what I saw of him on television because he seems to take all that fame in stride and maintain his sense of humor. He was a lot of fun to interview and very forthright, as he always is. It was a very enjoyable evening for an old man.” The “Excellent Dale Jr. Adventure” will air on Wind Tunnel with Dave Despain on Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on SPEED. Dale Earnhardt Jr. not thrilled with 11th-place Atlanta finish Dale Earnhardt Jr. admitted he was frustrated with his 11th-place finish in Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Pep Boys 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The driver raced in the top five for parts of the afternoon and in the top 10 for most of it, but fell back late in the race. He was bumped on pit road, scraped the wall during the race and complained about the team's numerous adjustments on the car, all of which he felt were factors in the final outcome. "We were real tight on new tires for five or 10 laps, then we made too many adjustments tightening the car up," he said. "We got banged around on pit road, man. The No. 2 [of Penske Racing's Kurt Busch] had somebody on the outside of him and the No. 99 [of Roush Fenway Racing's Carl Edwards] was coming out of his stall, I think that hurt probably the worst and knocked the toe [end] around. The fenders is all tore up on it." He added that the setting sun made it difficult to hit his marks in Turn 1, causing him to guess a bit at where he was on the track and then he "didn't know where I was going to end up. The last 50 laps wasn't no fun." He began to lobby for an earlier start to the race, which was slated for a 2 p.m. start local time and that, combined with the race's 10 cautions, caused drivers to head into the turn with the sun setting over it. "Once the sun is in your eyes you can't see the corner, so you can't aim to where you want to go and hit your marks," he said. "It is stupid - we should start the race earlier, but the networks want it later for attendance and this and that and the other but it makes the end of the race terrible." All in all, Earnhardt Jr. simply wasn't pleased with his day - or the final outcome. He fell one spot to 10th in the standings and is now 419 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson with three races to go. That probably didn't improve his impression of the day. "I am just frustrated," he said. "We should have run sixth or seventh there. We work too hard to run like that, but I don't know what we could have done differently." Junior Scores Strong Second For once, Dale Earnhardt Jr. wasn’t the driver who had Goodyear Eagle tires exploding like hand grenades at all four corners of his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. After having tire failures destroy race cars at Dover, Talladega and Charlotte, Earnhardt was able to avoid setting off one of Goodyear’s time bombs on Sunday afternoon at Martinsville Speedway, and the result was a second-place finish in the TUMS QuickPak 500, his best finish since winning at Michigan in June. This time, the Busch brothers, Kyle and Kurt, each had multiple right-front tire failures, as did Tony Stewart and Sam Hornish Jr. At one point, Kyle Busch, Hornish and Johnny Sauter all lost right-front tires at the same time and the same place on the track, as tire problems again added an embarrassing footnote to a Sprint Cup race. But Earnhardt had a much happier afternoon, as he broke a string of four consecutive finishes of 13th or worse with an outstanding second-place run. And that had Earnhardt upbeat afterwards. “We tore up a lot of race cars the last few weeks and had a lot of bad luck,” Earnhardt said. “We needed a good finish. I love short-track racing and this is a good track for me.” The only thing was, Earnhardt had no hope of catching his Hendrick Motorsports teammate, race-winner Jimmie Johnson, a fact Earnhardt readily admitted. “I didn’t have anything for Jimmie,” Earnhardt said. “That car was so awesome, just cutting in the center. And he had good power coming off the corner. I was spinning the tires in the gas trying to get up off the corner.” Earnhardt also had to worry about third-place finisher Carl Edwards, who pressuring him as well. “I was doing the best I could to protect my spot with Carl,” Earnhardt said. “He run me real clean and I’d run him pretty clean earlier in the race. It was pretty fun racing him and just being in the mix.” The runner-up finish vaulted Earnhardt up one spot to 10th in points, some 378 points in back of Johnson, who appears headed for a third title. “We just had so much bad luck,” Earnhardt said. “This is real good for us.” JR Motorsports "too good to be true" for Unilever In this day and age -- with a looming financial slowdown above all -- sponsors in the Nationwide Series are searching for the best bang for their bucks they can possibly arrange. Count packaged-goods giant Unilever among those sponsors who coveted a certain sponsorship on a certain No. 5 Chevrolet from JR Motorsports. Unilever represents brands such as Lipton Tea, Hellmann's Real Mayonnaise, Klondike ice cream bars and Ragu pasta sauce, and they'll be on the No. 5 Chevrolets for 10 races in 2009. The 10 races will be divided among the above brands, and drivers Dale Earnhardt Jr., Mark Martin and Landon Cassill will do the driving. This year, as in the past couple, the Unilever brands have been on the No. 9 Dodge from Gillett Evernham Motorsports and driven by Kasey Kahne, Elliott Sadler and Chase Miller. That program, according to Unilever's director of integrated marketing Marc Shaw, is a big success in its own right. But we're talking about Dale Earnhardt Jr. here. "We had a phenomenal partnership with Kasey Kahne and the whole Gillett Evernham team, but to have a chance to get in with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and JR Motorsports to help him build this team was just too good to pass up," Shaw said at Lowe's Motor Speedway last week. "Honestly, there are millions and millions of fans who are tremendously loyal and we feel like we can take this to the next level. "We wish all the best to Kasey and we've done a lot of good things with him. It has nothing to do with his performance; he's obviously one of the best drivers out there. This was just a chance we couldn't pass up." Earnhardt's visibility in the sports and entertainment world is one aspect of the brands' shift to JR Motorsports for 2009, Shaw said. "If you look at the numbers, Dale really does transcend the sport," he said. "You should see some of the folks that his Q score is better than. It's impressive." Q scores aside, NASCAR is a still a good marketplace for Unilever despite the economic tumult of the past few weeks. "Absolutely," Shaw said. "[NASCAR has] legions of fans, their loyalty to the brands that are sponsors in the sport, the folks that are into the sport really get what the sport is about, how important sponsors are to the teams and they respond to what we did. "We have activated in the media, in the stores, at trackside and this is a great place to build brands. If anything, what we're doing is stepping it up another notch. It's only going to be bigger and better." Despite the sponsorship being for just 10 races, Unilever and its family of brands will be making noise in other ways next year with a consumer-based promotion. Since plans have not yet been finalized, Shaw was limited in what he could say about the program, but did say that it would hit consumers in a good place. "We're looking for that real fan, a way for those real fans to express themselves as a real fan," Shaw said. "This program will involve all the brands and will be activated at each one of our races." If there's a hint anywhere, Hellmann's is known as "Hellmann's Real Mayonnaise." In an interesting twist, the three drivers will be linked to specific products in 2009, Shaw said. "Mark Martin is going to be more linked to Lipton, while Dale Jr. and Landon will be activating against the other brands," Shaw said. "Mark Martin is perfect for Lipton. He's such a respected figure in the sport, and so is Lipton, so that's a good match there. The other drivers will do a big job for those other fun brands. We have three awesome drivers." Unilever has major brands in its portfolio, across most spectrums of consumer goods. Among those brands are Axe, Ben & Jerry's, Bertolli, Breyers, Caress, Country Crock, Degree, Dove personal care products, Knorr, Popsicle, Promise, Q-Tips, Skippy, Slim-Fast, Suave, Sunsilk and Vaseline. Several of those business units have been utilized by Unilever against its NASCAR assets. Shaw said the consumer aspect of the sport is breath-taking to an experienced marketer. "It does kind of take your breath away," he agreed. "When we came in here [to Lowe's Motor Speedway], we were on a hilltop kind of overlooking the whole scene. One of the folks who was with us looked out and said, 'this is our market.' "So many times you get a little removed and you're up in New York City and you are not really seeing as much of what the country really is. This is the kind of thing that will really get you grounded on who your consumers are, what they are really interested in, what their passions are. I think we should be bringing more of our folks down here to NASCAR and seeing what America is all about." Junior's Chase Falls Flat Dale Earnhardt Jr. entered the Bank of America 500 as a longshot for the Chase for the Sprint Cup, but his title hopes are now all but officially shot, as a blown right-front tire on Lap 103 put his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet Impala SS hard into the Turn 2 wall at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. The heavy contact tore up the right side of Earnhardt’s car, sending him to the garage, where he lost 45 laps in the pits for extensive repairs. Earnhardt would go on to finish 36th and is now 10th of 12 drivers in the Chase, unofficially 354 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson. For him to win the championship from that far back with five races to go would require a near miracle. Earnhardt’s Chevrolet ran strong early in the race, comfortably maintaining a top-five pace in the first 100 laps of the race. Then, disaster. Asked if he had any warning the tire was about to fail, Earnhardt said, “Well, hell no! I would have slowed down if I knew the tire was going to blow. I was riding. I was taking it way, way easy.” Earnhardt apparently ran over something on the track, which resulted in the cut tire and subsequent blowout. “It’s pretty disappointing because I was just taking it pretty easy,” said Earnhardt. “We ran real, real hard here in the spring and worked our car too hard. I was just going to take care of the race car. That was what I was trying to do. We just got some bad luck there.” While Earnhardt has had a successful first season at Hendrick Motorsports, winning the Bud Shootout and the June Michigan race, as well as qualifying for the Chase, his playoff run has been a struggle. While he finished fifth in the opener at Loudon, N.H., he has failed to post a top-10 finish in the subsequent four races. And that’s been frustrating, just as the failed tire was Saturday night. “It just popped,” Earnhardt said. “We might have run over something. I was running about 90 percent, really, not running hard at all. The car was handling pretty good.” JUNIOR SPEAKS OUT Dale Earnhardt Jr., who won a controversial victory at Talladega Superspeedway in 2003 by passing Matt Kenseth while going under the yellow out of bounds line, said Regan Smith got the short end of the stick from NASCAR last Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway for doing something very similar. On the last lap of the AMP Energy 500, Smith tried to pass Tony Stewart on the bottom of the track. Stewart appeared to move down on Smith, who went to pass him below the yellow. NASCAR ruled that Smith was not forced below the yellow line, but advanced his position while there. The sanctioning body awarded Stewart the victory and dropped Smith to 18th, the last car on the lead lap. NASCAR subsequently issued a rule clarification, but Earnhardt still felt that Smith was unfairly victimized. “I was in the same situation in 2002 or ’03 going into Turn 3, and I was forced below and that was declared okay,” said Earnhardt. “And it was exactly the same. It was exactly the same. So, I know for a fact that Regan didn’t go down the front straightaway and plan to pass him on the apron. Regan was not going to the apron. He was actually under the No. 20 car (Stewart) and passing the No. 20 car on the race track there for a split second when Tony came down and they actually touched. And then he was forced onto the apron.” Earnhardt insisted the penalty did not fit the crime. “I could actually almost live with saying Tony is the winner and the No. 01 (Smith) ran second, but he got told that he was not forced, which was wrong, and then he got sent to finish 18th. That’s the only rule about the whole deal that was clear, was that he would be penalized for whatever the infraction was and moved to 18th. But I don’t know. It’s just really tough. I’m not complaining one bit. But I’ve always felt pretty good about everything we’ve done with that rule because it’s a very tough rule to govern. It’s very, very difficult to govern.” Bouncing Back Dale Earnhardt Jr. didn’t have a lot of fun at Talladega Superspeedway last weekend, losing his primary car to a tire explosion during practice on Friday and getting his back-up car wrecked late in the AMP Energy 500, a race he could have won. But Earnhardt is looking for better things at Lowe’s Motor Speedway this weekend, a track where he ran well in the spring and had a strong performance in the recent open test. “We ran really good (at the recent LMS test) I thought,” said Earnhardt, who will run a bright orange special paint scheme in Saturday night’s Bank of America 500. “Man that track really runs good around the top and its one of those tracks to where, a lot of tracks I like running the top groove and a lot of tracks the top groove comes in when it’s hot and slick like it is right now, but around four or five o’clock when a lot of the Sunday races end, the bottom groove comes back in as the grip starts to rise back in the race track. But at Charlotte it seems like you can run the top all night long and that’s still the fastest way to run even late in the evening so that’s really good for me.” Earnhardt has won the Sprint All-Star Challenge at LMS, but never a points race, something he’d like to remedy Saturday night. “I feel like that track owes me one,” he said. “We’ve ran really good there in the past and haven’t got any trophies to show for it so it would mean a lot to me to be able to get an official 500-, 600-mile victory at that race track.” Gordon, Earnhardt have unified plan for Sunday If Dale Earnhardt Jr. fans decide to throw beer cans at Jeff Gordon again, they'd better be careful, they might just hit their favorite driver. The Hendrick Motorsports teammates, two of the greatest restrictor plate racers in the sport, have a plan for Sunday's Amp Energy 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. Both men have agreed to set aside their competitive differences, for a portion of the race at least, and work on their team building skills. "Me and Jeff are thinking about going up front, running hard ... go up there and try to learn how to work together," Earnhardt said. "I think it will work good, we got to make it work." Teammates or not, Junior Nation may find this pairing a bit unsettling. Talladega Superspeedway is sacred ground for the Earnhardt family and the fans don't take kindly to interlopers. The city of Talladega has become a Mecca of sorts, a holy city. Thousands of Earnhardt fans make the pilgrimage to 'Dega twice a year to worship their beloved driver. Needless to say, the place has special meaning for Earnhardt. Special not only because he has five wins and his late father 10, but because it feels like home and the fans, evident by the loud roar that rolls from the stands whenever he takes the lead in the race, adore him. "Well, to me it's special. I don't think everyone gets that sensation going into the race," Earnhardt said. "But to me it's a pretty important place just because my family's done so well there. And the way the fans treat us there make it exciting, make it a place you look forward to. I think that's probably the biggest key, the fans and how they've treated us at that track." His fans are loyal -- to the point of dangerous. Last year when Gordon bettered the late Dale Earnhardt's all-time victory list with 77 wins at the revered track, fans were enraged and began chucking beer cans onto the track pelting Gordon's No. 24. But a year later, Gordon and Earnhardt are in a position to align, combining their knowledge and ability to master the draft. "We just said we'd go up there and work together and enjoy working together instead of being so competitive," Earnhardt said after posting a 15th-place qualifying lap Saturday. The No. 88 driver was forced to qualify a backup car after an early crash in practice Friday caused by a blown right rear tire. "We should be fine. I'm pretty happy with the way the guys rebounded and I feel like really prepared going into the race even after the day we had yesterday." Of course at the end of the day, nearing the final laps of the race, Earnhardt said both drivers will go for the win, determining the dominant plate racer for the time being. "Well we both think we are the best so that's where the conflict comes in. Who is supposed to be out front and who is supposed to be helping who," Earnhardt said. "We do a pretty good job at it ... we are getting better working together for 75 percent of the race. [Gordon] knows what he's doing, he can be a great help to you. You get what you give and maybe sometimes I'm not as giving as I should be." Earnhardt Jr. crashes in practice, forced to backup Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s day at Talladega Superspeedway started out poorly when the engine on his No. 88 Chevrolet went sour just eight laps into Friday's first practice session. But things went from bad to worse in an instant when the right rear tire exploded while he was leading a pack of cars during final practice for Sunday's Amp Energy 500, setting off a chain-reaction accident that damaged at least six cars. Earnhardt had no warning when the tire exploded and sent him out of control. "I think the tire seemed to come apart at the tread and the sidewall," Earnhardt Jr. said. "We looked to the car, and really nothing has fell off of it. Normally you look at exhaust straps and stuff like that, but it just come out of nowhere. "It is hard to say. I will look at some of the replays to see if anything came out from under it. Maybe we can find it on the replay, something we might have run over." David Gilliland's No. 38 Ford was directly behind Junior and had a close-up view of the incident as the single-file pack exited Turn 2 nine minutes into the final practice session. Earnhardt was leading Gilliland, Tony Stewart and Kasey Kahne when chaos reigned. "Junior blew a right-rear tire," Gilliland said. "In the middle of the corner, the thing just came apart. It's just an unfortunate incident. "There was nothing he could do and there was nothing I could do. It was just kind of being in the wrong place at the wrong time." While Earnhardt and Gilliland collided and blocked the top groove, several other cars took evasive action. Stewart was sent on a wild ride through the infield grass. Kahne nearly had the incident missed, but his right front fender clipped one of the spinning cars, and the resulting flat tire did serious damage to the quarterpanel. Kahne said it happened so fast, he didn't have much time to react. "I was right in the middle of a pack of cars when all of a sudden, I just saw tire rubber everywhere," Kahne said. "I tried to get by without hitting anything, but just got clipped in the right front." Goodyear officials were inspecting what remained of Junior's tire to determine if it had been cut by something externally rather than suffering internal failure. The explosion and resulting accident was severe enough to tear nearly all of the sheetmetal off of the No. 88, from the rear window to the back bumper. "From what we can determine, it has all the signs of a puncture," said Goodyear spokesman Rick Heinrich. Earnhardt and Gilliland were checked and released from Talladega's infield medical facility. While that was going on, their crews were busy unloading backup cars from their haulers. In addition, the damage on Kahne's Dodge, Clint Bowyer's Chevy and David Reutimann's Toyota was significant enough for them to decide to pull out the backups. The track reopened for practice nearly 30 minutes after the incident. Earnhardt tries to gain ground in Chase Time is running out for Dale Earnhardt Jr. to thrust himself into championship contention, and NASCAR’s most popular driver probably has just one race left to make a major move in the standings. Fortunately for Earnhardt, his chance to get back into the mix comes at the racetrack where he has been most successful. Earnhardt heads into Talladega Superspeedway this weekend ranked eighth in the standings, 190 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson. He’s not mathematically out of contention, but a sixth career win in Alabama would go a long way toward making him a player in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. “I think you just have to try to win the race,” Earnhardt said of the proper strategy for Sunday. “The only way to really gain points on anybody right now, for anybody who’s outside of the top five in points, is to be first when the checkered flag falls.” Earnhardt executed that plan to perfection from 2001 to 2003 when he won four consecutive races at Talladega and established himself as one of the best restrictor-plate races in the series. But he hasn’t been to Victory Lane there since 2004, which was also the last time he was a threat for the championship. Earnhardt’s win that day pushed him atop the leaderboard, but he cursed on live television during his celebration and the subsequent 25-point penalty NASCAR levied against him started a slow collapse that saw him finish fifth in the standings. A win Sunday isn’t likely to lift him into the points lead, but it could make him a player in this Chase. And if anyone knows how to get to Victory Lane, it’s Earnhardt, who developed a special affinity for the track long before he became a NASCAR racer. “My dad was a real good plate racer, so I loved going to the plate tracks to watch and to be a part of his success,” Earnhardt said of his father’s 13 Cup victories at Daytona and Talladega. “You always knew going into Daytona or Talladega, if you were at the track or at home watching, that you were going to have a lot of fun because he always ran well, led laps, made a lot of incredible moves. It just made it a lot of fun to watch.” Still, the hulking superspeedways and their sprawling grounds overwhelmed a young Earnhardt, and it wasn’t until he found his own success that he formed a connection with the track. “These tracks are really intimidating when you’re young, when you go to them for the first time,” he said. “It’s the biggest tracks on the circuit. So when you’re a 15-year-old walking around in the garage area, you see all the preparation that goes into it, you see the speeds those cars are reaching, you just get a big amount of respect for it early on. “Obviously winning races at the track yourself, you’re going to get a great relationship with the racetrack and feel good about going back to it because you’re having success there.” It doesn’t hurt that Earnhardt has the skills to master the art of restrictor-plate racing, which differs from other styles because of the reliance a driver must place on traffic and his ability to navigate through it while working with the draft. Crew chief Tony Eury Jr. said Earnhardt has mastered the style. “He’s very smart as far as anticipating things happening. He watches the cars, and he knows where the momentum is going just because of the other drivers’ reactions,” Eury said. “He has a very good way of carrying that momentum once he gets it. If he gets a draft and he gets to do a ‘slingshot,’ he’ll carry that for several laps because he knows what to do with it. “It’s a pleasure to watch him race because he’s probably one of the best out there.” Earnhardt doesn’t plan to hold anything back this weekend. He can’t afford to if he wants to contend for the Cup title that has eluded him in eight previous seasons. “We just kind of got to go for broke, really throw it out there and take some chances, really take some risks,” he said. “At Talladega you can make some pretty ridiculous moves, and some of them pay off, some of them don’t. We’ll just have to see what kind of position we’re in on any given lap to be able to try to take advantage of some things happening around us.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. finds lighter side of tough Kansas outing Dale Earnhardt Jr. didn’t have a very good day Sunday during the Camping World RV 400 at Kansas Speedway, but at least he was able to joke about it. Earnhardt Jr. finished 13th at Kansas, behind nine other of NASCAR's Chase For The Sprint Cup drivers. He did move up one spot to eighth in the Chase standings, though he fell to 190 points behind leader and Kansas-winner Jimmie Johnson. But Earnhardt Jr. and his No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports team were able to find a silver lining. "I think an average driver would have finished about 35th,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I told my guys that. I don't know, we had fun regardless. The car wasn't that good. We just made the best of it.” What was the problem? Earnhardt Jr. said the car simply wasn’t handling well throughout the weekend, and the team couldn’t make the proper adjustments during the race. "We aren't dialing our car in,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We were real bad in the second practice. The track gets slick, we ain't working the car in to get it comfortable. That was the best I could do. "We made light of it, though. I told them they were lucky to have me." Earnhardt Jr. has been in some hot water recently for his terse radio communications with his crew, especially crew chief and cousin Tony Eury Jr. Sunday at Kansas, Earnhardt Jr. said he tried to work on being more professional with his team. "I toned it down a lot today,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I've been trying to be better on the radio and be more productive. We kind of gained on it in the center of the race and we were kind of getting better. It just went away. “It got so loose at the end, I didn't know what to tell them." Earnhardt Jr. has a lot of ground to make up in order to contend for his first championship on NASCAR’s highest level. But he doesn’t believe this year’s title race is a three-way battle between Jimmie Johnson, Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle – despite those three being within 30 points of each other and at least 91 points ahead of the rest of the Chase field. Is it a three-man race? "I hope not, hell,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Unless you are counting me in." Jr., Wrangler Saddle Up for Charity Ride at Lowe's Wrangler and Dale Earnhardt Jr. are participating in a charity auction for a ride with the driver around Lowe's Motor Speedway. The auction continues on eBay until Oct. 3. The winning bidder will get a ride around the 1.5-mile track in the driver's No. 88 car with all proceeds going to the Victory Junction Gang Camp for chronically ill children. In addition to the ride, fans can bid on a pair of signed Wrangler jeans worn by Earnhardt Jr. in a photo shoot for the brand’s current ad campaign and a door panel from the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports' Chevrolet Earnhardt Jr. drove during this year’s Auto Club 500 at California Speedway. "Whether it’s signing a pair of jeans, giving away the door from one of my cars or driving a generous fan around the track, I’m more than happy to do my part in contributing to Victory Junction,” Earnhardt Jr. said in a news release. Bid details are available at www.ebay.com/wranglerjeans. JUNIOR’S ACHIEVEMENT After failing to qualify for the Chase for the Sprint Cup in two of the previous three seasons, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is glad to be in it again in his first season with Hendrick Motorsports. Earnhardt, currently ninth in points, said he isn’t surprised to be back in the title hunt this season. “I think a lot of people were arguing the fact whether we would make the Chase this year,” said Earnhardt, who is 129 points behind leader Carl Edwards. “And we felt like we would make the Chase all along. We made the Chase easier than I anticipated. It was a relief, but you can also take that as a confidence builder. We have an everything-to-gain-and-nothing-to-lose mentality. It gives you a lot of confidence.” And Earnhardt said there is no question that the Chase divides the haves and have-nots in the Sprint Cup garage. “The Chase sort of splits the series up between drivers with a shot to win the title and drivers without a shot to win the title,” he said. “And there is a lot of pride and a lot of cockiness in a way to being in that (Chase) group. You try not to be a jerk or be cocky to a fault, but you want to use that to hold your confidence to a certain level.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. turns fastest lap at Lowe's Motor Speedway Dale Earnhardt Jr. ran the fastest lap in the afternoon leg of Tuesday's opening day of Sprint Cup Series testing for the Oct. 11 Bank of America 500 at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Earnhardt Jr., who ran a lap of 182.642 mph in his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, was followed in speed by Roush Fenway Racing's Greg Biffle at 182.543 and Dale Earnhardt Inc.'s Mark Martin at 181.818. Joe Gibbs Racing's Kyle Busch and Roush Fenway's David Ragan completed the top five. There were no accidents in the four-hour session, which was stopped once for debris on the track. Roush Fenway's Carl Edwards, Chip Ganassi Racing's Juan Pablo Montoya, Petty Enterprises' Chad McCumbee, Joe Gibbs Racing's Tony Stewart and Richard Childress Racing's Jeff Burton rounded out the top 10. The cars will hit the track tonight for a final three-hour session from 6 to 9 p.m. EDT, before returning for two more sessions on Wednesday. Scary Monster Dale Earnhardt Jr. had a dismal race with a 24th-place finish at Dover. The No. 88 suffered a blown right-rear tire on Lap 141. Earnhardt managed to keep his Chevy off the wall, but the tire damaged the fender of the car. "I didn't really know where I was on the racetrack. That thing scared me. It sounded like a shotgun going off. By the time I got un-scared, I was a little bit behind on trying to correct it. But it was loud," said Earnhardt, who finished three laps down to the leader and now sits ninth in the Chase standings. Earnhardt blamed the Dover track and contends drivers can only run the bottom. "If you move to the top, it's just like what we had at Indianapolis. It wears the tire out," he said. "They need to fix it." The No. 88 team never was able to repair the damage and just lost laps as result of the damage. "I really hate how it hurt our points race, but that was the best we could do [Sunday]. We didn't put the right setup underneath it. Me and Tony [Eury] Jr. worked on that direction [Sunday], but it was the wrong direction. So, we'll try to rebound next week." Earnhardt: Don't look for changes in radio chatter Dale Earnhardt Jr. wants there to be no mistaking how badly he wants to win the Sprint Cup championship, and Friday at Dover International Speedway he insisted that anyone who monitors his radio communications with his team will understand his passion. He didn't apologize for the emotion he displayed last weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on his way to fifth place, and said not to expect any changes in the future -- despite a lot being made about car owner Rick Hendrick coming on his radio frequency during last week's Sylvania 300, ostensibly to calm him down. "I would love to be calmer under those types of situations, I would," Earnhardt said before qualifying 10th for Sunday's Camping World RV 400. "And I was [calmer], when I first started, I was. And then I got called lackadaisical. I got compared to my father and his determination. I got questioned about if I quit partying so much and focused and this, that and the other -- so now I'm on the chip and want it more than anybody else and I am getting hell for getting too excited. "Regardless of how I act, somebody is going to criticize me one way or another and find an angle. I don't really want to change because I don't want to lose my enthusiasm and I don't want it to matter less -- I want it to matter as much as it matters to me. If that means it is going to get me excited when things don't go right, I just need to be better at controlling that, you know?" But don't expect Earnhardt to seek professional help, such as from the sports psychologists some of his competitors have sought. "No I haven't [seen a sports psychologist]," Earnhardt said. "But I could probably teach him a thing or two." Virtually all of Earnhardt's success has come with his cousin, crew chief Tony Eury Jr. Earnhardt said that relationship and the cousins' affinity for each other leads to some of their broadcast emotion. "Me and Tony Jr. have worked together for a long, long time," Earnhardt said. "I think Rick likes being in the middle of it because it's fun. I don't know of any driver on the racetrack that doesn't get hot under the collar. I don't do it every race. But I have had some real good ones you all missed apparently -- last week wasn't my best. I've had some pretty good ones. "The Chase is real important to me. My determination has never been higher. Those things are hard to harness, you know, when you're trying to accomplish what you want to accomplish. You're leading the race all day and things go away and the car changes and there is no answer. That is all you want is an answer. So it's real easy to get frustrated when you're not realizing the potential every weekend, because I feel like we're a great team that should be in the thick of this. I don't want to be sitting there five races in, 150 points out, going, 'What the hell did we do wrong?' Still, Earnhardt said his emotion in the car is part of who he is, and his relationship with Eury makes it easier to communicate -- something others may not understand. "I guess I can understand how my comments are offensive and definitely over the top at times," he said. "As you get older you try to do better at that because that is just how you are supposed to act. It's hard in the car. It's hard to remember. I look at those guys and I think they are great friends of mine, but they don't know me well enough, maybe, to talk to them like that." That was what led Hendrick to get more involved with his newest driver last weekend. With five days to digest that, Earnhardt said he welcomed his owner's involvement, anytime, anywhere. "I think it's great," Earnhardt said. "I welcome and want Rick's input on exactly what he thinks about exactly what I'm doing every minute of the day that I'm on the job -- and even some of the things I chose to do in my personal life. I want his opinion on it, because I trust him that much. I believe what he says. I wouldn't argue with him. I just told him it would be hard to talk me off the ledge. I know he's talked a few drivers off of it before, but it's hard to get me calmed down, because I want them to get excited. I want to hear the same frustration from them. I want to know -- I'm sitting in the car, I want to know they are as diligent about it as I am as far as finding what happened. "It makes you more angry and more angry when you hear '10-4' or 'things are going to be better.' I don't want those stock answers; I want to know exactly what's going on. Tell me exactly what you're looking for and what you think it might be. Make up something, lie to me, I don't care. That is what's going to make me feel better." Earnhardt said the one thing he'd have a hard time doing is taking Hendrick's advice to "tone it down a little." "I don't know," Earnhardt said. "I mean, it's just hard to take it down a little. I'm serious. I grew up in this sport and I've been raised around this and it's all I can do and it's all that matters to me. I'm very serious about it. When I'm hot on the radio, I'm challenging everybody else to get to that level and get that serious and make it mean that much to you. "I take it pretty seriously. I understand what Rick's saying and I believe he's right, that I do need to chose my words wisely and take it easy -- only probably because of the exposure it gets, not so much because of how it affects me and Tony Jr. "I can't do any better at communicating. I only know the car as good as I know it. I'm only going to be able to tell them and explain it to them the best way I can. I feel like I do that. I don't think when I get [upset] I communicate worse, I think it is harder for them. I think at that point, Tony Jr. isn't listening to what I'm saying and thinking how to fix the car -- he's hearing me raise hell, and wanting to raise hell back, you know? Moving forward, Earnhardt said anyone could scan his radio communications, but at their own risk. "I don't mind if ya'll listen, but keep your opinions to yourself -- all right?" Earnhardt said. "Because I'm doing business out there and I'm doing my job and that is how I do it. Ya'll can listen all you want, but if you hear something that upsets you, don't come crying to me or whoever said it on my radio. That's the way I feel about it. I don't want to restrict the fans' access, I like the access. If I am a fan, that is what I would want. "Ya'll can tell, you can sit on the Internet all week and talk about [what] you want. I don't like answering questions about it and I'm not going work too damn hard about changing it because I kind of like how it is -- it keeps me motivated and enthused during the race, it keeps me from getting relaxed and monotone during the race. I don't want that to happen." Brother in Arms Who does Dale Earnhardt Jr. worry about in terms of battling for the Chase for the Sprint Cup? Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon, his fellow Hendrick Motorsports pilots, that’s who. “My teammates are my toughest competition,” said Earnhardt. “If we do everything right, we'll all be up there battling. Obviously Rick (Hendrick, team owner) would want us to do whatever we can to win to win a championship first, and second do whatever we can to help our teammates in their quest as well. I've always felt that way. When I had teammates, I always did everything I could to help them so I'm comfortable with that.” Earnhardt said that in order for the teammate thing to work, everyone needs to man up and look out for each other. “On the win-first, help-your-teammate second mentality, it's a little bit of gentleman's understanding,” he said. “Rick demands that everybody help each other and do the best for each other. He spends a lot of time and spends a lot financially for us to all have this opportunity and be able to work here in such a great place with such great co-workers and employees to be working side by side with. We're just really fortunate that this is even here. I think everybody sort of buys into Rick's theories very easily.” Hendrick spending extra time with Junior over radio Dale Earnhardt Jr. has a new radio therapist. The man doubles as owner of the No. 88 Chevrolet Earnhardt drives for Hendrick Motorsports, and he was put to the test in the middle of Sunday's Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. In a tale that has been repeated often this year, Earnhardt appeared to have the car that was the class of the field at the midway point of the 300-lap event at the 1.058-mile track -- only to suffer through some adversity that forced him to eventually settle for a fifth-place finish. This time the culprit, according to Earnhardt, was a bad set of Goodyear racing tires that were placed on the car during a pit stop just past the halfway point. "We put on a set of tires midway through the race and that thing got so loose I couldn't drive it, and we lost a bunch of spots," Earnhardt said. "I've got to thank my pit crew. They got me a bunch back on pit road. They're an awesome bunch of guys. They did a good job to get me a top-five finish." Earnhardt wasn't so cordial toward his crew or anyone else when he came on the radio after falling all the way from the lead to 10th following the tire change that he found questionable. That's when team owner Rick Hendrick had to come onto the radio to calm him down, continuing a tradition that they began three races ago at Bristol. Their conversation during a caution that ran from Laps 215-220 went as follows: "We need a security guard over there watching those [expletive tires]," Earnhardt said. "I can't figure out why we keep [messing] up in the middle of all these races. Every [expletive] time." Hendrick: "You've got a great car right now. Just take it easy." Earnhardt: "This is [expletive bullcrap]." Hendrick: "You got a bad set of tires. It happens." Earnhardt: "I need to find another series that runs half-distance races." Hendrick: "You can do this. Talk to everybody about what the car is doing. We can make the right adjustments." Earnhardt: "I'm [ticked] off. Sometimes you go your fastest when you're [ticked] off. So we'll see." Hendrick: "Take it out on those guys in front of you." Hendrick's soothing tone seemed to calm Earnhardt, who eventually worked his way past some of the cars in front of him to fifth. Afterward, Earnhardt, Hendrick and crew chief Tony Eury Jr. deemed that a good enough start to the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. Earnhardt was fourth in the standings coming into Sunday's Sylvania 300 -- and he was fourth coming out of it. But he gained 20 points on the leaders, as he now trails co-leaders Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson by 50. He was 70 points behind then-leader Kyle Busch entering Sunday. "We did exactly what our goal was -- to come here and run top five, run strong and lead laps, and that's what we did," Eury said. "So it's disappointing because everybody wants to win every week; but realistically, top-fives every week would make me happy." Earnhardt added: "I'm happy. I felt like I did a good job and our guys did a good job. It's one of them deals where you go in and all you want to be able to say when you leave is you got what you deserved." But still, there was that set of tires that infuriated Earnhardt during the race. Hendrick did his best to talk Earnhardt down from the ledge, but there is some question as to how successful he really was. In any case, he intends to continue playing radio therapist whenever Earnhardt gets ugly toward Eury or the crew or simply life in general if a race steers some adversity toward the No. 88 team's direction. "If you let things get to you, you will not win this Chase," Hendrick said. "If you turn all the negatives into positives, if you have a bad race and just go back and try to say how can we be a little bit better in every category -- whether it is the chassis, motor, pit crew or whatever -- those are the guys that are going to win it. "It's just like a basketball game. Guys lead, lead, lead and then choke. You can't choke. That's what I'm trying to get them not to do." Earnhardt led 79 laps on Sunday, second only to the 96 led by fellow Hendrick Motorsports driver Jimmie Johnson. Yet Greg Biffle won the race in the No. 16 Ford he drives for Roush Fenway Racing. Earnhardt did not sound repentant for his radio outburst, but then most of his crew -- and even Hendrick -- appear to have grown used to him blowing off steam in that colorful and passionate manner. "Once I'm on the ledge, it's hard to get me off of it. I don't know if even Rick's got what it takes to do that. I just said what I had to say to appease him, make him think I was calm," Earnhardt said. "I like getting riled up. It motivates me. I drive better when I'm ticked off, and racin' usually ticks you off." Nonetheless, Eury said that he welcomes Hendrick's involvement on the radio during races. "I don't know. It's kind of different -- because if I talk to him, I'm too much like a big brother talkin' to him," Eury said. "So it's nice to have your boss man there, who has a lot of experience and knowledge. Dale Jr. respects him a whole lot. That's what's cool. You get somebody with that much respect on your tool box to talk to him, telling him things are going to be all right. It makes a world of difference. I can talk to him until I'm blue in the face -- but when Rick says it, it just comes across different." Hendrick added whatever the outside perceptions of Earnhardt's first season with his operation, he contends that it already has been a success. He pointed out that not only has Earnhardt solidly been in the top five in points all year, but he won two non-points races at the beginning of it (a 125-mile qualifying race for the Daytona 500, plus the Bud Shootout) and won his first points race in more than two years at Michigan in June. "We're actually having fun teasing each other. The fans probably think [Earnhardt] really wants to rip Tony apart; then he gets out of the car and wants to hug him. If [Earnhardt] could just focus, he's got a real shot at this thing," Hendrick said. "I told him when the race started our objective was to win a race this year. We won three. We should have won a couple of more. Two of them weren't point races. The second objective was to be in the Chase. OK, we're in the Chase. Now we've gotten one [Chase race] under our belt. We've got to be right there in striking distance." Hendrick intends to be there every step of the way -- on the radio, whenever he thinks he needs to be. He's been playing the role of radio therapist since the Bristol race on Aug. 25. "I'm going to stay right with him every race," Hendrick said. "I love his enthusiasm and his grit. But I want him to focus in the middle of the race and tell us what the car needs. We're having fun with it. He calls me at the end of the first week we did it and says, 'Hey, I love that. That pumps me up.' "As long as his fans don't want to lynch me, we'll be all right." Junior's Hot Rick Hendrick tried to relax Dale Earnhardt Jr. before the race by pointing out the team had already achieved two preseason goals. Now, the team owner might need to work on a quicker way to soothe Earnhardt’s nerves during a race when the ride gets rough. “When we started the year, we wanted to win a race and make the Chase. That’s two out of the way,” Hendrick said over the team radio. For a while, it looked as if Junior might have knocked off another goal— winning a Chase race. Earnhardt led a good chunk of the way around the halfway mark at New Hampshire Motor Speedway before he tailed off and finished fifth. Once Earnhardt’s No. 88 Chevrolet started fading from the lead, he became frustrated and started yelling over the radio at crew chief Tony Eury Jr. Earnhardt said he was tired of his car’s handling and then suggested someone was tampering with his tires and said the team needed to beef up security. That’s when Hendrick got on the radio to calm him down and suggested Junior “take a deep breath.” “He hasn’t told me to shut up yet,” Hendrick said after the race. “It’s all good.” Earnhardt blamed one set of bad tires for falling off the lead. “Where are you going to point the finger other than the racing tires we just put on the car?” he said. “We put on another set and were fine.” Earnhardt was all smiles and flashed the peace sign at Hendrick as he walked by the owner in the garage. Hendrick just laughed and said all was well between Junior and his team. “We’re actually having fun teasing each other,” Hendrick said. “The fans probably think he really wants to rip Tony apart. Then he gets out of the car and wants to hug him. I just think if he can just focus, he’s got a real shot at this thing.” Earnhardt is fourth in the Chase standings, 50 points behind co-leaders Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson. “We’ve got to be right there in striking distance,” Hendrick said. “He’s got so much talent and they’ve been doing things the way they do them for a long, long time. I’m just trying to give them some old man experience. A little more focus, think about what the car’s doing, give Tony the feedback and we’ll make the right adjustments.” Hard Chargin’ The best race of the day at New Hampshire Motor Speedway was the battle for fourth place in the Sylvania 300, the opening race of the Chase for the Sprint. Jeff Burton took the spot after a fierce but clean duel with Dale Earnhardt Jr. that went right down to the final lap. “This is what it's all about,” said Burton, who finished in the top five in his Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet for the first time since the June Pocono race “It's playoff time now. When it's 10 to go, 20 to go, 30 (laps) to go it's every man for himself within limits obviously. Dale and I had a great race. We never touched each other; we race each other hard. That's what it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be good, hard racing. I think you've got nine more races of that coming.” For Earnhardt, it was his second consecutive top five after a 10-race stretch without a single top-five finish. He, too, acknowledged that the battle with Burton was a good one. “I thought I had him and I slipped a little bit and he got back by me,” said Earnhardt. “It was just great, great racing. I hate that I lost a spot though because every one is important, but it's fun. He's a good racer. He's hard to beat man, just smooth.” For Earnhardt, no relief from the title expectations They always expect him to win it. The belief is always there, every day, every race, every year, regardless of whether or not his results merit such anticipation. Dale Earnhardt Jr. walks through the Sprint Cup garage carrying burdens seen and unseen, from the legacy of his family's name to the ebb and flow of NASCAR's popularity to the unyielding pressure to win. Back in the Chase for the first time in two years? Nice. Snapped that 76-race winless streak at Michigan? Good. But the bigger prize, the one that will both validate and feed his popularity at the same time, is still unrealized. And no matter where he is in the point standings, no matter how well or poorly his car is running, the throngs of Junior Nation expect him to take it. That's quite a heavy load for a 33-year-old with 18 career victories on NASCAR's premier series, no matter what organization he's driving for. Sure, Earnhardt has it all -- those rugged good looks, more cash than he could ever spend, and an ability to drive a racecar that's earned him the adoration of millions. But he also drags around the weight of expectation, like a cannonball chained to his leg. The magic is that he's able to handle it with such grace and relative understatement, somehow embracing all that rampant expectancy yet tempering it at the same time. "You can never live up to those," Earnhardt said when asked about meeting the expectations of his massive fan base. "I wouldn't expect to. I would hope their expectations are super high. Anything short of a championship is not reaching their expectations, I'm sure." Of course, Earnhardt wants to win the Sprint Cup championship himself. But wanting and expecting are two very different things. Regardless of how this season turns out, Earnhardt's first campaign with powerhouse Hendrick Motorsports will be a rousing success -- he's back in the year-end Chase for the first time since 2006, he's contending for race wins again, he's outrun the painful family drama that swallowed the end of his tenure with Dale Earnhardt Inc. He and crew chief Tony Eury Jr. have shown a promising touch with the new car, and should only get better going forward. We're on the verge of once again seeing the real Junior, the one who finished third in final points in 2003 and won six races the next year, the one who squashes all the short-sighted contrarians who think he's living off his last name. But is that enough? Can Junior Nation be satisfied with progress and potential? For their driver's sake, let's hope so. With his low-key nature and his lazy North Carolina drawl, Earnhardt can come off as a guy with no worries. But he feels it. When you're NASCAR's most popular driver by a rather wide margin, it would be impossible not to. "Pressure is hard to handle," he said at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, where he enters Sunday's Chase opener seeded fourth in the 12-man field. "It's not easy, I don't think. I don't particularly enjoy the pressure, but I wouldn't change anything about my world as far as in this garage, and how I'm treated by my friends and drivers, and really what my position is in this sport. I wouldn't give it up for nothing." He's every bit as talented at handling his status as he is handling his racecar, an ability that comes in handy in a season like this one -- when he's good enough to whet his fan base's appetite for that long-awaited championship, but probably not quite good enough to win it. Strip away the bias, something all those folks wearing No. 88 gear often find difficult to do, and it's clear that this team isn't on the same level as those of Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, and Jimmie Johnson, the three obvious favorites as the 10-race playoff begins. No one knows that better than Junior, who after ripping off 11 top-10s in his first 15 starts of the season, has recorded just two since. As good as this year has been to him, he's playing catch-up when it comes to the big prize. But such a scenario might play to Earnhardt's favor, dimming the spotlight just enough for him to make a move. The fact that he had an awesome car last weekend at Richmond was almost lost in Johnson's win, Tony Stewart's radio tirade, and who secured the final position in the Chase. He'll take the break whenever he can get it. "It's kind of cool to be under the radar a little bit," he said. "We've had so much pressure this year. At the start of the season it was really hard to concentrate, and it was good to get a little bit of a break in the summer. Things kind of cooled off and everything mellowed a little bit. It feels good. I really like my position. I don't feel like we're underestimated. We know we've got a little work to do. We definitely don't have an argument that we're as strong as the top three guys, but we've got the tools. We've got the ability to be there." He has the advantage of being able to compare notes with Johnson and Jeff Gordon, two teammates also vying for the title. He has the luxury of competing for car owner Rick Hendrick, a longtime mentor of Earnhardt's who has allowed the driver to assimilate at his own pace. And he has confidence, something that wasn't always evident during those trying, final days at DEI, when there were the ever-present worries about the engines or the equipment letting him down. His peers have noticed. "He seems a lot more relaxed than what he used to be, and there is probably a lot more stress with the family business and having to answer to his dad's name, and I can kind of relate to that," Kevin Harvick said. "So it's getting into a situation where he is in more control of his own career, and it's got to feel more comfortable and more rewarding than the situation that he was in before." Added Stewart: "It's hard without being a part of his program and seeing what he's got going on, but I think he's got more confidence this year," the two-time Cup champion said. "He's always been confident off the track, but I think you see it in his driving on the track. He's got a renewed confidence that I don't think we've seen the last couple of years." But is that enough to help him win a championship? Maybe not. Like a college football program breaking in a new star quarterback, his team is probably still one year away. Of course, that doesn't mean Earnhardt doesn't allow himself to daydream of what it would be like, to hold that silver trophy and fulfill his destiny and cement his place in the sport. "I don't even have the vocabulary for it," he said. "It would be huge." What would his reaction be? "You got to be happier than hell," he said. "I tell you one thing, wouldn't nobody be telling me what to do in that Victory Lane celebration. I'd be running it. We'd be doing what I want to do." That's Earnhardt for you. Everything on his terms. "I wouldn't do that hat dance," he said, "until I was damn well ready to do it." Git ' Er Done Dale Earnhardt Jr. said he doesn’t have an especially complicated strategy for the Chase for the Sprint Cup. The third-generation racer said he’s ready to simply put the pedal down on Sunday when the Chase opens at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. “Win as many races as I can, and win the championship,” Earnhardt said when asked for his game plan. “I'd love to win the championship walking away — you know, go into Homestead with it clinched already. I don't think there is such a thing as having a game plan in racing. You try to strategize, but really that evolves throughout the race.” Earnhardt Jr. Says New Shootout Format Is Not for Him Dale Earnhardt Jr. blasted the new format for the Budweiser Shootout on Friday, saying he would dread racing in the Shootout next year because of the format. The Shootout will be a 75-lap race next year, up from 70 laps, with a 25-lap segment to start and 50 laps to finish. The defending winner of the race, Earnhardt Jr. doesn't understand the changes. “I don’t know what the extra five laps are for,” he said Friday at Auto Club Speedway, site of Sunday’s Pepsi 500 Sprint Cup race. “What the heck? They [NASCAR] don’t get it. They messed up The Winston, the all-star race, and they’re messing up the Shootout. “They ought to line us up, make us run 10 laps. They want us to run around there for 25 first and have a 25-lap segment? That’d be cool. But 10 laps to go, all or nothing - that’s what the fans want, that’s what the drivers want. “The last segment being 50 laps? We’re just going to sit there for 30. I just don’t get it. They don’t get it. I don’t understand. I don’t know what the focus group is they’re talking to to get these formats. “It’s frustrating because I want to like running those races. I don’t want to dread them, but right now I’m dreading running them because the formats are no fun.” Earnhardt Jr. said he didn’t mind the way competitors are picked for the event, which used to be a pole-winners showcase. But since Budweiser no longer sponsors the pole award, the race changed to an event featuring the top six drivers in owners points for each manufacturer. I just hate the formats,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “It’s not exciting, it’s not fun. Fifty laps at the end, right? That’s too long. What for? This is a Shootout. “What the hell, you know? They’ve got a reason.” CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’ Dale Earnhardt Jr. can be comfortable in the knowledge that he’s all but clinched a spot in the Chase for the Sprint Cup with just two races left in NASCAR’s regular season. That said, he’s certainly hoping that this weekend’s trip to the Auto Club Speedway of Southern California will yield better results than the first trip in February, where he finished 40th after being caught up in a crash with his teammate Casey Mears. “Last time at California wasn't so good,” admitted Earnhardt. “In our second race with Hendrick Motorsports, we got caught up in that early wreck with Casey (Mears) because the track wasn't dry yet, and we were racing on it. It rained out anyway, and then we had to come back Monday to run around the track in 40th all day. I felt like we had a good car. We were good in practice, but getting wrecked so early, we didn't have a chance to run the race. I felt bad for my guys and saw how hard they worked to get that car back out on the track." “We're looking forward to getting back,” said Earnhardt’s crew chief, Tony Eury Jr. “I think we had a pretty good car, and we've learned some things over the year. Plus, with it being right there at the Chase, this is a good time to get some momentum. Dale Jr. hasn't had much success at California. It's a tough track for us. We often run good, but just don't have the finishes." Earnhardt Jr. Has Mixed Feelings About JGR Penalties As a Nationwide Series team owner, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has mixed feelings on the penalties NASCAR levied against Joe Gibbs Racing’s Nationwide teams this week for a rules infraction last weekend at Michigan International Speedway. On one hand, Earnhardt Jr. believes the punishment of indefinite suspensions on seven JRG crew members, along with 150-point penalties on the organization’s No. 18 and 20 Nationwide teams, fit the crime. On the other hand, Earnhardt Jr. says he almost envies the Gibbs group for being innovative, even if they tried to skirt the rules. Officials found during postrace chassis dynamometer testing that the teams intentionally manipulated their cars' horsepower readings by attaching a magnetic spacer under the gas pedals. “There’s a little part of you that, yeah, you’re ticked because you’re competing against these guys and they’re trying to bend the rules,” Earnhardt Jr. said Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway. “You’re just also envious and mad that you didn’t think of it yourself. You know what I mean? I don’t think anything less of them because everybody’s trying and sometimes you think more of people, unfortunately. It’s not a great example to set but sometimes the creativity of the situation makes it a little bit admirable in a sense.” Admirable or not, Earnhardt Jr. doesn’t see the penalties - which also included probation on both entire teams along with $50,000 fines and indefinite suspensions on JRG crew chiefs Dave Rogers and Jason Ratcliff - as excessive. Both cars are being driven by more than one person this season, so the teams are not in the running for a drivers championship. “They’re running for owners points, I assume, but they’ve not necessarily got a driver title out there so it’s hard to really kind of hit them where it hurts with that deal,” said Earnhardt Jr., who owns the No. 88 Nationwide car of Brad Keselowski along with the No. 5 that is being shared by several drivers. “I don’t think really anything they did hurt them all that much other than the personnel [losses] and the embarrassment, obviously. "[Team owner] Joe [Gibbs] takes a lot of pride in his deal and I believe what he says when he says he’s upset and I believe what he says when he says he’s going to take action on his own. But it really doesn’t take away from them on a performance deal.” Earnhardt Jr. noted that last week wasn’t the first time a Gibbs team has been found in violation of NASCAR rules. Tony Stewart’s Sprint Cup car was confiscated by officials earlier this year at Texas after failing an inspection. But the most recent infractions were more flagrant, Earnhardt Jr. said. “It was just obvious, blatant cheating and a unique circumstance too - on the chassis dyno - and I feel like that that deserved a unique style of punishment,” Earnhardt Jr. said. Still, he empathizes with the Gibbs team from the perspective that the group doesn’t know exactly how long the suspensions will last. “I never really liked people being suspended indefinitely and ... even if you’re on the side being suspended you would just rather know: it’s this,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “ ... If it was me I would want to know, 'This is the weeks, this is the deal, this is when it’s over.'" Junior one of the most consistent at the bullring When Bristol announced they would add variable banking to their track many were skeptical, but the racing is getting progressively better. Fans may have been shocked when Bristol Motor Speedway decided to add progressive banking to a track that regularly held some of the best races of the year, but when the cars hit the track this spring, they were pleasantly surprised. Somehow track officials found a way to make a good thing better and the half-mile bullring now featured side-by-side racing for multiple laps. The racing is more exciting than ever now and trickier too as Jimmie Johnson discovered during the Craftsman Truck Series race on Wednesday night when he battled doorpost to doorpost with the lapped truck of Jon Wood for several circuits before he got behind on his steering. He caught his truck, lost it, caught it, lost it, caught it and eventually looped in front of Jeff Green and Ken Schrader and ended his night. Fans will see even more action like that Saturday night as seven more cars circle the track at faster speeds. The new body style will probably improve the competition as well. These cars are stable and durable, which means that casual contact won't accomplish the bump-and-run -- a driver is going to have to bang on the bumper pretty hard to get his competitor out of shape, or alternatively pull to the outside and legitimately make the pass -- and contact with the outside wall will not necessarily end a driver's night. If you need proof, rewind the DVR to Darlington Raceway this spring and watch Kyle Busch bounce off the wall on several occasion en route to Victory Lane. Passing is always a god thing, and with the Chase only three weeks away, drivers on the cusp of falling out of the top 12 in points will take a little consolation in the improved resilience of the car, but make no mistake: this is still Bristol where trouble lurks around every corner and with laps taking 20 seconds to complete, calamity is never far away. The Favorites Bad calls have cost Dale Earnhardt Jr. a shot at Victory Lane in back-to-back weeks. He was stranded on track when the caution waved at Watkins Glen International and last week, his old tires were not up to the task at Michigan International Speedway. This week should provide relief, however, because Bristol has been one of his Islands in the Storm. He counts his victory in the 2004 August night race as one of his most prized possessions because of how well his father ran on this same track, and while Junior hasn't logged as many victories as his father, he's been extremely consistent in this age of parity. Since the start of the 2002 season, Earnhardt has finished worse than 11th only once and in those 13 races he's earned 10 top-10s and averaged a finish of 6.8. Greg Biffle might not be the first name that comes to mind on the short tracks, but that will only serve to differentiate your roster from the competition. This track is traditionally rough on rookies, but he earned a fifth-place finish in his first start there in 2003 and he's rarely stumbled since. In 11 career starts on this bullring, Biffle has finished outside the top 15 only twice. As one gets closer to the present day, the numbers only get better and he has six top-10s in his last seven starts and two top-fives in his last three races. In fact, in terms of average finishes Bristol tops his list at 9.7. By the numbers, these two drivers stand head and shoulders above the rest in terms of current active streaks, but Matt Kenseth cannot be overlooked. Last year he failed in his bid for three consecutive August night race victories at Bristol when he was collected in an accident triggered by Johnson and Dale Jarrett. Kenseth was running only about 15th before the incident, but his tendency is to come on strong at the end of races and sneak up on the competition, so even with a modest run, his chances for victory couldn't be ignored. With a fifth-place finish at Michigan, he has some momentum on his side and with Auto Club Speedway next on the schedule, he could be a great place-and-hold driver. Dark Horses OK, last week we said we were going to stop predicting Jeff Gordon's finishes for a while, but it's hard to come to Bristol and not mention a driver with five victories. The most frustrating thing about last week's accident at Michigan was that it came after the driver was finally happy with his car and for the first time in several months, he did not spend the entire race complaining about the handle. In this spring's Bristol race, Gordon finished just outside the top 10 in 11th, but he's been stout on the other short tracks with a second at Martinsville Speedway and a ninth at Richmond International Raceway as well as a fifth on the big sister concrete course of Dover International Speedway, so this could be the week he gets the monkey off his back. With as many top-15s as Jeff Burton started the 2008 season with, it will come as little surprise that he's been consistent on the concrete high banks. In his last nine races at Dover and Bristol combined, Burton has a worst result of 12th, a victory on each track and an average finish of 6.2. His victory at Bristol came this spring, which makes him the most recent winner there and that always adds to a driver's confidence. Burton would be an outright favorite if not for a general softening of his results in recent weeks. He hasn't earned a top-five in the last nine races, but that could change after the Sharpie 500 is completed. Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch remain the two hottest drivers on the circuit with their first- and second-place finishes in last week's 3M Performance 400. Between them, they have won five of the last six races and when they have missed it is often not by much as evidenced by three more second-place finishes during that span. Both drivers get relegated to dark horse status this week, however, because of relatively weak performances in this spring's Food City 500. Edwards finished 16th in that race with Busch 17th and neither was much of a threat to win. Red Flag Despite his 17th-place finish at Michigan, Johnson remains the third hottest driver in the field and he is the only other racer to win in the last six weeks. In addition to his victory at Indy, he was second at Chicagoland Speedway and third at Pocono Raceway, but Bristol has eluded him. He has not had a top-five finish there in more than three years and with only two top-10s in his last seven attempts, his average finish is a paltry 19.6 during the last seven races. He hoped to get some track time in the Truck Series race on Wednesday night, but triggered his own crash midway through that event, which does not recommend him with fantasy points on the line. This week, we will also wave a red flag over Tony Stewart. With the possibility of his lame duck status slowing his efforts and a generally disappointing record at Bristol in recent seasons, he is simply not worth the risk. He won the 2001 August night race, but in 13 events since then he has only three top-10s and an average finish of 17.6. In that span, he's finished outside the top 30 only once, which means he's been mostly mid-pack with very few solid runs that will supply a good set of notes. Dale Jr.'s "Shifting Gears" to be available on DVD Hammerhead Entertainment and Team Marketing have partnered to bring Dale Jr. -- Shifting Gears, the five-episode ESPN sports documentary featuring Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his move to Hendrick Motorsports, to DVD this fall. Pre-sale orders are being taken now at NASCAR.COM. The DVD will feature all five episodes, plus never-before-seen bonus footage of commercial shoots, video outtakes and bloopers. "We had a lot of fun shooting Shifting Gears, and I think the fans enjoyed watching it," Earnhardt said. "I was glad to hear we are releasing it on DVD, because that gives me, my family, and my fans a really nice documentation of my first year at Hendrick Motorsports to keep forever. Plus, the DVD will include bonus footage that never made the show. I'm actually looking forward to seeing that myself." Shifting Gears debuted in February and provided a unique, behind-the-scenes perspective of Earnhardt's decision to leave family-owned Dale Earnhardt Inc., to drive for Hendrick. Earnhardt allowed access to team meetings, commercial productions, and the odds-and-ends responsibilities that come with changing jobs. Shifting Gears also captured never-before-seen footage at the race track, including his season-opening win in the Budweiser Shootout at Daytona, and his emotional Father's Day victory at Michigan. Dale Earnhardt Jr.: Shifting Gears - In Stores Oct 28 - Pre Order Here! Junior looks to rediscover magic at site of earlier win If it isn't time to start counting again, it's getting close. When Dale Earnhardt Jr. won at the LifeLock 400 at Michigan International Speedway this past June, it broke a 76-race winless streak in points races that had stretched across more than two full years. The victory was greeted with a generous combination of relief and jubilation as Earnhardt scored his first career victory in the No. 88 Chevrolet he now drives for Hendrick Motorsports. But that was June, seven races ago. OK, so some of us have started counting again, as unfair as that might seem. Such are the expectations when your last name is Earnhardt and you drive for the man named Hendrick. "That is part of being in this sport, man," Earnhardt said Friday at MIS, just before he went out and qualified fourth for this Sunday's second race of the season at the track, the 3M Performance 400. "You know, you have to live up to all expectations ... and you get paid a lot of money to do it." Since winning the June race, Earnhardt hasn't lived up to expectations at all. In the seven races since, he has finished in the top 10 only once -- taking eighth in the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona on July 5. He hasn't exactly been horrible in the other six races, finishing 12th three times. And he led a total of 122 laps in the seven races combined, leading at least one in five of them. But his 22nd-place finish last weekend on the road course at Watkins Glen dropped him from second to fourth in points, and left much of the racing world wondering if his title hopes are beginning to slip away even before the Chase to the Sprint Cup commences. Earnhardt's teammates at Hendrick Motorsports are quick to come to the defense of Junior and his cousin crew chief, Tony Eury Jr. "They've been consistent all year long and continue to be consistent," Jeff Gordon said. "I would really like to see them -- as high up in the points as they've been at times -- I'd like to see them going out there ... leading more laps and being a little more dominant. But I really don't feel like they've lost anything." Two-time defending points champion Jimmie Johnson said that it's obvious the No. 88 team isn't as sharp now as it appeared to be coming into the last Michigan race. "I can say at the start of the season, Tony Jr. had a real good feel for what the setups needed to be at that point at the tracks we were going to," Johnson said. "As time has gone, this sport keeps changing. Everything is moving and shaking. We didn't have it [earlier], and we slowly have picked it up. Those guys had it early and are trying to get that going again." Earnhardt insisted that he has struggled of late more because of the schedule than anything else. When the No. 88 team was more efficient earlier in the year, most of the Sprint Cup races were being held at tracks where he says he is more comfortable. It showed as he registered a remarkable 11 top-10 finishes in the first 15 races, capped with the win at Michigan. That included seven top-five finishes as well. "I figured the summer would be rough and it was," Earnhardt said. "I don't know why that is other than there aren't any favorite racetracks of mine in that little stretch. That's one thing I know for sure. "I am looking forward to the last third of the season. We seem to do really well at all of those racetracks. ... Starting here, we will start to see some improvement and start a run like we had been on at the start of the year. Like we are capable of doing." Johnson said Earnhardt has reason to be confident, as he likewise has found reasons to remain confident that his new teammate will get on another positive roll. "It sounds odd when all the teams are in the same shop and that technology doesn't necessarily apply from one car to the other -- but driving styles, crew-chief styles, it all plays a part in it," Johnson added. "Those guys won't be down long. They have all the tools necessary. "I have been extremely impressed with Tony and Dale Jr.'s commitment to the team, with the feel that Junior has had in that car. I didn't now what kind of teammate he would be like; he has blown the roof off of the expectations because he has such a really good feel for the car. You go up and down; you go through slumps and stuff happens. But those guys will be just fine." Earnhardt said he has no doubts. But he would like to give all the doubters something to think about by winning again at Michigan this Sunday. Last time he won on a fuel-mileage gamble. This time, he said, he would like to beat everyone because he has the best car and he drives it the fastest for the longest. "It would be good to get another win here to show everybody we can do it on a full tank of gas," said Earnhardt, smiling. Junior Seeks Double When Dale Earnhardt Jr. outlasted Kasey Kahne to win at Michigan International Speedway in June, he not only ended his own 76-race winless streak, he joined rarified company: Earnhardt became just the second driver since 1996 to win at MIS in a Chevrolet. His Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon won at MIS in 1998 and 2001, but every other NASCAR Sprint Cup race at the 2-mile Michigan oval from 1996-2007 was won by drivers in Fords (14 victories), Dodges (six) or Pontiacs (two). Despite the long odds against Chevrolet here, NASCAR’s perennial most popular driver likes his chances to add another MIS victory on Sunday in the 3M Performance 400. “I am looking forward to going back,” said Earnhardt, who is ranked fourth in the NASCAR Sprint Cup points standings. “We run pretty good and had a pretty good car. I want to make the car better. I like that race track. It is a lot of fun to race on. These cars are pretty challenging this year but that is still a fun track for me.” Historically, the summer has been the weak time of year for Earnhardt, and that’s been the case this season, as his average finish has been just 15.1 since his Michigan victory seven races earlier. Not to worry, Earnhardt insisted. “We are sort of starting to swing back toward the tracks that we have better runs at and we have better luck at,” he said. “I have had some rough, rough, rough runs this summer but that seems to be the case every year. I wasn’t a bit surprised that we didn’t really light ‘em on fire this summertime, but we will try again next year. But we are starting to lean toward these race tracks we run pretty good at and we get more top-fives with higher frequency toward last one-third of the year and we are in good shape to make a good run at it. Maybe we can start it off this weekend if we get lucky, we just need some luck.” Cousin doesn't know best for Dale Jr. Dale Earnhardt Jr. would never come out and say his team - more to the point, crew chief and cousin Tony Eury Jr. - cost him a potential win at Watkins Glen on Sunday. So I’ll say it for him - Tony Jr. flat out blew it. Earnhardt, who has never excelled on road courses, took the lead from pole sitter Kyle Busch just two laps into the Centurion Boats at The Glen. From there, Junior opened a sizable lead over the rest of the field and appeared to have the car to beat. Now when it comes to road courses, pit strategy is the opposite of traditional tracks. On a road course, green-flag laps take well over a minute to complete, meaning it’s better to pit under green to hold track position. However, pitting under caution after everyone else has pitted under green will drop you to the rear of the field. Despite that, Eury kept Earnhardt out on the track with 37 laps to go, even though other crew chiefs brought their drivers in to make their final stops. Eury’s call left Earnhardt hung out to dry. Other drivers with fresher tires eventually tracked down Junior, and he was running sixth when he finally pitted under caution. He came out of the pits 32nd on lap 67 and wound up finishing 22nd. Not only did the call cost Junior a solid finish, it dropped him from second to fourth in the Sprint Cup standings. “Strategy got messed up there at the end,” Earnhardt said.”We should have done something different but I don’t know. I really didn’t know what the strategy was and what Tony Jr. and the guys were really trying to make happen up there but I know it didn’t work out for us.” Nope, sure didn’t. Perhaps even more disconcerting for Earnhardt has been his performance since winning at Michigan in the middle of June. In the seven races since, Junior has an average finish of 15 and just one top-10. Perhaps being solidly in the Chase has given Eury the opportunity to do some experimenting with set-ups prior to NASCAR’s version of the playoffs. But Earnhardt didn’t pin his recent slide on Eury’s tinkering. “I just drive (the cars),” Earnhardt said. “Tony (Eury) Jr. might be trying something in there but he wouldn’t get too crazy. His deal is just to give me a chance every week and he wouldn’t take too many risks.” That wasn’t the case at Watkins Glen. Earnhardt Jr. Applauds Truex Decision to Stay with DEI Dale Earnhardt Jr. says he believes Martin Truex Jr.'s decision to return to Dale Earnhardt Inc. for at least one more season was the best for Truex and the company. Truex and Earnhardt Jr., who were teammates at the organization in 2006 and 2007, are close friends. Truex also drove for the Earnhardt Jr. and DEI-owned Chance 2 Motorsports in what is now the Nationwide Series in 2004 and 2005. DEI picked up the option on Truex’s contract earlier this week, which puts him back in the seat of the No. 1 Chevrolet in 2009 but makes him a free agent beyond that. “I think it was good for him,” said Earnhardt Jr., who drove the No. 8 DEI Cup car full time from 2000 to 2007 before leaving to compete for Hendrick Motorsports this season. “It gives DEI a time to further negotiate with him for the future and to align their key sponsors for the next several years. It gives Martin a real good look at what the landscape will be like next season for him. People will shuffle around to teams but not quite like we saw last year. “It could be a whole different landscape for him next year as far as other opportunities. But it’s also really good for both of them. It gives DEI a good opportunity to have more time with him to put together something that’s a little bit longer.” Truex had been considered a possible candidate for other rides, including the fourth Richard Childress Racing car expected to debut next season. Today at Watkins Glen International, Truex confirmed earlier reports that he has agreed to a one-year contract extension with DEI. Does Earnhardt Jr., who speaks with Truex often, think Truex seems conflicted about returning to DEI? “I guess he decided to stay because that was the best option for him,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I can’t really speak for him or DEI personally. I really didn’t talk to Martin too much about it or stick my nose in the middle of it, but I suppose it was the best option for him. I feel like it was a good decision. “They’ve built a pretty good relationship, him and his team. I feel like that was probably the best move for him to go ahead and exercise that option with DEI and see what everything looks like at this time next year.” Eury Surprised as Earnhardt Jr. Runs Out of Fuel Crew chief Tony Eury Jr. was baffled as to how Dale Earnhardt Jr. could have run out of fuel on the final lap of Sunday's Sunoco Red Cross Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono Raceway. Earnhardt Jr. was in the top five entering the final lap of the NASCAR Sprint Cup race, but drifted back to a final finish of 12th. While three of the Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets were on fumes at the line, Earnhardt Jr. made it the least distance on the final lap. Based on the performance and fuel mileage throughout the race, Eury expected Earnhardt Jr. to easily make it to the finish. "I don’t know what happened there at the end," he said. "The car got real loose and he kind of started back pedaling there, but we were sitting there running fourth and kind of minding our own. We should have been a lap to a lap and a half to the good [on fuel], I thought. "It seems like it ran out somewhere over there by the tunnel or somewhere. It kind of caught me off guard. It was one of those deals where we pitted where our window opened for the fuel mileage. We weren’t trying to push nothing, kinda weird." Eury was further confused because of their teammates' performance. “The No. 24 [of Jeff Gordon] ran out and the No. 48 [of Jimmie Johnson] was out when [they] crossed the line," Eury said. "Those guys were getting worse fuel mileage than we were all day. When we got loose there, we started pedaling the throttle a little bit more and might have used up a little more fuel. That is why you take an average of all day. Ours was a little bit low on the end.” Press Pass offers up 'VIP Gift Bag' contest If you wonder why Press Pass is the only trading card company currently producing NASCAR cards, chalk it up to one word: Innovation. Press Pass is introducing another novel concept to the collectibles industry with the 2008 VIP Gift Bag Contest. This unique initiative will provide eight lucky winners with an enviable collection of rare autograph and race-used memorabilia cards from the top drivers in NASCAR. Each gift bag is driver specific and includes a combination of 10 autograph and race-used memorabilia cards from 2005 to 2008. The cards featured for each driver range from autographed press plates to Signature Series Autographs, and also include some cards that have yet to be released. "We are excited to offer race fans a chance to win such an amazing collection of cards from their favorite drivers," stated Heather Maillard, Brand Manager for Press Pass. "The winners of these eight VIP Gift Bags will not be disappointed." VIP Gift Bag contest entry cards will be inserted into packs of Press Pass VIP 2008, which is set to release on August 19. Collectors can check the specific driver contest that they would like to enter. Winners will be selected over an eight week period starting in November. Press Pass is giving fans a sneak peak by releasing a listing of the contents of one VIP Gift Bag each week up until the release of Press Pass VIP 2008. All 10 cards for each driver will be revealed one week at a time at www.presspassinc.com. Here is a quick rundown of the eight drivers involved and when their cards will be announced: • June 30: Tony Stewart • July 7: Martin Truex, Jr • July 14: Carl Edwards • July 21: Kevin Harvick • July 28: Jimmie Johnson • August 4: Kasey Kahne • August 11: Jeff Gordon • August 18: Dale Earnhardt Jr. Of course, the Gift Bag Contest isn't the only highlight that will draw collectors to Press Pass VIP 2008. Other features include two all new race-used memorabilia programs: Gear Gallery and Triple Grip. Gear Gallery features a comprehensive memorabilia roster that highlights unique race-used items ranging from firesuits to window nets -- all of the essential gear needed on race day. Triple Grip is a multi-piece glove card featuring the top teams in NASCAR. The popular Press Pass Signings autograph program returns in 2008 and includes dozens of top NASCAR stars including the first autograph cards of 18-year-old phenom Joey Logano. Junior Hopes History Doesnt Repeat Dale Earnhardt Jr., as keen a student of NASCAR history as there is in the Sprint Cup garage, knows full well how big a race Sunday’s Allstate 400 at the Brickyard is. Now he and crew chief Tony Eury Jr. have to try and figure out how to improve on his results there. Earnhardt, who currently sits second in Sprint Cup points, historically has not enjoyed the type of results at Indianapolis Motor Speedway that he has elsewhere. In eight previous starts at the fabled 2.5-mile track, Earnhardt has never finished better than sixth and has an average finish of 21st. His sights are set much higher this weekend, when he driver a Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet for the first time at Indy. “The Brickyard is a special race,” said Earnhardt. “A bunch of famous drivers have won there, and there's a ton of history. I'm big into the history of this sport. The track was one of the first to gain international recognition for its races. We tire tested there so it was good to get some extra laps. Winning would be cool because there is so much prestige. It would be special for the team and for me. It's a top-five track as far as places I want to win at over the course of my career.” But for Earnhardt to enjoy a reversal of fortune at the Brickyard will take some doing. Under the best of circumstances, Indy has been a place where passing has been difficult for NASCAR stock cars. And with the new-generation car race car, clean air and track position will be critically important in Sunday’s race. “It could possibly be its worst race just because of aero,” said Eury, Earnhardt’s cousin and long-time crew chief, of the new car. “That track is very aero-sensitive to the cars. You're going to see what you did at Pocono. You're going to see a lot of two-tire stops. You're going to see a lot of things happening just to keep your track position. It's not a favorable place to pass, and track position will be everything. I think the race will be won off pit road.” Earnhardt and his crew will have one advantage at Indy: They took part in a Goodyear tire test earlier this year at the Brickyard. The biggest benefit gained at the test, Eury said, “was probably the way to get the car down. The attitude and everything was the biggest thing we learned at the tire test. … Anytime you can get on the track at Indy and you can get your aero-attitude kind of baselined out, it's going to be a huge advantage for us.” Eury thinks that could be the difference on Sunday. “Indy, as big of a race as it is and as unique as that track is, it was very special for us (to get the test),” he said. “We really jumped at the chance to be able to go there. That time is very valuable because the laps are so long. It takes right at 54 seconds to get around there so if you're doing a happy hour you may get three to four runs, and that's it. We actually had two days, and that will mean a lot.” Earnhardt Ready for Indy, Pleased With Tires for Race Dale Earnhardt Jr. participated in a tire test at Indianapolis Motor Speedway earlier this year and says that he was pleased with the way things went in that session. That could bode well for the Hendrick Motorsports driver in the upcoming Allstate 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at the track. While the series is enjoying its final off weekend, drivers and teams are already turning their attention to the July 27 race at Indianapolis. Earnhardt Jr., who has a best finish of sixth at the track and has two top-10 finishes in eight races there, said that he was pleased with the tire that Goodyear brought for the session. “I tire tested up there, and I was kind of happy with how the car drove. I was really happy," he said. "I think the tire testing that we did with Goodyear was pretty good, and they learned some things." Earnhardt Jr. says he thinks that Goodyear found a tire that will provide longer wear and still be racy. "I was really happy about that," he said. Even If DEI Is For Sale, Jr Doesn't Want It Anymore Dale Earnhardt Jr. said he doesn’t believe Dale Earnhardt Inc. is for sale and even if it was, he isn’t interested in buying it anymore. Earnhardt Jr. heard the speculation that DEI or a portion of it could be sold to an investor – speculation denied by the team – and was surprised by it. Earnhardt Jr. had wanted to buy majority interest from stephmother Teresa in the team last year, a key sticking point that broke down the negotiations for him to stay there and spurred his move to Hendrick Motorsports. “I talked to [DEI driver Martin] Truex on the Internet and he said something about it, and I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about,” Earnhardt Jr. said Thursday at Chicagoland Speedway. How would he feel if the team was sold a year after he had tried to buy it? “All I’d tell them is ‘Good luck,’ “ Earnhardt Jr. said. “I think the company is doing really good. I never felt like she would be interested in selling the company and I don’t think it is in Teresa’s character to give that company up. She feels that strongly about it, she felt that strongly about it a couple of years ago. I would be surprised. “But maybe she sees the trend and some of the other things that are happening in the sport with other owners and changed her mind.” Earnhardt Jr. remains upbeat about DEI, as he has all season since he left. “If there’s a time for it to be sold that this would be a good opportunity,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “It seems to have stepped forward the last couple of years and improved itself. I don’t mean this in a bad way, but I would not have any interest in purchasing it. I would not have interest in purchasing any race team just to have the ownership. That doesn’t seem like a good deal.” JR Motorsports searching for sponsor for '09 season Add Dale Earnhardt Jr. to the growing list of car owners searching for sponsorship. The Navy is leaving the No. 88 Chevrolet in the Nationwide Series at the end of the season, forcing Earnhardt to search for funding for the flagship car at JR Motorsports. "We were informed last week that our sponsorship with the U.S. Navy will not renew at the end of the year," team spokesman Mike Davis said Tuesday. "It's been an exceptional partnership since 2005, and we look forward to a strong finish to the season as Brad Keselowski and the No. 88 Navy team contends for a NASCAR Nationwide Series championship." Keselowski gave the Navy its first NASCAR victory last month with a Nationwide win at Milwaukee. He's second in the series standings, and trails Clint Bowyer by 202 points. The Navy has been sponsor of Earnhardt's first car as a NASCAR owner since the formation of JR Motorsports. Last year, he merged his operation with Hendrick Motorsports and now fields two cars out of his new shop in Mooresville. The second car, the No. 5, has been driven by multiple drivers and has used multiple sponsors all season. Mark Martin drove that car to Earnhardt's first win as a car owner at Las Vegas in March. Sponsorship woes are affecting many NASCAR teams in this economic downturn. Just last week, Chip Ganassi shuttered his No. 40 Sprint Cup Series team driven by Dario Franchitti because of a lack of funding. Several other teams have stopped coming to races -- the number of cars that attempted to qualify for Saturday night's Cup race at Daytona was down eight from the 53 who attempted to make the season-opening Daytona 500. Of those, six lacked full sponsorship. By current count, only 24 Sprint Cup teams have secured full sponsorship for 2009. Navy leaving Earnhardt's No. 88 at season end Add Dale Earnhardt Jr. to the growing list of car owners searching for sponsorship. The Navy is leaving the No. 88 Chevrolet in the Nationwide Series at the end of the season, forcing Earnhardt to search for funding for the flagship car at JR Motorsports. “We were informed last week that our sponsorship with the U.S. Navy will not renew at the end of the year,” team spokesman Mike Davis said Tuesday. “It’s been an exceptional partnership since 2005, and we look forward to a strong finish to the season as Brad Keselowski and the No. 88 Navy team contends for a NASCAR Nationwide Series championship.” Keselowski gave the Navy its first NASCAR victory last month with a Nationwide win at Milwaukee. He’s second in the series standings, and trails Clint Bowyer by 202 points. The Navy has been sponsor of Earnhardt’s first car as a NASCAR owner since the formation of JR Motorsports. Last year, he merged his operation with Hendrick Motorsports and now fields two cars out of his new shop in Mooresville. The second car, the No. 5, has been driven by multiple drivers and has used multiple sponsors all season. Mark Martin drove that car to Earnhardt’s first win as a car owner at Las Vegas in March. Sponsorship woes are affecting many NASCAR teams in this economic downturn. Just last week, Chip Ganassi shuttered his No. 40 Sprint Cup Series team driven by Dario Franchitti because of a lack of funding. Several other teams have stopped coming to races—the number of cars that attempted to qualify for Saturday night’s Sprint Cup race at Daytona was down eight from the 53 who attempted to make the season-opening Daytona 500. Of those, six lacked full sponsorship. By current count, only 24 Sprint Cup teams have secured full sponsorship for 2009 and the numbers in the Nationwide Series are likely much gloomier. McMurray Takes Blame for Running Over Earnhardt Jr. Dale Earnhardt Jr. watched a solid day disappear when he was hit by Jamie McMurray in Sunday's Lenox Industrial Tools 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Earnhardt Jr. was heading to pit road under green-flag conditions when he was slammed into and spun by McMurray. The Roush Fenway Racing driver said he was watching another car as he tried to make a pass and never saw the Hendrick Motorsports car slowing in front of him. "Certainly it’s my fault," McMurray said. He says that he had not been told that Earnhardt Jr. was pitting. "Typically when guys pit like that the spotters all get together and wave their hands or what not and the spotter never said anything and I was looking at the 10 car [of Patrick Carpentier] on the outside," he said. "I was on the apron because that’s where I’d been running all day. I didn’t see Junior until I hit him.” Earnhardt Jr. was relegated to a 24th-place finish after getting back on the track following the lap 272 incident. That was actually one position better than points leader Kyle Busch in the finishing order. "It's just a part of it," crew chief Tony Eury Jr. said. "I don't know, I guess Jamie didn't see him down there. But all in all, it looks like the 18 [of Busch] had a little trouble so we didn't lose that much ground in the points, and we'll just look forward to getting to Daytona." Earnhardt Jr. maintained his third position in the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings. He trails leading Busch by 144 points and is 80 behind second-running Jeff Burton. Eury's unsung efforts make Junior's HMS path smooth As the final laps wound down Sunday at Michigan International Speedway, Tony Eury Jr. found himself on the brink of doing something he never did -- gamble. This is a guy who, when the Sprint Cup tour visits Las Vegas, won't even lay $20 on the tables. He called over to Steve Letarte, his fellow crew chief at Hendrick Motorsports, and asked: Are you going for it? The answer was short and immediate. No way. So it would be just him, making the call that would send driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. to either a narrow victory or another crushing near miss. The last time he had tried something like this, in 2005 with Michael Waltrip, the fuel had run out and Jeremy Mayfield had coasted to the win. Now, the computer said they would be two laps short. But they were tired of that 76-race winless streak, tired of all the questions about when they would win in Hendrick equipment. They were in front and wanted to stay there. So who cares, Eury told his driver over the radio. Go for it. "You don't want anybody to have a misfortune," Eury said later, "but I was like, please, somebody hit something." He got his wish when Patrick Carpentier spun, ending the one attempt at a green-white-checkered finish, and making Earnhardt a winner for the first time since Richmond in the spring of 2006. There wasn't even enough fuel left for a victory lap -- the No. 88 car coasted down the pit road, and had to be pushed to Victory Lane. But none of that mattered. They were winners again. The pressure was off. And it all happened because Eury had taken an uncharacteristic risk, bucking the cautious nature that so many members of Junior Nation deride him for, and proving once again how much trust exists between this driver and this crew chief. "It's a little underestimated, but that trust is there every time I climb in the car," Earnhardt said. "I wouldn't choose this job. I would go do something else if I didn't believe in my crew chief and didn't have faith in what kind of racecar he built. And if I didn't have that option and opportunity, I don't feel like this would be very enjoyable." Earnhardt is enjoying the best start of his career, with already as many top-five finishes as he had all of last year, a third-place points standing that almost guarantees a Chase berth, and now the weight of waiting for that first Hendrick victory finally removed. And so much of it has happened because of the unsung efforts of Eury, who's been at Hendrick since last October, laying the groundwork for what's been a mostly seamless transition for NASCAR's most popular driver to the sport's biggest team. Judging by results, he's grasped the new car better than any of his teammates. He's smarter than people give him credit for, and he runs an operation that performs as if it's been at Hendrick for years. And what does he get for all this? Not the endorsements and adulation his driver does. No, the crew chief catches only heat, criticism from supposed members of his own fan base, people who don't think he's creative enough to win consistently at NASCAR's top level. No matter that all but one of Earnhardt's career victories have come with Eury on the box in some capacity. No matter that Eury was calling many of the shots as car chief in 2003, when Earnhardt finished a career-best third in points. No matter that Earnhardt trusts Eury more than he trusts any other person when it comes to the racecar, and that a move to Hendrick without Eury would almost certainly have set the driver back months. Yes, they're family -- their mothers were both daughters of the late ace Hendrick fabricator Robert Gee. Yes, they squabble and curse at one another on the radio. Yes, their working relationship isn't exactly as buttoned-down as you'd expect from a couple of Hendrick employees. But it's clear they bring out the best in one another. And it's obvious that Earnhardt has fared far better with Eury than without him. "There's one thing that I'll never change, and that's how me and Tony Jr. work together," Earnhardt said. "People have just got to get used to it, and that's just how we are. That is that, and we ain't going nowhere. When we win, obviously the big problems are little problems and the little problems are gone. But as long as we work together, which I hope is forever, we're going to go at it because that's just how we want the best for each other. We want the best out of each other. You can write that story. If that's what you want to write for the rest of your career, you can write it, because it will always be there." Eury will be the first to admit, he's been a little conservative in the past. The nature of this crew chief isn't to take chances like the one he took Sunday. But working for Rick Hendrick is changing that. Earlier this year at Phoenix, in a similar situation, Earnhardt pitted for fuel and teammate Jimmie Johnson stayed out to win. At Michigan, those roles were reversed. "If I can see Dale Jr. happy, and I can run top-five and I can see my pit crew happy, and everybody is enjoying their jobs and we can come here week in and week out, I'm perfectly happy with that," Eury said. "And sometimes that's why I don't go for it, or I don't put it on the line is because, you know, why take a fifth-place car and run 25th? Why do something and bring the whole team down? I would rather see them up on the pedestal and the moods be good. That's kind of been the difference over here. Me and him, we've got to get a bigger fire because Rick expects us to win every week." Eury should know -- after all, he started his career sweeping floors at Hendrick. Now he's calling the shots for what statistically is the organization's top driver. And Earnhardt wouldn't have it any other way. "I'm fortunate," Earnhardt said. "I know there are other great crew chiefs out there, but at the end of this whole deal, in my mind, he'll be considered one of the greatest." Junior always a contender, but never had this pressure In case you hadn't heard, Dale Earnhardt Jr. won a Sprint Cup race the other day. Ain't here to talk about the whys, 'cause I don't care -- and in a couple weeks, no one else will care, either. Because the record book for time everlasting will just show a victory for Rick Hendrick's No. 88 car. Won't show that he outlasted the field on a fuel gamble, won't show he ran the better part of the last few caution laps on the apron or that he ran up next to the pace car for whatever reason. So what? It's a win, and that's the bottom line. And I'm here to tell you, I can't believe it's taken the kid this long to win. Can you believe he had to say "I don't care what they write, because I finally won one?" or words to that effect? It just goes to show you how narrow-minded a lot of people can be. I had said at least a few times earlier this season that I'd be surprised if it took this long for ol' June Bug to win a points race. And don't try to talk to me about the couple of non-points races he'd already scored. They're nice -- but mostly in that they prove that you can get the job done when it really counts. And as far as I'm concerned, Junior had already done that. How soon we forget -- or at least, how overpowering -- the last few, challenging years at DEI had become. As stout as Junior's been this season, it isn't his best effort. He and crew chief Tony Eury Jr. did better, you might recall, back in 2003 and 2004. After 15 races in each of those seasons, Junior was second in the standings; and even though he only finished fifth in 2004's final standings, after being third the season before, to date 2006 is his career year, with six wins, 16 top-fives and 21 top-10s. Even as late as 2006 at DEI, Junior was fourth after 15 starts, before he ended up fifth. No, even though he's had some blips and some slips on his Cup radar screen, Junior has proven he can be a contender. But maybe never has he had to prove himself, week in and week out, as he has this season. And even more ridiculously, in the face of what they've accomplished together -- so has his cousin, Eury. their victory does one thing, maybe it will quiet some of the doubters out there in the masses. t would severely be overdue. Fuel gamble not trademark for Junior duo, but it works The rain held off, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. held on. And when it came down to it Sunday at Michigan International Speedway, crew chief Tony Eury Jr., who readily admits he is not the Las Vegas type, finally found a gamble he was willing to take. Earnhardt simply agreed to go along for the ride, for better or for worse. It turned out to be the perfect combination that allowed Earnhardt to drive -- or rather coast -- to victory in the LifeLock 400. It had been 76 Sprint Cup Series points races since Earnhardt had gone to Victory Lane, and he couldn't have made it without his teammates. No, seriously. He couldn't have made it to Victory Lane without his teammates pushing his No. 88 Chevrolet, which ran out of gas at the end of pit road shortly after Earnhardt took the checkered flag. "The engine might have cranked," said Earnhardt, smiling. "I thought it would be a better story to be out of gas and get pushed." With or without the final touch, it already was a pretty good story. In his first season with Hendrick Motorsports, Earnhardt has been solid if not spectacular, routinely cranking out top-five and top-10 finishes that had permitted him to climb to third in the standings and stay there for much of the year. But he hadn't won a race in more than two years. Although Earnhardt insisted that he did not let the winless streak eat at his self-confidence, it had nonetheless become more than a monkey on his back -- more even than the proverbial 300-pound gorilla. It sat on him like a house in foreclosure. Until he won again, it was going to be part of every conversation involving the sport's most popular driver. High hopes When Earnhardt signed with Hendrick last summer, television analyst and former driving champion Darrell Waltrip quickly predicted great things for Junior -- saying he would win the 2008 season-opening Daytona 500 and "at least" five more races before the inaugural circuit with his new owner was completed. Asked at the time about Waltrip's bold predictions, neither car owner Rick Hendrick nor Earnhardt flinched. They indicated that they were ready to tackle 2008 full throttle ahead, that they had no doubts that several wins would follow. But Eury, Earnhardt's cousin and longtime crew chief, said Sunday that he has never been driven by fulfilling the expectations of others. It mirrored what Earnhardt said all along as he repeatedly insisted his drought of wins bothered others more than it bothered himself. "I'm like Dale Jr. The winless streak hasn't really bothered me. I've seen what we're capable of doing, that we can run up front with fast, fast racecars and stuff like that," Eury said. "We've got a fire in us, but it ain't really an inferno. If I can be around my wife and people I really enjoy being around, and I can run top-five every week, I would be happy with that. Winning is a bonus. "I just feel very fortunate and lucky. I've been doing this for 14 years. I've seen a lot of stuff come, and I've seen a lot of stuff go. And you realize right quick that life is short, and you've got to enjoy it while you're here. I can remember times when this was all I breathed. But when you lose certain things in your life, you learn to understand that racing isn't everything." So there have been times when instead of rolling the dice and going for a win that might have put a solid points day at risk, Eury has opted not to take the chance. Earnhardt ultimately has backed him on those decisions. But at Hendrick, Eury and Earnhardt learned quickly that oftentimes bigger risks that may reap greater rewards are what are expected of the race teams. "We've got to get a bigger fire going in us because Rick expects us to win races," Eury said. Sunday's drama Hence, Sunday's late-race drama presented itself. Earnhardt's last pit stop came on Lap 148. Typically at Michigan, a sweeping 2-mile oval, Sprint Cup cars can run 40 to perhaps 45 green-flag laps on a full tank of fuel, which holds 19.2 gallons. Eury said that initial calculations for Earnhardt were that he was going to be six laps short in the 200-lap event, meaning they expected him to be able to milk it for roughly 46 laps, taking him to Lap 194. A caution on Lap 153 brought some others, including Earnhardt's Hendrick teammate Jeff Gordon, back onto pit road to pack even more fuel in; Gordon, in fact, came in for fuel on three consecutive caution laps at that time. Earnhardt stayed out and maintained his track position, while Eury and Hendrick engineer Darian Grubb furiously recalculated the fuel mileage for the No. 88 every single lap. The caution laps saved enough fuel that they figured they had enough to coax it through Lap 198 -- still two laps short. But they knew there were others behind Earnhardt that had enough fuel to go the distance. So pitting, even for merely a splash of fuel to make sure, would have robbed them of any chance of winning. "I'm not a gambling man," Eury said. "I don't even like going to Las Vegas to put $20 down. ... But if we ran out of gas, we were going to finish 25th. If we came in and pitted, we were going to finish 25th. "So I told him we were going to go for it. We were either going to win or run out of gas and finish 25th." That decision was made with 20 laps to go. They were feeling pretty good about it while leading with two laps remaining -- when a spin by Sam Hornish Jr. brought out another caution and suddenly turned the 200-lap race into possibly a 203-lap event because of a green-white-checkered finish. "I was pretty sick. I was like, 'OK, we're done. I could make 200, but 202? We're in trouble,'" Eury said. "I told him as soon as the caution comes out, shut it off." Earnhardt did, and coasted whenever he could until the ensuing restart to conserve what little fuel he had left. No one could tell how much gas exactly this was saving, but Eury said later that "coasting around like he did is probably what got us the win." And the win was all that mattered. On an afternoon when rain threatened but the skies never opened until just after Junior's lifeless car had been pushed to Victory Lane, for once everything that could go right for Earnhardt and Eury did. Shortly after the restart, the No. 10 of Patrick Carpentier spun on the frontstretch and the final caution of the day came out just after the white flag flew, freezing the field a final time with Earnhardt out front. If it hadn't happened, who knows if he could have made it around one more circuit of the big 2-mile track without running out of fuel? Earnhardt didn't even seem to know for sure, saying at first that he couldn't have made it and later stating that, well, maybe he could have. It didn't matter. All that mattered was that he won again. Finally. "Man," Junior said, "this is storybook stuff." It sure was. Earnhardt wins on fumes Dale Earnhardt Jr. ended his 76-race winless string Sunday, coasting to victory at Michigan International Speedway under a caution flag with little but fumes left in his gas tank. NASCAR’s most popular driver gave his new boss, Rick Hendrick, only his second victory of the season as he somehow squeezed enough gas out of his last fillup to go three laps beyond the regulation finish in the Lifelock 400. A spin by Patrick Carpentier on the 203rd lap brought out the final caution and probably saved the victory for Earnhardt, who ran out of gas moments after crossing the finish line behind the pace car. “It is what it is man,” the jubilant Earnhardt said. “We were going to stay out there no matter what.” Asked if he could have made it if the green flag had stayed out, Earnhardt said, “We were going to stumble to the finish and probably not win the race. We weren’t going to finish. The yellow saved us. “They can write what they want, but we won one.” After leaving the team his late father founded to drive for Hendrick’s juggernaut this year, Earnhardt began the new phase of his career with two non-points victories at Daytona in February. But, despite running well so far this season, that promising start did not lead to any victories in the first 14 Cup races. “We started out and he won the (Budweiser) Clash and the 150 (qualifying race) and we said, `We don’t have to worry about winning a race now.’ Then nobody counted it because it wasn’t a points race,” Hendrick said in Victory Circle. “We’ve been waiting for this. Been so close.” Earnhardt was as relieved as he was joyful about his 18th career victory and first on Michigan’s two-mile oval. “This is pretty meaningful because it’s with Rick,” he said. “He’s such a great man because he’s been through so much. I’m glad to be able to win for him, for Tony (Eury) Jr., for the team for believing in me.” It was a typical Michigan race, coming down to who saved the most gas at the end. As the laps wound down, driver after driver was forced to pit for a splash of gas, but Earnhardt, whose last victory came on May 6, 2006, at Richmond, wasn’t about to stop. Eury, the crew chief who followed Earnhardt to Hendrick, kept telling his drive to slow down and try to conserve gas. It was still a big gamble with just over two laps to the scheduled 200-lap finish when former IndyCar champion Sam Hornish Jr. brought out a caution flag with a spin. That extended the race to overtime and, by the time the green flag waved again on lap 202, Earnhardt and his team had no idea if he could make it to the finish. He did, barely. Kasey Kahne, coming off a victory the previous week in Pocono, finished second and almost came up with his fourth victory in his last five starts, including the non-points all-star race last month in Charlotte. “It was pretty close there,” Kahne said. “We topped off there and I think we pretty much had the most fuel of anybody out there. We did the best thing we could do today to get a good finish. the team did a good job.” Matt Kenseth finished third, followed by Brian Vickers, Tony Stewart and two-time defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson. Kenseth, who led several times, said he might have won the race if not for mishap in the pits on his last stop. A NASCAR officials, apparently thinking Kenseth was going to take four tires instead of two, walked in front of his car just as the former series champion started out of his pit. Kenseth didn’t hit the officials, but the hesitation cost him valuable seconds. “I was hoping for some kind of break (from NASCAR),” Kenseth said. “The official walked in front of the car as I was ready to go. It was either I run him down or wait for him to move. The car just came up short because of circumstances and strategy.” Series points leader Kyle Busch finished a less than memorable three-race weekend with a 13th-place finish. The youngster, with 10 victories this season in NASCAR’s three top series, finished seventh in the truck race here Saturday, drawing criticism when he spun out Ron Hornaday Jr. near the end. Busch then flew to Kentucky, where he crashed and finished 30th in a Nationwide race. But Cup runner-up Jeff Burton finished 15th Sunday and still trails Busch by 32 points, with Earnhardt 84 behind in third. Defending race winner Carl Edwards finished seventh and goes to next week’s race on the road course in Sonoma, Calif., fourth in the standings, 206 points behind. Earnhardt credits success to cousin, crew chief Eury Dale Earnhardt Jr. is all about keeping it in the family. Even though his winless streak has reached 76 and counting, Junior doesn't see any reason why he and his cousin -- crew chief Tony Eury Jr. -- should part ways at this point. Eury followed Earnhardt to Hendrick Motorsports during the offseason, and despite winning the season-opening Budweiser Shootout, the two haven't been able to find the way back to Victory Lane. But that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with their relationship, Junior said Friday at Michigan International Speedway. Earnhardt responded to that question after qualifying for Sunday's LifeLock 400 was washed out when 11 cars had posted times. "I know for sure if I didn't work for Tony Jr. that he'd go somewhere and do great things with a different driver, either in the same company or a different company," Junior said. "I don't know for sure whether I would be able to match the success I have right now with someone else. What I do know is how good he is." Since Sunday's lineup was set by the NASCAR rulebook, Junior will roll off third in his No. 88 Chevrolet. It's the eighth time this season he's started in the top 10 -- and seven of those resulted in top-10 finishes. But his legions of fans want to see wins, and his last victory came at Richmond in 2006. The two cousins have had a contentious relationship at times, but Earnhardt said that's just part of being so close. "Do we work perfectly together all the time? No, I don't think we do," Junior said. "I don't think anyone does. Am I happy with Tony Jr.? Winning with him -- when that happens again -- and having top-five, top-10 runs is way more satisfying personally with him than with anyone else. Running good is great, but when you do it with people you care for and care about, and enjoy having them involved in it, it means a lot more." Earnhardt said if there's a perception that there's disharmony between the two, then it's a false one. "I think people jump to conclusions and have opinions," he said. "They just really don't know the depth of the situation. I guess as long as we act like brothers and fight like brothers, we'll have to deal with the left side and the right side of things. "As long as I can keep it the way it is, I'll want to keep it the way it is." Junior's fastest lap during Friday's practice session was 181.703 mph, which placed him 20th on the speed chart. However, he was among the top cars on longer runs. And even though he's never won at Michigan, he's finished no worse than 12th in his last four starts here. Jr. Looking for a Little Consistency With His No. 88 Team Dale Earnhardt Jr. hopes to get some consistency going with his No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports team. That’s saying something for Earnhardt Jr., who has finished worse than 15th only twice in 14 Sprint Cup races this season in his first year with the team. Earnhardt Jr. has six top-five and 10 top-10 finishes in 2008 but is without a victory and ranks third in the Cup point standings as the series heads to Michigan International Speedway for this weekend’s LifeLock 400. "My goal is to keep some sort of consistency going,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I hated what happened at Dover with that early wreck for my team. Same kind of thing happened in California, where we wrecked so early and just had to ride for the rest of the day. “That isn't good for anyone. I want to get to where we're finishing consistently every weekend. We're capable; we just need it to happen." Earnhardt Jr. bounced back from a 40th-place finish at Auto Club Speedway in California in February to finish second at Las Vegas the following week, and after coming home 35th at Dover, he was fourth at Pocono a week later. Now, he heads to Michigan, a 2-mile track on which he’s been inconsistent. In 17 starts, Earnhardt Jr. has five top-10 finishes and seven finishes outside the top 20. "We haven't run there with the new Chevy Impala yet, so there aren't many notes to fall back on,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “It's fun. It's a big track. I think running the new car will be interesting because I have no idea what to expect." Earnhardt Jr. does have two poles and has led 110 laps at Michigan, but his best finish was a third in this race two years ago for Dale Earnhardt Inc. "We've had some awesome runs there,” said Tony Eury Jr., Earnhardt Jr.’s longtime crew chief. “We just don't have it on paper to show it. We've qualified well there. We've run excellent in the race, led a lot of laps. “But it just seems like we have a tire go down at the end of the race, are on the wrong fuel-mileage sequence or might make the wrong call and put two tires on when everybody else took four. There's always some kind of bug that's bit us. But we enjoy going there. We look forward to going to Michigan, and we'll see what happens." 2008 Forbes Celebrity 100 Power List Rank Name Pay ($mil) Web Hits Press Mentions TV Mentions 1 Oprah Winfrey 275 2 5 1 2 Tiger Woods 115 12 1 3 3 Angelina Jolie 14 1 9 15 4 Beyonce Knowles 80 3 32 14 5 David Beckham 50 10 3 18 6 Johnny Depp 72 17 19 36 7 Jay-Z 82 6 43 41 8 The Police 115 15 20 51 9 J.K. Rowling 300 23 27 64 10 Brad Pitt 20 4 8 7 11 Will Smith 80 26 39 32 12 Justin Timberlake 44 5 24 17 13 Steven Spielberg 130 34 23 60 14 Cameron Diaz 50 13 50 45 15 David Letterman 45 42 34 10 16 LeBron James 38 32 13 13 17 Jennifer Aniston 27 21 67 49 18 Michael Jordan 45 38 45 29 19 Kobe Bryant 39 28 18 24 20 Phil Mickelson 45 87 12 23 21 Madonna 40 15 20 67 22 Simon Cowell 72 65 47 40 23 Roger Federer 35 40 2 26 24 Alex Rodriguez 34 51 7 6 25 Jerry Seinfeld 85 79 72 38 26 50 Cent 150 69 68 88 27 Kanye West 30 8 28 28 28 Celine Dion 40 27 44 54 29 Bruce Willis 41 45 41 47 30 Dr. Phil McGraw 40 82 55 2 31 Tom Cruise 13 7 10 9 32 Jay Leno 32 41 36 5 33 Sean "Diddy" Combs 35 19 59 30 34 Stephen King 45 33 54 86 35 Miley Cyrus 25 11 49 19 36 Kimi Raikkonen 44 53 14 90 37 Jeff Gordon 32 73 26 11 38 Ronaldinho 37 24 6 98 39 Shaquille O'Neal 32 36 29 34 40 Judge Judy Sheindlin 45 99 88 4 41 Howard Stern 70 52 90 68 42 Tyler Perry 125 94 83 80 43 Fernando Alonso 33 30 4 92 44 Leonardo DiCaprio 45 68 65 77 45 Donald Trump 30 48 40 12 46 George Lucas 50 66 74 85 47 Keira Knightley 32 37 42 82 48 Jerry Bruckheimer 145 96 94 96 49 Nicolas Cage 38 56 51 70 50 Spice Girls 21 14 37 25 51 Matt Damon 21 39 31 20 52 Dale Earnhardt Jr. 31 84 25 37 53 Bon Jovi 25 18 48 59 54 Jennifer Lopez 7 9 35 22 55 Ben Stiller 40 77 75 72 56 Kevin Garnett 29 67 30 55 57 Nicole Kidman 13 22 16 39 58 James Patterson 50 95 84 100 59 Rush Limbaugh 33 57 73 56 60 Reese Witherspoon 25 49 70 61 61 Maria Sharapova 26 61 15 69 62 Ryan Seacrest 31 72 79 33 63 Gwen Stefani 27 25 69 76 64 Daniel Radcliffe 25 62 52 74 65 Alicia Keys 15 20 53 46 66 Gisele Bundchen 35 74 99 94 67 Gwyneth Paltrow 25 50 62 78 68 Tyra Banks 23 47 81 53 69 Serena Williams 14 64 17 43 70 Eva Longoria Parker 9 31 58 21 71 Ellen DeGeneres 20 60 64 35 72 Sarah Jessica Parker 18 54 66 50 73 Katherine Heigl 13 63 61 31 74 Regis Philbin 21 91 71 8 75 Tom Clancy 35 78 96 99 76 Rachael Ray 18 80 80 16 77 Cate Blanchett 12 44 22 62 78 Heidi Klum 14 46 78 57 79 Carrie Underwood 9 35 63 44 80 Jon Stewart 14 58 60 51 81 Justine Henin 12.5 75 11 58 82 Judd Apatow 27 88 76 97 83 Kate Moss 7.5 29 33 81 84 Patrick Dempsey 13.5 83 77 66 85 Charlie Sheen 20 86 87 63 86 Drew Carey 12 90 89 27 87 Steve Carell 5 81 56 42 88 Lorena Ochoa 10 92 38 75 89 Jonas Brothers 12 55 86 84 90 Howie Mandel 14 100 98 65 91 Wolfgang Puck 16 98 91 83 92 Zac Efron 5.8 70 85 79 93 Annika Sorenstam 11 93 46 89 94 Ashley Tisdale 5.5 43 95 91 95 Gordon Ramsay 7.5 76 57 93 96 Jennifer Love Hewitt 5 59 93 71 97 Lauren Conrad 1.5 71 100 95 98 Vanessa Williams 4.5 89 92 48 99 Tina Fey 4.6 85 82 73 100 Paula Deen 4.5 97 97 87 When it comes to Junior vs. Busch, there are no losers On the surface, it would be easy to think that Rick Hendrick made a mistake. After all, the driver he let go, Kyle Busch, has won a series-leading four races for Joe Gibbs Racing and has established himself as the frontrunner for the Sprint Cup crown. The driver he hired, Dale Earnhardt Jr., heads to Michigan International Speedway this week with his winless streak stretching to 76 races. Yes, events have certainly taken an unpredictable turn since that news conference one year ago Friday uniting NASCAR's biggest organization with NASCAR's biggest star. So it's simple to see why some folks in the grandstand think the Hendrick Motorsports owner should have stuck with the status quo, looking past Busch's stubbornness and toward his limitless potential. It's simple to see why some believe he should have locked Busch up long term, just as he did with Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, and let Earnhardt sign with another organization where the stakes and the expectations weren't quite so high. It's simple to see why there are whispers and rumblings that Earnhardt's five-year deal was a gross miscalculation. And to all that, we say: rubbish. Trying to discern winners and losers 14 races into the Earnhardt-Busch swap is beyond shortsighted. It's ludicrous, given that both drivers are going to be in their current seats for several seasons, and show every sign of thriving in their relatively new environments. Busch has four victories, but he still has his Kyle moments, and his hard-charging style prompts questions over whether he can stay out front the entire season. Earnhardt doesn't have a race win, but he's firmly ensconced in Chase position, is off to his best start ever, and has a handful of poor finishes that aren't necessarily his fault. In Vegas terms, right now this is a push. You have two drivers who are enjoying successful first seasons -- granted, one a little more above-the-radar than the other -- with organizations that seem to fit their styles and their personalities. Busch and Earnhardt left Pocono Raceway last Sunday a respective first and third in championship points, both of them the standard-bearer for organizations they only joined months ago. Both have assimilated flawlessly. With apologies to Jeff Burton, it's very easy to envision a scenario in which Busch and Earnhardt are racing for the championship as relentlessly as they raced one another that night in Richmond a month ago. There are no losers in this deal. Earnhardt, a Nationwide Series car owner with a keen appreciation for the history of the sport, meshes perfectly with a Hendrick organization that's renowned for keeping sponsors happy and remembering its roots. Busch, the occasional wild child who always seemed a little out of place in Hendrick's buttoned-down culture, is clearly more at home on a Gibbs team run by an ex-football coach who knows how to manage people while letting them be themselves at the same time. In each case, that level of comfort can not be overstated. For a driver to be successful, first he has to be content -- something Busch and Earnhardt weren't necessarily last year, but clearly are now. For Earnhardt especially, the change has been a dramatic one. The sniping with his stepmother Teresa, the public fight for control of Dale Earnhardt Inc. -- all of that now seems like it occurred a very, very long time ago. He's gone from a season in which he was the headline every week to one where he's just another driver in the top 12. Surely some expected a bigger bang -- Darrell Waltrip's projection of six race wins in 2008 jumps immediately to mind -- but you get the impression that driver No. 88 seems very comfortable with where he is, his focus on the car and the race team rather than the issues that made last season such a struggle. "I have a new job, everything is different about it. I am happier, yes. I have a good team, have good cars. The one thing that may stick out is the pressure and the stress is a lot less because there is more confidence now with the equipment and the team, my future and the company's ability to be a frontrunner over a long period of time. That is really good. So for the next five years, I will have a good opportunity at that each year," Earnhardt said last week at Pocono. "I just don't have to worry. I guess I just really worried a lot about DEI and its future and how successful it would be and how healthy it was, and I don't have to worry about that as much. They have really good people working at Hendrick Motorsports that are there to assure the success of the company for a long time. Those types of things are out of my hands and I can just concentrate on my job. I get good criticism and feedback from my owner that helps me understand what my job is and what I am supposed to do. How to do it differently. It is just an easier deal. My days off are a lot more worry-free. I have noticed that a little bit." As for Busch? The results speak for themselves. He's been fast since the first instant he stepped into a Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, zooming to the top of the speed chart in a test of the new car at Atlanta Motor Speedway late last year. He's fit well with crew chief Steve Addington, whose easy-going manner is the perfect balance to Busch's hard-nosed style. He's going fast, he's winning races, and he's given the latitude to try things like last weekend's three-race, three-state, three-day tripleheader, which earned the kid some respect despite the sub-par race results that ensued. And while we're on the subject, don't give me this junk about how Busch should have stayed in Pocono all weekend. Yes, he finished three laps down in the Nationwide race and crashed out of the Sprint Cup event. But that kind of competitiveness can't be taught. These are all preliminaries anyway, and he's still the championship favorite whether his lead is 10 points or 100. Let him go race powerboats in the Keys if he wants to. He's all but earned a spot in the Chase, and as a result the right to try something a little different every once in a while. Joe Gibbs' willingness to let him do it is a perfect example of the hands-off management style that's worked so well in both NASCAR and the NFL. Busch is thriving in that environment, just as Earnhardt is thriving in one where the focus is completely on performance. Those were whirlwind days last year, when Earnhardt's decision to leave DEI created a domino effect that resulted in two top drivers landing with two top teams. No, they're not quite even right now in terms of race victories and statistics. But they are in terms of satisfaction, something much more difficult to achieve. Junior OK with Hendrick's intense testing sked Truth be told, Dale Earnhardt Jr. would rather be back in North Carolina celebrating his protege’s first victory and recovering from Sunday’s grueling race at Pocono. But team owner Rick Hendrick wants even more success from Earnhardt and his team in their first season together, so he added Tuesday’s test session at the Milwaukee Mile to an already intense midweek testing schedule. Although Earnhardt admits he might grumble when he’s asked to work more in the middle of the week than he did in previous years, he knows it’s for the right reason: winning. “I told Rick, ‘I’m going to complain, but I’m going to do it anyway,”’ Earnhardt said during a brief break Tuesday afternoon. “And I like to shoot off at the mouth and complain about things, but everybody likes to blow off some steam. I’ll test as much as I need to test—whatever we need to do as well as we need to do.” Earnhardt is having success since leaving the team his father founded, Dale Earnhardt Inc., to drive for Hendrick Motorsports this season. He is third in the Sprint Cup series points standings going into Sunday’s race at Michigan International Speedway. But he has yet to earn his first win with the new team, and Hendrick as a whole hasn’t dominated the way many expected. So Hendrick sent them back to work. “Rick personally wanted to add some tests, and I hear that that’s not uncommon for him to come in and say, ‘Guys, get to work for a couple of weeks and go to the racetrack during the week and see what you learn,”’ Earnhardt said. Earnhardt isn’t being singled out. Hendrick had three of its four teams at Milwaukee on Tuesday, including Casey Mears and Jimmie Johnson. “We work hard every year, but this year we’ve tested more than pretty much any other year,” two-time series champion Johnson said. “I’d say my rookie year was the only year we tested more. We’re running well, but we want to run better. We liked the success we had last year, and we’re trying to find out the areas we need to work on.” NASCAR places restrictions on teams’ ability to test at tracks where the Sprint Cup series runs races, so Cup teams often use Milwaukee to simulate racing conditions at tracks such as New Hampshire Motor Speedway and Phoenix International Raceway. Most top teams test frequently, but Earnhardt was surprised how much more testing he’s doing at Hendrick. “We’ve tested six, seven times in the last two months,” Earnhardt said. “And I wouldn’t test six or seven times in a year before.” Earnhardt had to work in a celebration around his test, hosting a beer toast for his JR Motorsports team and driver Brad Keselowski, who won the Nationwide Series race in Nashville. Mark Martin gave JR Motorsports, which has partnered with Hendrick, its first win earlier this year—but Earnhardt considered Keselowski’s win a milestone. And it was a reward for all the hard work his employees had put in since Earnhardt founded the team. Earnhardt started with about 20 full-time employees. Now he has 105— including about 15 who have been with him since the beginning. “When we first started, we were in a tiny, tiny building, and I made everybody go through so much crap, with the working station they had and how much room they had and it was very frustrating—but they managed,” Earnhardt said. “And we went through a lot of struggles and changes in personnel, and it wasn’t easy to win a race in that series. But we did, and I realized a dream for that company.” Click here to vist the Dale Earnhardt Jr New Archive Part 3