Dale Earnhardt Jr
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Dale Jr. nabs 11th-straight Most Popular award Dale Earnhardt Jr. was announced Thursday as winner of the NASCAR Most Popular Driver Award for a record 11th consecutive time. Earnhardt topped the fan balloting, conducted by the National Motorsports Press Association, with more than 700,000 votes to continue a streak that began in 2003. His 11th award broke a tie for most consecutive most popular driver awards with Bill Elliott, who still holds the all-time record as a 16-time award recipient. The results of the voting were announced Thursday at the annual NMPA Myers Brothers Awards Luncheon, part of NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Champion's Week, at the Wynn Las Vegas. "We always have such great support from our fans," Earnhardt said. "They always come through every year, and this year we feel like we were giving them a lot to cheer for on the race track and paying them back for all the years they've voted for us to win this award." The top 10 vote-getters were: 1. Dale Earnhardt Jr., 2. Kasey Kahne, 3. Jeff Gordon, 4. Tony Stewart, 5. Danica Patrick, 6. Jimmie Johnson, 7. Kevin Harvick, 8. Matt Kenseth, 9. Kyle Busch, 10. Carl Edwards. More than 1 million votes were cast for 39 eligible drivers, according to the NMPA. Fans were allowed to vote once a day during the Sprint Cup season for their favorite driver. Elliott dominated the most popular driver balloting from 1984 to 2002 -- his reign interrupted only by Darrell Waltrip's awards in 1989 and '90, and the posthumous award to Dale Earnhardt in 2001. "I don't really keep track of the stats or the score, but Bill was a great driver and ambassador for the sport," Earnhardt Jr. said. "He represents the sport really well to this day, as does his son Chase, who's coming up and carrying on the family name. But, I've always looked up to Bill as a driver so it's pretty neat." Driver Reports: Junior completes meteoric finish 5. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. finished fifth in the standings with 2,363 points. Last week: No one finished the season as strongly as Earnhardt Jr. -- and that includes a certain six-time champion. Junior capped a strong Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup performance by steering his No. 88 Chevrolet to a third-place finish at Homestead. He led 28 laps in the Ford EcoBoost 400 and was in position to challenge for the win alongside Denny Hamlin (who won) and Matt Kenseth (who finished second). In the final five Chase races, Earnhardt's average finish was a series-best 3.8. In the 10 postseason events, he had five top-fives and eight top-10s, with a blown motor at Chicago in the opener spoiling what could have been a special championship Chase. What he said: "This has been one of the best years I've had, certainly the best year I've had working with Hendrick. Just want to give my team a lot of credit. (Crew chief) Steve Letarte, my engineers, did just an amazing job providing these good cars every week. (I'm) hoping next year we continue that trend and that trajectory and get a shot at winning a championship. I think we can do it." Recap: In 2013, Earnhardt Jr. finished with 10 top-fives, 22 top-10s and two poles. Strong Chase run sparks 2014 optimism for Dale Jr. Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s season ended with a glaring "0" in the victory column, but his run over the schedule's final two months kept the spark of optimism alive in the No. 88 team. Earnhardt finished third to winner Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth in Sunday's Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway and claimed fifth in the final points standings. In the season's last nine races, he had only one finish worse than eighth and scored three second-place finishes. "I'm really happy to run as well as we have this season," Earnhardt said. "This has been one of the best years I've had, certainly the best year I've had working with Hendrick (Motorsports, which he joined for the 2008 season). Just want to give my team a lot of credit. Steve Letarte (crew chief), my engineers, did just an amazing job providing these good cars every week. I'm hoping next year we continue that trend and that trajectory and get a shot at winning a championship. I think we can do it." Earnhardt led 28 laps, including four of the final 30, Sunday and battled Hamlin and Kenseth in the top three over the closing miles. "We came here and tested," he said. "Really liked how that worked out. Worked on the car real hard Saturday. Worked on it real smart. Felt like we had a car that was going to come to us, and it surely did. We weren't that great at the start of the race, but as the race wore on, the thing really came to life." The same could be said of Earnhardt's season. After some tough going in the spring and summer, the 88 team became a force to be reckoned with in the Chase period. Only a blown motor -- and a 35th-place finish -- in the Chase opener at Chicago stained the closing run. What sparked the surge? "I've asked Steve over and over, asked my car chief, Jason (Burdett), over and over, and asked everybody on the team at least once or twice what we're doing different," Earnhardt said. "They said they're not doing anything different. You know, I really don't know why. I have the same feeling -- like our cars are way faster. We have been more competitive, I think, not as a company -- I just think the 88 team has really stepped it up. "But each year, like I said, we've gotten better. When we first started working together, it's easy to forget about all this, but when me and Steve started working together, we were working our guts out to finish in the top 10. Each year it's kind of gotten easier to run a little better." Earnhardt Jr.'s season lacking only a victory Dale Earnhardt Jr. is finishing like he started, closing his best season in years with a surge even more impressive than the one that kicked off this 2013 campaign. Now with only the finale left on the schedule, there's just one puzzle piece remaining to complete the strongest season in almost a decade for NASCAR's most popular driver. "A win would help," crew chief Steve Letarte said after Earnhardt's fourth-place run Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway, his seventh top-10 finish in this Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. "Right now we just have a lot of good runs. We're ready for a great one." They've come close, using a trio of runner-up finishes to climb from 13th to fifth in points over the course of the playoff. Take Earnhardt's engine failure and subsequent 35th-place result in the Chase opener at Chicagoland out of the equation, and his average finish in the remaining events is 5.8. That's notably better than the 8.8 accumulated over the same span by current second-place driver Matt Kenseth, who finished 23rd Sunday. And it's within striking range of the 4.6 average in the past eight events of leader Jimmie Johnson, who can clinch his sixth title with a finish of 23rd or better at Homestead-Miami Speedway. That speed was evident this past Sunday at Phoenix, when Earnhardt lost a lap early after making an extra pit stop to address a loose wheel, and still rallied for his best finish at the one-mile track since 2005. Of course, the mistake likely cost him a chance to challenge winner Kevin Harvick. Even so, his No. 88 cars have been formidable every week. "We've been fast since the Chase started," Earnhardt said at Phoenix. "We've been quick and one of the best cars every week. So hopefully if we don't get this (next) race, if we don't win damn Homestead, we'll still have speed when we show up in Daytona. It would be good if we could go ahead and get one, but if we have to wait, hopefully we haven't lost anything when next season starts." Even without a victory, Earnhardt is easily enjoying his best season since his heyday at Dale Earnhardt Inc. If he remains in his current position in the standings -- Earnhardt is currently 17 points ahead of Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon in sixth -- he'd secure his best points finish since 2006. If he can overtake fourth-place Kyle Busch, who is six points ahead of him, he'd record his best finish since he placed a career-best third in 2003. Matching that high-water mark might prove difficult, given that third-place Harvick is 29 points ahead. But clearly, this is the more potent Earnhardt everyone envisioned when he first joined the Hendrick powerhouse before the 2008 campaign. "I've got to give credit to the team," Earnhardt said. "The guys are working hard. They're doing really good work. Just because we're not in the title hunt, they're not laying down. They're working as hard as anybody. Steve is doing a good job. They're doing a great job. They're putting great setups under the cars." Earnhardt's surge comes as teammate Johnson -- whose cars are assembled in the same 48/88 shop at the Hendrick facility -- is zeroing in on a sixth championship, which appears much more likely after the turn of events at Phoenix. Letarte and Johnson's crew chief Chad Knaus are veteran stable mates, going back to the days when the former was car chief and then crew chief on Jeff Gordon's team, which was then housed with Johnson's in what was a 24/48 shop. "We've been working together a long time," Letarte said. And the success of one often buoys the other, exactly what owner Rick Hendrick envisioned when he shuffled personnel and brought the 88 and 48 teams under the same roof before the 2011 campaign. Although Letarte doesn't think strength is necessarily guaranteed to carry over from the end of one season to the start of the next -- "rules change, everything changes," he said -- the team has clearly benefitted from a blueprint that has it peaking at the most important time of the year. "I think we've had definitely some better cars here toward the Chase," Letarte said. "We had a plan, and the plan was to make the Chase, to build new cars, to redo old cars, to test toward the end of the year. Our goal all year long was to be great in the final 10, and we've been really, really good in seven of them, average in one of them, and blew up in one of them. So it is what it is. Can't go back and redo the first one." But oh if they could, given that Earnhardt was running in the top 10 at Chicagoland before his engine failure -- well, that's for the citizens of Junior Nation to lament. Regardless, it's a hopeful finishing stretch that to Letarte is reminiscent of how the No. 88 team opened the season, with five straight top-seven results that had Earnhardt in the points lead after Fontana. "Reminds me a lot of the beginning of the year," Letarte said. "We're kind of bookending the year. We had speed in the middle, but we broke a motor at the first Michigan leading, blew a tire at the second Michigan, broke an alternator running second or third at Texas. We've had a lot of good cars go bad, and unfortunately we've had a lot of bad cars run all day. We didn't quite spread them out like we should. But it's a lot of fun. We're hitting on all cylinders. We tested Homestead, and hopefully we can go down there and try to get a trophy." Which for Earnhardt in this 2013 season is the only puzzle piece that remains. Driver Reports: Post Phoenix 5. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is fifth in the standings with 2,321 points. Last week: Earnhardt Jr. continues to close strong during perhaps his best-ever postseason performance. In Phoenix, Junior had to pit out of turn early because he felt something was wrong with this No. 88 Chevrolet. And it was a great decision -- he had a loose wheel that needed to be tightened. That put Earnhardt a lap down, but on the flat Phoenix track, Junior made up the lost time. He was the beneficiary of a mid-race caution, and finished in fourth place, giving Hendrick Motorsports three drivers in the top four. What he said: "We had a fast car. I thought Steve Letarte (crew chief) could get some good strategy to get us back up into the top-10, top-five and I was real happy with the way we were able to rebound." Outlook: In 13 career starts at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Earnhardt Jr. has one top-10. In the past eight years at Homestead, Earnhardt Jr. ranks 22nd out of 55 drivers with an average place of 20.8. He finished 10th in the 2012 finale at Homestead. Earnhardt Jr. inches up standings after early snag Over the final two weekend of this season, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has an outside chance at matching his best-ever points finish in NASCAR's premier series. Not that he's given much thought to it. "Not really," Earnhardt said at Phoenix International Raceway. "I circle that championship, that's what we want to get. It (would be) nice to equal our career best, but it's still a little disappointing considering how good our team is." NASCAR's most popular driver has quietly been on a roll since blowing an engine in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup opener eight weeks ago at Chicagoland Speedway. Although that 35th-place result effectively doomed his championship hopes, Earnhardt has rebounded thanks in part to three runner-up finishes in the playoff, the most recent last weekend at Texas. Over that same span, he's risen from 13th to fifth in points, and has a shot at matching his best-ever finish at the Sprint Cup level -- third, which he last managed in 2003 during the heyday of Dale Earnhardt Inc. Earnhardt is 22 points behind third-place Kevin Harvick with races at Phoenix and Homestead-Miami Speedway remaining on the schedule. Fourth-place Kyle Busch is 10 ahead, giving Earnhardt a shot at his best points finish in a decade. "I haven't really looked at the numbers to know how far back we are," said Earnhardt, who drew an early spot in qualifying and will start 11th Sunday. "We just give it all we can each week, and see what we can accomplish. We've already come a lot farther than I thought we would after Chicago. Real proud of the team and how they've hung in there, and they've done their best work here in the last six weeks or so." Take the engine failure at Chicago out of the equation, and Earnhardt's average finish in the remaining Chase races is 6.1, a 15th-place result at Charlotte being his only bobble over that span. His surge comes as Jimmie Johnson, his stablemate in the 48/88 shop at Hendrick Motorsports, has moved into the Chase lead in search of his sixth championship at the sport's top level. While the vehicles of Earnhardt and Johnson aren't identical -- "The setups are really different, so you’ve probably got to drive them a little differently," Earnhardt said -- the driver of the No. 88 car believes his program benefits from his teammate's success. Earnhardt made the Chase this season for the third consecutive year, and a fifth-place finish in points would match his best since 2006. "I want the best for the company I'm working for, because indirectly it will assist our team," said Earnhardt, who has won twice at Phoenix, most recently in 2004. "When Jimmie or any of the guys are running well, it's good for us. Indirectly, it affects us down the line. I focus on, how can I improve performance for my team, and how can our team improve? And when our company's successful, that’s going to help us." That Hendrick connection is why Earnhardt is clearly in Johnson's corner during the final weeks of this Chase, which the five-time champion leads by seven points over Joe Gibbs Racing driver Matt Kenseth. Earnhardt and Kenseth are good friends dating back to their days dueling for titles on what is now the Nationwide Series. Although his support is with Johnson, Earnhardt wouldn’t mind reprising those battles one day at the sport's highest level. "Me and Matt are real good friends, and he's going to have his share of opportunities along with this year," Earnhardt said. "He's going to have his opportunities as long as he sticks with Joe. I hope we can be battling him for those down the line in the future." Dale Jr.: 'We're not giving away wins' Team owner Rick Hendrick doesn’t have to look at results pages or check headlines to know his driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. is having a good Chase. It’s a lot simpler than that. "You can see it in the way he walks," Hendrick said Sunday night at Texas Motor Speedway, where Earnhardt collected his third runner-up finish in this year's Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup races. "You can see it when he gets out of the car. You can see it when I talk to him about the race. He’ll send me a text and say, 'Man, that car was good.'… or, 'I loved driving that car like that.' "I see it in the way he goes to the race track and how he prepares for the race talking to (crew chief) Stevie (Letarte). His confidence is at an all-time high. You can just see it in his face." With Sunday’s showing, Earnhardt moved up two positions in the points standings to fifth place with only two races remaining in NASCAR’s championship run. He trails third place Kevin Harvick by 22 points and should he be able to catch Harvick, it would tie Earnhardt’s best ever championship finish and it would also be his best finish in the Chase. Take away a rare Hendrick engine failure in the No. 88 Chevy at the Chase opener in Chicago and Earnhardt would likely be challenging championship frontrunners Jimmie Johnson and Matt Kenseth for the trophy. He has six top-10s in the seven Chase races since Chicago. And only his teammate -- and Sunday’s winner Johnson (4.8) -- has a better average finish than Earnhardt (6.1) since Chicago. The impact of that lone mulligan is not lost on Earnhardt, but it’s not something he dwells upon either. It’s actually been a source of motivation. "The Chicago deal is regrettable, we’d love to go back and do that over again," said Earnhardt. "But as soon as that happened we really changed our approach and it was more about trying to win a race. Winning a race would really lift all the team’s spirits. "You work all season long not to be winless and I know how much the guys want it on the team. So that's what we’re working for now." He paused, "Yeah, I think about it a little bit. But there isn’t much you can do about it. I’ve got two races to go and we’ d love to get a win in one of them and continue to have a good run here in the Chase." Sunday was sort of a bookend effort for Earnhardt, who also finished runner-up to Johnson in the season-opening Daytona 500 and spent the early portion of the season ranked among the top-three in points. And while the strong late season run is a big boost of confidence, it’s been 53 races -- more than a year -- since he last visited Victory Lane. The five runner-ups for him in 2013 aren’t cases of lost opportunity but just-misses. "It’s a matter of being close," Earnhardt said. "You know, we’re not running second by making mistakes. We’re not giving away wins. "So I feel like we’re just really getting close to cracking through and just trying to maintain the momentum with races to go is going to be tough. But that’s what we’re focusing on. "We want to put forward a good account of ourselves in the Chase because you’re in there for a season and you don’t want to be an also-ran. So we feel like we’re doing a lot of good work and getting really close to breaking through and getting a win." Driver Reports: Post Texas 5. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is fifth in the standings with 2,280 points. Last week: Earnhardt Jr. delivered a performance Sunday that matched the paint scheme of his No. 88 Chevrolet -- golden. With a car that was exceptional on the long runs, Junior took advantage of a light day of caution flags (five) and steadily picked off drivers in his path. All except one, at least. There was no catching Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson, but Junior finished second. It's his third runner-up finish of the Chase and moves the veteran up to fifth in the standings. Of Earnhardt's three second-place runs in the postseason races, two have come at races in which Johnson has won. He also finished second to Five-Time in the season-opening Daytona 500. What he said: "We came here and tested so we thought we would have a good chance to win it here. Obviously our teammate was here testing too, so it paid off for him. Congratulations to Jimmie. We've been working really hard. (Crew chief) Steve (Letarte) has done a great job. It's paying off. We're getting close." Outlook: In 22 career starts at Phoenix International Raceway, Earnhardt Jr. has two wins, five top-fives and nine top-10s. In the past eight years at Phoenix, Earnhardt Jr. ranks 21st out of 60 drivers with an average place of 17.2. He finished fifth in the first 2013 race at Phoenix. Sprint Unlimited field taking shape The field for the 2014 edition of The Sprint Unlimited at Daytona International Speedway is taking shape with 20 Sprint Cup Series drivers earning starting positions for the race. The season’s first event, The Sprint Unlimited, is scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 15. FOX Sports One will televise the 75-lap, non-points event that serves as the kick off to the stock car portion of Budweiser Speedweeks. The field for The Sprint Unlimited consists of the pole winners for all the 2013 Sprint Cup season events as well as the past winners of the race (who have also attempted to qualify for at least one Cup race during the past season). The 20 drivers that have qualified for the race include 10 of the 13 drivers in this year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. The drivers who have qualified for the 2014 edition of The Sprint Unlimited by virtue of winning a Coors Light Pole are: Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Joey Logano, Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth, Ryan Newman, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, Carl Edwards, Marcos Ambrose, Kurt Busch, Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski, Mark Martin, Jamie McMurray, Danica Patrick and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. As past winners of the event, Terry Labonte, Ken Schrader and Tony Stewart have qualified for the race. Driver Reports: Post Martinsville 7. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is seventh in the standings with 2,238 points. Last week: Junior was dejected following his eighth-place finish, mainly because he liked his No. 88 Chevrolet and thought he -- not Jeff Gordon, or perhaps Jimmie Johnson -- could have been the Hendrick Motorsports driver to visit Victory Lane. He stayed in the action, though, and by the end of the race, the nose of his car was torn up good. Junior now has three races left to get his first win of the season. What he said: "We worked really, really hard all day and just … we had a decent car and didn't do everything exactly like we needed to. … I am really happy for my teammates when they do well, but right now we are just worried about ourselves. We have two or three races to go and we want to get as close as we can.” Outlook: In 22 career starts at Texas Motor Speedway, Earnhardt Jr. has one win, three top-fives, 12 top-10s and two poles. In the past eight years at Texas, Earnhardt Jr. ranks sixth out of 59 drivers with an average place of 11.9. He finished 29th in the first 2013 race at Texas. Dejected Junior can't capitalize at tricky track An unsatisfying eighth-place finish and a torn-up No. 88 topped a crazy-eights type of Sunday for Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Martinsville Speedway. Earnhardt, hoping to shift the momentum in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs, instead left the series' smallest track one place lower in the standings with three races left on the schedule. "We had a pretty decent car but just didn't do everything exactly like we needed to," Earnhardt said. "We had a pretty good car, though, maybe a fifth-place car. This tire was a struggle for us last year and the last time we were here, and we feel like we made a lot of good gains on it in practice and found some good speed. I don't know what we've got to do to get that extra bit." Earnhardt spent a portion of his day in the top five, but failed to make headway on the lead pair of Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson or Joe Gibbs Racing's Matt Kenseth, who emerged in a tie atop the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings. Sunday, he slipped four points further from the series lead, staring down a 56-point deficit as the series turns to the next race at Texas Motor Speedway. Just shy of the halfway mark of Sunday's Goody's Headache Relief Shot 500 Powered by Kroger, Earnhardt was on the fringes of the top 10 in a battle with Greg Biffle, who later verbally sparred with Johnson after close-quarters contact. Earnhardt's run-in with Biffle severely crumpled the right-front corner of the No. 88 Chevy, while the No. 16 Ford of Biffle spent nearly the next 125 laps with a dangling rear bumper cover. From there, Earnhardt rallied from a shuffle of differing pit cycles to his eventual finishing position, failing to gain much ground on the tight, tricky layout where the degree of difficulty on passing has an extraordinarily high ceiling. "I mean, it's hard to pass," Earnhardt said. "If you can't drive under 'em, you can't drive under 'em. You saw everybody try to get to the bottom on the restarts because the bottom line is so much better than the middle. Trust me, if guys could drive up under people, they would. Everybody's got the same race cars and running the same speed. All these teams are so competitive, you get 35 cars out there running within a tenth of each other, you're not going to have a lot of side by side. I don't care where you're running at." Teammate Jeff Gordon celebrated in Victory Lane for the first time this season and fellow Hendrick driver Johnson left Martinsville with a share of the points lead. Still, fresh from the car and needing more than a top-10, Earnhardt found it hard to take solace in the team's overall good fortune. "I'd rather win the race," Earnhardt said. "I've missed a lot of opportunities to win here, and we finish all right and we run all right. I'm really happy for my teammates when they do well, but right now we're just worried about ourselves. We've got two, three races to go and we want to get as many points as we can." Junior: 'Love to have kids,' addicted to eBay Dale Earnhardt Jr., the 10-time winner of the NASCAR NMPA Most Popular Driver, hasn't shared many personal details with the fans who have cast votes for that honor over the last decade. On Sunday, Junior opened up about his family, having children, how he spends his money and getting back to his racing roots.?? In a taped interview on FOX Sports 1's "NASCAR RaceDay," Earnhardt Jr. told reporter Wendy Venturini, "I feel really uncomfortable and there's just a lot of attention and it's something I never was all that comfortable with. It's not a big deal. You want to keep some normalcy in your life and feel regular when you get home." But he credited girlfriend Amy Reimann with helping him as he becomes "more proud of and more comfortable in my own skin." "Before I was in a relationship with Amy, I was really a recluse and never would leave my bus on race weekend, " Earnhardt said. "I didn't know what was outside the race track. I didn't know what the towns were like, restaurants or anything. She's got me to get out and enjoy and see and do. I think that's really made life a whole lot more fun. People that know me really well say I'm a better person for it." Reimann and the other women in his life have helped Earnhardt Jr. lead a "laid back" lifestyle and right his way. "I'm a bit obnoxious and sarcastic a lot of the time. I try not to be too annoying. My girlfriend, Amy, and my sister and mom always keep me straight, keep me grounded and from getting too carried away." The son of NASCAR Hall of Fame charter member Dale Earnhardt used racing terms when he discussed becoming a father. "I'd love to have kids," Earnhardt Jr. said. "Having kids is like the ultimate win -- probably the most rewarding and greatest accomplishment you can have is raising a child. And I hear it all the time. All my friends that are having babies are telling me how amazing it is, and my sister ... so, yeah, I'm always curious as to what that would be like." If he were to have children, he would need to clear some shelf space and possibly curb "a little bit of an addiction to eBay and Amazon." "I think I'm a tightwad, but apparently I'm not, because I'll spend $100 on eBay in a heartbeat," Earnhardt Jr. said. "I collect old magazines, like 'Stock Car Racing.' I've been buying them from the '70s and '80s. I have an alias on eBay. ... I've got a library upstairs in my house that I've kind of gotten this obsession of making it full. Every cabinet and shelf has to be full of books." Earnhardt Jr. isn't ready to race into the sunset any time soon mainly because he says, "I just feel like I wouldn't know what to do with myself (if he quit racing). If I just stopped racing, I don't know that I could fill the void." "I really miss the days of loading up a gooseneck trailer and going to Myrtle Beach with your friends -- three or four buddies and a dually -- and racing, and how much fun just getting there and getting home was. I think it would be fun to experience that again because when I was in that moment when I was younger, I was so worried about making it and not making it and failing and winning that I didn't enjoy it as much as I wish I had. "I wanted to drive race cars for a living and only a select few people get to do that for a living. I wanted to be good and wanted to live up to my name and my father's reputation. And I worried sick about that. I put way too much pressure on myself, so it would be great to go back through that process and just really let it sink in." Junior says he supports concussion testing Dale Earnhardt Jr. spoke out about concussion baseline testing Friday afternoon at Martinsville Speedway, one day after a meeting on the topic among drivers in NASCAR's three national series at the sanctioning body's research and development center in Concord, N.C. Earnhardt, who missed two races at the end of the 2012 season with post-concussive symptoms after a multicar wreck at Talladega Superspeedway, said he was encouraged by the progress of the meeting and hopes drivers will support any potential NASCAR policy to establish baseline testing for its participants. "It's just valuable information," said Earnhardt Jr., who also announced a sponsorship extension for National Guard on his No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet through the 2014 season. "If you care about your well-being, your health and your quality of life, it's a smart move to embrace." Earnhardt became more familiar with the rigors of neurological testing after his crash last season forced him to the sidelines. Friday, he said that no two people have the same baseline and that all concussions "are like snowflakes," all unique. He sounded off on the potential for any resistance to the possible change. "I don't understand any concerns. Going through what I went through, I don't understand that," Earnhardt said. "You have to go through the test and know how the test is scored and how you are evaluated in the re-test. It's not two plus two equals four, but well, you chose three, you're out. There's no right or wrong answers. It's a test that gives you an image of how someone thinks, how quickly they make decisions, how they rationale, it's not really a test of what's the capital of North Carolina. There's not a grade." He added: "I don't feel more worried about getting a concussion and being held out than I did before. It's kind of frustrating, but I think if everybody gets a year down the road and understands how the test works, especially when all the drivers are forced to take it, it's no sweat and I don't think they're going to be too worried about it." Key sponsor re-ups with Earnhardt Jr. for 2014 Dale Earnhardt Jr. will carry primary sponsorship from the Army National Guard for 20 races in 2014, including the Daytona 500, Hendrick Motorsports announced Friday in a press release. The National Guard will also serve as an associate sponsor for the remaining 16 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races. The organization said in the release that additional sponsorship would be announced at a later date. "It's an incredible privilege to work with and represent the Guard," Earnhardt Jr. said. "We have the opportunity to interact with those who serve our country and many who are considering military careers. I'm personally in awe of their sacrifices and feel a tremendous amount of pride in our relationship with them. The entire No. 88 team is looking forward to another season together." Currently in sixth place in the point standings, Junior has seven top-fives and 18 top-10s this season in his No. 88 Chevrolet. He sported a National Guard paint scheme during his runner-up finish in February's Daytona 500. In fact, Junior's Chevrolet had National Guard colors in six of his seven top-fives -- at Phoenix and Fontana early this season, at Pocono twice and in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Dover in September. "We've been honored to partner with the National Guard since 2007," team owner Rick Hendrick said. "Sports affiliations drive engagement, and we know citizen soldiers are especially likely to engage with NASCAR specifically. The Guard has recognized the opportunities, and Dale Jr. has been a terrific spokesperson. We're proud to continue what's been an effective and impactful program." NASCAR to mandate baseline concussion testing NASCAR will require baseline concussion testing for its drivers starting next season. NASCAR had only recommended the testing this season, but indicated to drivers that a preseason baseline screening could become mandatory as early as 2014. The baseline test will be compared with test results taken after a driver has crashed to help diagnose a concussion. ''NASCAR made this decision because we think it is important to drivers' health for doctors to have the best information and tools available in evaluating injuries,'' said Steve O'Donnell, NASCAR vice president of racing operations. Drivers were informed of the mandate during a Thursday meeting at the R&D Center in Concord with top NASCAR officials that lasted nearly two hours and covered a variety of topics concerning 2014 changes. The baseline testing will be performed through the widely used neurocognitive assessment ImPACT test, which evaluates an athlete's verbal and visual memory, processing speed and reaction time. ''Before announcing this rule, we provided drivers concussion and baseline testing education and created opportunities for them to ask any questions they may have to a top neurosurgeon that specializes in traumatic brain injuries,'' O'Donnell said. ''ImPACT tests are not new to our sport and have been used for treatment through the years.'' O'Donnell said in February that NASCAR had identified 32 concussions in its top three national series since 2004, including three in 2012. One suffered by Dale Earnhardt Jr. forced NASCAR concussions into the spotlight. Earnhardt was injured in a crash during an August 2012 tire test at Kansas, but didn't seek treatment for a mild concussion. His stubborn streak instead kept him behind the wheel, and he was then part of a 25-car pileup in October at Talladega that triggered lingering headaches and other recognizable warning signs. Earnhardt went to a doctor, and he was ultimately benched for two races. Earnhardt's plight led four-time series champion Jeff Gordon to voluntarily take the ImPACT test, which has long been mandatory in the IndyCar Series. ''I just think whether it's voluntary or not, it's a good idea to have,'' Gordon said in February. ''I don't think that NASCAR necessarily has to make it mandatory, but if you're a race car driver, and you feel you're going to be here for a while, you need to make it mandatory to yourself.'' Drivers this year were invited to two concussion education sessions featuring Dr. Vinay Deshmukh of Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates, a member of NASCAR's medical advisory group. Drivers were presented with an overview of what concussions are, their causes, treatment and the role that baseline tests play in the comprehensive evaluation of concussions. ''We are extremely confident that our concussion protocol is among the best in sports,'' O'Donnell said. ''We regularly review all of our practices involving safety and health to see if there is anything that we can do better, or should do differently moving forward. Implementing baseline testing is a primary example of our philosophy to protect our competitors the best that we can.'' Driver Reports: Chase continues after shakeup 6. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is sixth in the standings with 2,202 points. Last week: Earnhardt Jr. may have been the favorite to win as the laps ticked down. Sure, he wasn't leading -- it was Jamie McMurray running out front -- but running in second position at 'Dega is often a better spot than running first. Then the last-lap wreck happened early, with Casey Mears and Austin Dillon getting together. That tangle came before Junior had a chance to try and pass McMurray, relegating the driver to a second-place finish and leaving Junior Nation to wonder "What if." What he said: "It's all kind of a blur as to how we ended up in second, but I had no reason to make a move before the last lap being in second place. I was in perfect position to be patient and wait as long as I wanted to. So that's why we didn't go any sooner than that. I just can't anticipate a caution coming out every single time we run at Talladega race on the last lap, so I just assumed it would go to checkered and was planning my move on the back straightaway." Outlook: In 27 career starts at Martinsville Speedway, Earnhardt Jr. has 10 top-fives and 14 top-10s. In the past eight years at Martinsville, Earnhardt Jr. ranks fourth out of 55 drivers with an average place of 11.0. He finished 24th in the first 2013 race at Martinsville. Earnhardt settles for another 2nd at Talladega Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s initial reaction to another runner-up finish is a smile and the feeling that second's not so bad. The what-ifs don't really play through his mind until later, when he ponders everything he might have done differently to finish that one tantalizing spot higher. Earnhardt had to settle for his fourth second-place finish this year Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway when Jamie McMurray captured the victory in a race finished under caution after a last-lap crash. ''I'm not going to complain too much because I'm driving some of the best cars in the garage, and got some of the best engines,'' Earnhardt said. ''Being at a place like that, it really means a lot. ''It's frustrating because the worst part about it really is you go home and you'll spend months thinking about what you could have done to not be second. That's the worst part about it. Actually, the process of it happening and doing it isn't that bad. I'm kind of happy with being competitive, and it was a good result - until you'll go back and think of the million things you could have tried different.'' If the fan favorite had a final maneuver to get him past McMurray, he never got to make it. The result was another close call. Earnhardt has won a personal-best five times at Talladega, including a string of four straight that ended in the spring of 2003. He won again the following year but now his drought at the huge tri-oval has reached 18 races. Having led laps at 25 of his 28 career starts at Talladega is small comfort. So are the four second-place finishes. Earnhardt figures his No. 88 Chevrolet has been strong enough to win recent races. He's been second in two of the last five races with four top-10s. ''Man, I'm going to tell you, looking at our runs since Chicago, this is the best my car's been all year,'' he said. ''I've had some of the best cars the last five races that I've had all season. They say they're not doing anything different, but they sure are running really good. ''I think we're right around the corner from winning one of these races, and we're just going to keep trying.'' This time he felt his car was strong enough to hang around up front, a strategy he's watched Matt Kenseth successfully pull off in restrictor plate races. Earnhardt led 36 laps, second only to new points leader Jimmie Johnson's 47. He's tried running in the back of the pack and hoping to avoid the seemingly inevitable trouble with drivers squeezing three- and four-wide across the track, only to find himself stuck. And maybe eventually wrecked. ''We always end up packed up behind that mess and then we find our way into the last-lap wreck,'' Earnhardt said. ''The car was pretty good in practice and I felt like if I could get up there in front, that seems to be working for Matt. He's been doing really well this year on plate tracks, and he's always toward the front and never has to worry about working his way toward the front on that last pit stop. We were good enough today to do that. ''In the past, I've tried to do it and made the wrong move and found myself in back any way. I was really strong today.'' Talladega holds fond memories for Dale Jr Dale Earnhardt Jr. broke into a big grin Friday morning, recalling the five victories and his 700-plus laps outfront at Talladega Superspeedway. Specifically, he smiled remembering the highly emotional reaction this always causes for his rabid and robust fandom here. "It makes it fun to come here knowing you've got a lot of people excited to see you run," Earnhardt acknowledged. "Out there before you even get in the car, the first thing you're thinking about is how fast you can get to the lead because you know a lot of people want to see you leading the race. "And they come here to cheer that specific moment and hopefully see you go to Victory Lane. You just want to produce as soon as you can." Talladega is like no other for Earnhardt. Think The Beatles on "The Ed Sullivan Show" or teenage girls at a Justin Bieber concert. Only Earnhardt's 'Dega legions are a broad assortment of kids, college students, women and grown men from every walk of life -- across all spectrums. Truck drivers and attorneys. Housewives and XBox-crazed 12-year olds. Sorority girls and Walmart greeters. And whenever Earnhardt's No. 88 Chevrolet takes the lead on these high-speed high banks, tens of thousands of fans leap from their seat to wave him on. Their screams and collective cheers are loud enough you often hear it on the television broadcasts even over the thundering roar of the Talladega draft. Even Earnhardt ? in the midst of steering a car 200 mph inches away from the wall or other cars -- is aware of the full-sensory phenomena he creates. "Sometimes you swear you can hear them, but most of the time you can't," Earnhardt said. "But you can definitely see it. You can definitely see lap after lap after lap of going by the grandstand and seeing them sitting down. When you come by and they are standing up, it's obvious. And you see the arms in the air and all that stuff. "You don't block it out. I think you enjoy it. "You're happy being first, obviously, but when you see the reaction that other people get from it, it's a great feeling. It's a really good feeling." Not only are Earnhardt's fans loud, animated and fervent, they are undaunted. It's been 35 races, nearly nine years, since Earnhardt's last restrictor plate win which came at Talladega in October, 2004. But this Sunday's Camping World RV Sales 500 is his to lose as far as his fans are concerned. They feel every race at Talladega is his to lose. And even though he only has two top-10 finishes in his last eight Talladega starts, Earnhardt echoes his fans confidence every time he rolls into the massive 2.66-mile speedway located in the rolling hills of central Alabama. "Every time you show up here, you're thinking that this might be the weekend that you get it kind of turned around and put things back in the right direction," Earnhardt said. "I feel like we haven't got the job done [recently] and this is a place where I feel like I should know what I'm doing and should be able to go out there and get a great result every time. "It hasn't been going as great as I want it to go here lately. We have torn up a lot of cars and been frustrated most times when we leave here. I still come back as confident and excited about the opportunities as ever. That is the way we feel this weekend." Even before Earnhardt's winning ways won over the masses, he held Talladega in special esteem. Part of that came from watching his father, the late NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt dominate these high banks. His 10 victories here is still a record and he won in his last race here in 2000. Earnhardt Jr. fondly recalled coming to Talladega and "milling around the garage" as a kid, enamored by the look of the bigger superspeedway cars and awestruck by the sheer size of NASCAR's biggest track. As he explained Friday this was the first true "speedway" Earnhardt Jr. had ever turned laps an impromptu test offered up by his father while the younger was still doing odd jobs in the family Chevy dealership and racing street stocks at a local short track. "Dad called me at the dealership," Earnhardt said, remembering details even as he spoke. "I was changing oil and he told me to get my helmet and my suit and be at the airport the next morning and not to ask any questions or tell anybody where I was going. "I knew I was going to Talladega, but I didn't know why. I assumed I was going to drive a race car somewhere. But we got here and he told me to get my stuff on and get in the car and go out and run; and hold it wide-open, that it would stick. "And I remember going down the back straightaway in that car and wondering if it was really going to stick when I got in that corner because it just didn't seem like it was possible." It did stick. And the lesson paid off years later as the love triangle between track, driver and fan has shown to be a true anomaly in the sport ? one deeply acknowledged and appreciated by Earnhardt. "I think that Dad really started all that with the success he had here," Earnhardt said. "Our DEI [Dale Earnhardt Inc.] team came in and just kind of inherited already a pretty loyal fan base. This sport has got the most loyal fans as it is already. "We sort of adopted a lot of people and we were able to go out and win. And that endeared them and has for some time now. It makes it fun to come here knowing you've got a lot of people excited to see you run. "If you've got one fan or you've got thousands of fans, you know that when you put the car in first place, that they're happy. "I think you enjoy that as much as the fan enjoys it." Driver Reports: Points picture could get shakeup 9. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is ninth in the standings with 2,159 points. Last week: When Earnhardt Jr. surged to the lead of the Bank of America 500 on Lap 30, the Charlotte crowd roared its approval. That same cheer shot up when Junior took the lead a second time on Lap 91. Those two moments were the highlights of the night for the popular driver, who struggled with command of his car late Saturday and finished 15th. The other notable Junior moment came during his first time leading, when his temperatures soared due to debris on his grille, forcing the driver to give up the lead to Kasey Kahne and try to get the debris off during the pass. What he said: "The car just got really tight. Something in the setup moved, but the car was real quick at the start of the race. We were just kind of real happy with the speed. I don't know what happened. We lost a rubber out of the right-rear spring or something like that. We are just kind of trying to figure out what is going on." Outlook: In 27 career starts at Talladega Superspeedway, Earnhardt Jr. has five wins, nine top-fives and 13 top-10s. In the past eight years at Talladega, Earnhardt Jr. ranks second out of 60 drivers with an average place of 15.1. He finished 17th in the first 2013 race at Talladega. Earnhardt Jr. has a good car go south It was as if Dale Earnhardt Jr. was driving two different race cars Saturday night. One surged out front and looked capable of dominating the field at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The other labored in traffic and struggled to maintain position on the lead lap. Unfortunately for NASCAR's most popular driver, he got more of the latter than the former on the 1.5-mile race track. Earnhardt led 19 laps early in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup event and maintained a spot in the top five for two-thirds of the race, but fell back over the latter stages and wound up 15th and one lap down in an event that marked the halfway point of the playoff. "The car just got really, really tight," Earnhardt said. "We’ve got to take it back. Something moved. Something in the setup moved, but the car was real quick at the start of the race. We were just kind of real happy with the speed. … I don’t know what happened. We lost a rubber out of the right-rear spring, or something like that. It just would not turn at all the last half of the race, pretty much. We are just kind of trying to figure out what is going on. We will get it back and figure it out when we get to the shop on Monday." It was an adventurous night even when the No. 88 car was leading. Very early in the event Earnhardt noticed his temperatures climbing due to debris on the front grille, and numerous attempts to close up to Hendrick Motorsports teammates Kasey Kahne or Jimmie Johnson failed to remove the trash from the front. "Too hot for this early in the race," crew chief Steve Letarte said over the radio. Soon afterward, the call came to pit and have it removed, even though Earnhardt was near the front. Right before the car ducked onto pit road, though, the debris flew off and allowed Earnhardt to maintain his track position. But things would only get more trying from there, first with a vibration whose source the driver struggled identify, and later with issues that caused the vehicle to labor in traffic. "Slow," Letarte explained afterward. "I don't know. We freed it up and it kept going slower. We'll talk about it this week and see what we think happened." It didn't help that the event contained just four cautions, the final two separated by a 130-lap green flag run that left only 11 cars on the lead lap at the time. In Letarte's eyes, the difference between Earnhardt's good car early and balky car late came down to one simple factor. "Track position," the crew chief said. "We lost a little tack position, and every two rows we went back it got tighter, it got worse. Just with that long green-flag run, there wasn't anything we could do. We needed a yellow somewhere in there. If we'd have gotten a yellow in there, we'd probably have been able to salvage something." The finish dropped Earnhardt one position to ninth in the Chase standings, 66 points behind leader Matt Kenseth. He's now three points behind Clint Bowyer in eighth, and one point ahead of Carl Edwards in 10th. As has been the case so often this season, Earnhardt seemed to have a good car, only to have some unfortunate circumstance befall it. "We are having some pretty good cars, we just had something happen tonight," he said. "We are not quite sure what it was. We will find something, I’m sure. The car just doesn’t get that tight from running that good without any adjustments. We were freeing it up, moving the track bar, taking wedge out and just getting tighter and tighter. Something wrong with it.” Dale Jr. celebrates birthday with 500th start So what did Dale Earnhardt Jr. do for his 39th birthday? For starters, the Hendrick Motorsports driver qualified sixth for Saturday night's Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. "It's been great," Earnhardt Jr., who turned 39 Thursday, said when asked about turning another year older. "Getting older is not awesome, but it's all how you feel, I suppose. I feel 20. I feel good." Earnhardt Jr., the 37th of 43 drivers to take to the track during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series qualifying session, briefly sat second after his lap of 195.535 mph, trailing only teammate Kasey Kahne. But Greg Biffle, Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick and eventually pole winner Jeff Gordon proved faster, leaving Earnhardt Jr. just outside the top five. "The car was really driving well," he said, adding the No. 88 Chevrolet "is just right where we need to be. "It's been good all daylong. I think we're going to have a good race car this weekend. That (run) gives us a great starting spot and a great pit selection." Earnhardt Jr. will be making his 500th career start on Saturday night, ninth most among active Cup drivers and 33rd overall. He is a 19-time race winner, but is 0-for-27 in Cup starts at the 1.5-mile track. He does have one non-points win here, capturing the 2000 All-Star race during his rookie season. Start No. 500 isn't, he said, "that big of a milestone to me. I just hope I'm around for at least 250 or 500 more. "I’ve really been blessed to have the opportunity to do what I do. I feel thankful every weekend to be able to get in some of the best cars in the series. I really mean that from my heart. "It’s truly been a dream career for me and I never took it for granted that I would be driving race cars all my life and be able to make a living doing it. I’m real thankful and it makes me reflect on that kind of thing.” One of 13 drivers in this year's Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup field, Earnhardt Jr. enters this weekend's race eighth in points and 54 behind leader Matt Kenseth. After a horrendous 35th-place finish in the opening Chase race at Chicago, he has posted three consecutive top-10 finishes, including a runner-up effort at Dover two weeks ago. The Charlotte race marks the halfway point of the 10-race Chase. While teams had only one practice session prior to qualifying on Thursday, Earnhardt Jr. said his car had speed from the time it was unloaded. Small gains on Friday would help him keep pace with those who were also fast a day earlier. "We ran a couple of (race) runs early and thought that we had a good handle," he said. "We were really in the ballpark and really happy with how the car came off the trailer." And that, he said, "is a good sign for us.” Driver Reports: Post Kanas 8. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is eighth in the standings with 2,129 points. Last week: Dale Jr. qualified sixth at Kansas and was running strong out of the gate as he was in fourth-place on Lap 9 and moved into second place on Lap 42. He spent much of the first half of the race in the top five, and restarted in fourth place on Lap 207. However, he spun his tires and dropped to 12th place before working his way up to an eight-place finish. What he said: "Man, fast car, but I don’t know, we needed some longer green-flag runs. Our car was really fast once the tires were warm and we got some green-flag laps, but the track was real slick on this new tire and it didn’t seem like we could get very far before the yellows started flying. ... But we’ve climbed nicely out of the cellar and working our way up. We need to keep doing that and we'll see where it all shakes out.” Outlook: In 27 career starts at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Earnhardt Jr. has five top-fives, 11 top-10s and one pole. In the past eight years at Charlotte, Earnhardt Jr. ranks 24th out of 58 drivers with an average place of 20.3. He finished 39th in the first 2013 race at Charlotte. Earnhardt encouraged and feeling no Chase pressure Dale Earnhardt Jr. says he isn't feeling a lot of pressure in NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. Earnhardt has rebounded from an engine failure and 35th-place finish in the first week of the Chase with a pair of top-10 finishes. He says the last two weeks have been ''really encouraging'' and that he had probably the best two cars he's had all season. He started on the pole and finished second last week at Dover. During a charity appearance Thursday night at a barbecue joint about five miles from Texas Motor Speedway, Earnhardt said his team is ''swinging for the fences every weekend'' with seven races left. Earnhardt is 10th in the standings, 57 points behind leader Matt Kenseth going into Sunday's race at Kansas. Driver Reports: Post Dover 10. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is 10th in the standings with 2,092 points. Last week: Earnhardt Jr. nearly captured his first victory of the season at Dover, leading 80 laps after starting from the Coors Light Pole. He overcame a pit-road snafu, too, from earlier in the race when he missed the entrance to pit road. Junior later had a slow stop when he got caught in traffic. Four tires on the last restart allowed the No. 88 to jump from fourth to second, but he couldn't catch his Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Jimmie Johnson. What he said: "Well, Jimmie (Johnson) was just that good. I thought that four tires were going to be enough to get to him and get him out of the way, but he is just that fast around here. That track position is really important and I gave that up early in the race with that mistake coming onto pit road. And it cost us a shot at the win there." Outlook: In 14 career starts at Kansas Speedway, Earnhardt Jr. has one top-five, six top-10s and one pole. In the past eight years at Kansas, Earnhardt Jr. ranks 17th out of 59 drivers with an average place of 16.1. He finished 16th in the first 2013 race at Kansas. Defeat leaves Earnhardt with bitter taste Dale Earnhardt Jr. chased Jimmie Johnson around Dover International Speedway, only to see his teammate grab his record-setting eighth victory at the Monster Mile. Earnhardt settled for second, his winless streak swelling to 48 races. For those keeping track, that's just two wins in the 207 races since Earnhardt joined Johnson at Hendrick Motorsports in 2008. So as Johnson grabbed that milestone victory, pulling within eight points of leader Matt Kenseth in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship, more than one skeptical fan wondered if Earnhardt had given less than 100 percent in the closing laps to allow his teammate to win. Not a chance. Disappointment oozed from Earnhardt immediately after the race. It was in his voice as he crossed the finish line, and he sounded deflated as he radioed the No. 88 team. ''He's just so damn fast around here. I don't know what else I could have done,'' Earnhardt said. ''I hate losing 'em like that.'' He should. He doesn't get many chances like he had Sunday. Prior to Sunday, he'd led only 165 laps this season and had just five other top-five finishes. But at Dover, crew chief Steve Letarte gave him a fast Chevrolet from the very start: Earnhardt was the surprising pole-winner and was in control the first half of the race. Earnhardt led 80 laps at Dover and clearly had a car capable of winning. Then came his own error - one that cost him dearly. Earnhardt was headed to pit road for a routine stop under green when he missed the commitment cone to pit lane, and was unable to make his scheduled stop. He had to take an extra lap around the track, and the miscalculation dropped him from first to eighth, a whopping 9.3 seconds behind Johnson. ''We had the lead, gave up the lead. Jimmie had the lead and was able to take advantage of that clean air when it counted,'' Earnhardt lamented. ''If I had not given up that track position, had a smart enough race to keep the lead when it counted right at the end, we might have won the race. It would have been hard to get by us, just like it was to get by Jimmie.'' That's part of the reason why Earnhardt took Sunday's defeat so hard. You don't have to be perfect to win races, but you have to be pretty darn close. Self-inflicted errors are going to hurt every single time. Johnson, with his five Cup titles, doesn't make many mistakes. Especially not when the stakes are at their highest. He pounced when Earnhardt erred, and when a debris caution with 29 laps to go sent everybody to pit road one last time, a strategic call by Letarte still didn't make a difference. Johnson crew chief Chad Knaus called for only two new tires, but Letarte gave Earnhardt four. The No. 88 crew made the change fast enough to get Earnhardt off pit road in fourth, and the excitement in their voices was palpable as they realized they were the first car with four new tires. Maybe, just maybe, Earnhardt could run down Johnson for his first victory since Michigan in 2012. ''I thought that four tires were going to be enough to get him,'' Earnhardt said. ''But he is just that fast around here.'' But had he ever made it to Johnson's bumper? ''I was definitely going to do whatever I could to win if I could get within reach. I just couldn't get to him,'' Earnhardt shrugged. The upside is that it was the second consecutive strong run for Earnhardt, who opened the 10-race Chase with a blown engine at Chicago. He rallied last week with a sixth-place finish at New Hampshire, where he led 17 laps, and his runner-up finish at Dover has moved him to 10th in the 13-driver Chase field. He won't win the championship this year. But there's no shame in that - it's practically a three-driver race already, with Kenseth, Johnson and Kyle Busch in a different league from the rest of the field. But this is Earnhardt's 14th full season at NASCAR's highest level and he'll celebrate his 39th birthday next week qualifying at Charlotte Motor Speedway, where he couldn't race last season because of a concussion. He's got a lot of pride, and he knows the clock is ticking on a career that has failed to live up to the expectations set by his rabid fan base. Earnhardt, though, is never going to be a seven-time champion like his father, the 76-race winner. He's just going to be Dale Earnhardt Jr., a guy who fights hard for what he can get on the race track, and shows us just how much it hurts when he comes up short. Dale Jr. comes up just short at Dover Sounding every bit the fierce, motivated competitor he looked on track Sunday afternoon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was equal parts glad to turn his pole position into a runner-up finish and frustrated to have been so good yet left to watch his teammate Jimmie Johnson celebrate in Victory Lane at Dover International Speedway. "Two weeks in a row we've had two fantastic race cars," Earnhardt said. "(I'm) proud of all the guys for bringing such good cars to the race track. It certainly makes my job easier, gives us opportunities to win like this. "Trying to look on the bright side, I'm a little disappointed we didn't pull off the win. Felt like we had the perfect strategy. Had maybe the best car, arguably the best car, today. With those four tires I thought we could get it done. "We left everybody in the mirror. We were clicking off some laps, but just not fast enough to get to Jimmie." Earnhardt's No. 88 National Guard Chevrolet was the first car on four fresh tires and came out fourth following the final round of pit stops with 26 laps remaining. He quickly passed two cars on the restart and began reeling in Johnson, whose Chevy had only two fresh tires. Earnhardt got within a half-second of the No. 48's bumper but ran out of laps, ultimately finishing .446 seconds shy of hoisting his first trophy of the year -- but encouraged by his fourth top-10 in the last six races. "The No. 88 was so strong early, when he got four tires, I thought he might be trouble for Jimmie," team owner Rick Hendrick said on pit road after the race. Earnhardt, who led six times for 80 of the race's 400 laps, was as fast as his pole-winning effort would indicate. But a pair of pit-road mishaps cost him early forcing him to play catch-up to his Hendrick Motorsports teammate. While leading on Lap 117, Earnhardt prepared to drive down pit road but was unable to steer his Chevy within the mandatory pit road commitment marks, which forced him to turn another lap around the "Monster Mile." He went from holding a nearly four-second lead over Johnson at that point to returning to the track eighth. Later in the race, Earnhardt got caught behind a much slower Mark Martin at the pit entrance, forcing him to patiently ride behind Martin for part of the long drive to his stall located all the way at the pit exit. "If you look at the race as a whole, they did cost us a little bit, at least the mistake I made missing pit road completely," Earnhardt said. "We had the lead, gave up the lead and Jimmie (Johnson) had the lead and was able to take advantage of that clean air when it counted. "If I had not given up that track position, had a smart enough race to keep the lead when it counted right at the end, we might have won the race. It would have been hard to get by us, just like it was to be by Jimmie. "I think missing the commitment cone was a big factor in us not finishing one spot ahead of where we are. But the other pit stop wasn't that big a deal." Because both of those incidents happened relatively early in the race, Earnhardt rebounded over and over again. "The pressure was on," Johnson said of the final laps. "I ran my guts out to stay ahead of him. Everything I could turn twist and pull on the car. … I drove the (expletive) out of that thing." For Earnhardt, just knowing he had a car good enough to win was both the good news and the bad news for him. "I feel like in the last couple of weeks, we've been able to really show what our team's capable of," Earnhardt said. "We've been really quick on the sheet every day, fast in practice. The changes we're making, everything seems to be working right, going in the direction you want. I feel like when we get it right we can compete and we can win. "We came really close today. I don't feel like today was a highlight for us. I think this is how it's supposed to be every week." The runner-up at Dover along with the sixth-place finish last week at New Hampshire moved Earnhardt up one position in the Sprint Cup Series standings to 10th. He's now 57 points behind championship leader Matt Kenseth, but only 18 points behind fifth-place Jeff Gordon with seven races remaining in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. "I'll be honest with you, it sucks to lose regardless of who wins," Earnhardt said smiling and shaking his head. "It's probably harder to run second than it is fifth or 10th. When you have a car like we had today, you don't get good cars every week so you like to capitalize." Familiarity breeds success for Earnhardt Jr. Not since 2002 had Dale Earnhardt Jr. won more than one NASCAR Sprint Cup Series pole in a single season. Until Friday. Earnhardt's track-record run at Dover International Speedway, however, held a significance deeper than merely claiming the top starting position for Sunday's AAA 400, the third race in the Chase. To Earnhardt, the Coors Light Pole-winning run was emblematic of the progress he has made with crew chief Steve Letarte and his entire No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet team. "I would say it's a reflection of where the program is," Earnhardt told the NASCAR Wire Service. "Just how Steve and I, since we first started working together ... we have gotten better each year. One of the things we started focusing on last year was qualifying, and I think that has rolled over into this season. "We continue to put importance on that and try to improve on that. The racing and the cars and the speed the cars have in the races has also improved. We really focused on qualifying last year and even more so this year." It's also a function of more effective communication between driver and crew chief. "He and I are working better together," Earnhardt said. "The longer we work together, the better we get at it and the more we understand each other and the more he understands what I need in the car. We have also kept the majority of the team intact from the beginning. That's so important, to keep that together if you can, because everybody sort of learns what they can about each other. "Steve is really good. ... He has made me a better race car driver. He makes his engineers better. I mean, he is really good at his job. So he deserves a lot of credit for us improving and being able to get these poles and just qualifying better." Earnhardt maintained his pace during Saturday's practice sessions at the Monster Mile. He was second quickest behind teammate Kasey Kahne in the morning session and fifth fastest in the final practice. A time to heal After a tumultuous month on and off the race track, Martin Truex Jr. finally got some welcome news. The wrist he broke during an accident at Bristol in late August is healing. The wrist was perhaps the least of his worries. A 50-point penalty from NASCAR, levied after Michael Waltrip Racing, the organization that fields cars for Truex, attempted to manipulate the outcome of the final regular-season Sprint Cup race at Richmond, knocked Truex out of the Chase spot he thought he had earned as a Wild Card. Truex also suffered from the fallout, learning that his primary sponsor, auto parts retailer NAPA, was opting out of its commitment to MWR at the end of the season. But the wrist, at least, is on the mend. "Yeah, we started to see this week it looked a little bit better, so that was good news," Truex said after Friday's time trials at Dover. "The doctor was pretty certain we won't need surgery now, which is a great, great news after all the bad news I've gotten here lately. So, hopefully, we'll keep a cast on it obviously until it heals completely, and then I'll probably wear some sort of brace at least in the race car for the remainder of the year just to make sure everything's good, just because my wrist will be weak when I first get the cast off. "Right now, when I get my cast switched out each week, it's like my wrist is really stiff. It doesn't have a lot of mobility already, so it will take me a few weeks to get that back to 100 percent. So we'll probably have some sort of brace for the last few races at least." Dale Jr. wins Coors Light Pole at Dover Dale Earnhardt Jr. watched and waited, but after several close calls late in Friday's qualifying session at Dover International Speedway, the driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet had the pole for Sunday's AAA 400, the third race in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. And if second-place qualifier, series leader and Earnhardt's "worry-wart" friend Matt Kenseth was disappointed at falling just short of Earnhardt's track-record speed, so were those looking for a weakness in Kenseth's performance. Earnhardt toured the Monster Mile in 22.243 seconds (161.849 mph) erasing Jeremy Mayfield's 2004 mark of 161.522 mph. Kenseth was .006 seconds slower at 161.805 mph. Fellow Chase drivers Ryan Newman (161.740 mph) and Carl Edwards (161.609 mph) qualified third and fourth, respectively, with Aric Almirola, who matched Edwards at 161.609 mph, claiming the fifth starting spot. The Coors Light pole award was Earnhardt's first at Dover, his second of the season and the 13th of his career. It's the first time since 2002 that the sport's most popular driver has won more than one pole in a season. For the 17th time this season, a track qualifying record fell. Yet Earnhardt felt he hadn't quite gotten the most out of his lap and waited anxiously as the 17 drivers who followed him in the qualifying order tried to knock him off the provisional pole. "I was expecting to put a good lap down," Earnhardt said. "I thought we'd be competitive enough to get inside the top 10 pretty easily… I made a couple of small errors out in the car, but you never drive every lap perfectly. You always kind of wish you could have done things a little differently. I think the car had maybe another half a tenth (of a second) or a tenth in it…. "I watched the lap tracker on a couple of guys. The 99 (Edwards), they were a tenth-and-a-half better than us by the time they got into Turn 3 or the middle of 3 and 4. So, yeah, I thought there was a good amount of time left out there for a lot of guys, myself included." When Kenseth heard he had fallen .006 off the pole-winning lap, he radioed, "My bad," to his team, but changing conditions had more to do with Kenseth's second-place effort. "I feel bad we missed the pole by just that little bit," Kenseth said. "(Crew chief) Jason (Ratcliff) and I both had a feeling it was going to go like that when we saw the sun pop out before we left (on the qualifying run). It just got too free and lost too much time… "I felt like from the seat I got everything it had in it… Gosh, we just missed it by a little bit -- just too loose, just couldn't stay in the gas." Nevertheless, the driver who has won the first two Chase races will start beside Earnhardt on the front row. Though Kenseth has enjoyed unqualified success in his first season at Joe Gibbs Racing, Earnhardt describes his long-time friend as a glass-half-empty kind of guy. "Matt never would expect things to go this well," Earnhardt said. "I'm always having to pump him up, tell him how good things are going to be. He's always a worry-wart. I guess that's the best way to describe him… "He's having a great year, but hopefully we can beat him. We want to get up there and regain our ground and get back into this thing if we can." Earnhardt enters Sunday's race 11th in the standings, 62 points behind Kenseth. Behind Earnhardt, Kenseth, Newman and Edwards, other Chase drivers qualified as follows: Jimmie Johnson, eighth; Kurt Busch, ninth; Joey Logano, 11th; Kevin Harvick, 12th; Kyle Busch, 14th; Jeff Gordon, 16th; Greg Biffle, 19th; Kasey Kahne, 20th; and Clint Bowyer, 23rd. Dale Jr. looking for wins to 'get back in it' Dale Earnhardt Jr. has whittled points deficits down before. Just how much he can erase in the final eight races of this year's Chase For The Sprint Cup remains to be seen. In a 10-race battle that has threatened to turn into a runaway for a handful of drivers after only two stops, Earnhardt Jr. finds himself 11th in points. He blew an engine in the opener two weeks ago, then rallied for a sixth-place finish Sunday at New Hampshire. And he heads to Dover International Speedway, site of Sunday's AAA 400, trailing points leader Matt Kenseth by 62. Kenseth has opened the Chase with back-to-back wins; Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch has been second across the line on both occasions. "Those guys might not have bad finishes," Earnhardt Jr. said Tuesday during an appearance at the NASCAR Hall of Fame."I know everybody expects that the guy that wins the championship is going to average a fifth-place finish or something ridiculous like that, but they could just as easily have trouble. Everybody could just as easily have trouble." It's not impossible, he said, that his Hendrick Motorsports team could "win a couple of races and get back in it." But, he added, "As well as they're running, it's going to be hard to win races. But it can be done and we're going to try to do it." Wins would be vindication for where his team, led by crew chief Steve Letarte, stands at this juncture of the season, regardless of where the team winds up eight weeks from now. "We're due a win," he said. "And we're a good enough team we should have won a race or two this year." The wins haven't come, however, and Earnhardt Jr. prepares to head north for this week's stop 47 races removed from his last checkered flag in NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series. He's one of four drivers in the 13-driver field that is winless on the season, but he is also one of only four drivers that led the points at one point this year. A strong start pushed him to the top after five weeks, but mistakes behind the wheel, miscues on pit road and mechanical maladies took their toll. "When people ask me about the season, they say we've been consistent," he said, "but I don't feel like we have. ? We've had issues. It's either been me making mistakes, calls that ? didn't go our way, engine failures, stuff like that that's taken a really good car out of the race." It was an aggressive approach on the track and in the pits, he said, that put him in contention this past week. "Our strategy was as aggressive as it could have been. "That was the best car I've had in practice all year," he said. "That's what we need. When we don't tune the car and improve the car on Saturday and when ? practice is over and we don't feel confident about the car, that's when we're in trouble. That's when we can really get ourselves lost." Without a capable car, such a plan of attack is isn't just risky, it's ill advised. A two-tire stop in a car "that's not even competitive with four tires," Earnhardt Jr. said, "it's going to be very difficult to hold that position and ? hold that advantage until you can get four tires back on it. It's definitely a challenge." Although he finished 10th at Dover earlier this year, Earnhardt Jr. described the run as "not that great." "We've had some fast cars there, I've had some fast cars there in my career and had some good runs," he said, "but in the last several trips we really just haven't been able to find the magic. "I think we ran a little bit better this last trip ? and I think we're a better team now than we were in the spring." Driver Reports: Two down, eight to go 11. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is 11th in the standings with 2,049 points. Last week: Junior rallied from his sluggish start to the postseason and finished sixth at Loudon. He ceded fifth to a charging Jamie McMurray in the closing laps, but was still pleased with his rally. With eight races remaining, Earnhardt is 62 points out of the lead. What he said: "I knew it was going to be difficult to hold (McMurray) off. Just real happy to be able to rebound from earlier on pit road and get a good finish. The car was fast as heck (Saturday), one of the top three cars I thought. Glad we were able to get a decent finish out of it. Just want to win one, I’m trying hard." Outlook: In 27 career starts at Dover International Speedway, Earnhardt Jr. has one win, five top-fives and nine top-10s. In the past eight years at Dover, Earnhardt Jr. ranks 20th out of 54 drivers with an average place of 18.8. He finished 10th in the first 2013 race at Dover. Victory continues to elude Earnhardt Jr. Based on Saturday's practice, Dale Earnhardt Jr. thought he had a potential winner in Sunday's Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. A miscue in the pits, however, put the driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet off pit sequence from the majority of the field. Earnhardt's crew had trouble with a lug nut on the right rear wheel during Earnhardt's first pit stop, under caution on Lap 32. Subsequently, Earnhardt brought the No. 88 to pit road off-sequence under yellow on Lap 55. That move allowed Earnhardt to inherit the lead on Lap 114 during a cycle of green-flag stops, but he surrendered it after a pit stop on lap 130 and led only one lap thereafter?under caution on Lap 202. Nevertheless, Earnhardt earned a hard-fought sixth-place finish after losing fifth place to Jamie McMurray during an intense battle late in the race. "I ran out of rear tires trying to hold him off," Earnhardt said. "Couldn't get the power down just off the corner, and he was a pretty fast car to begin with. ... "Just happy to rebound from earlier on pit road and get a good finish. The car was fast as heck (Saturday in practice), one of the top three cars, I thought. Glad we were able to get a decent finish out of it. Just want to win one?I'm trying hard." Earnhardt hasn't been to Victory Lane in his past 47 starts, dating to June 2012 at Michigan. 'Nothing to lose' for Chasers Dale Jr., Logano Joey Logano and Dale Earnhardt Jr. have a difficult task ahead of them. Not an impossible one, but an improbable one. The two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers must find a way to climb back into contention in this year's Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, the 10-race playoff run that is now only nine weeks from completion. Those clouds of smoke trailing Logano a week ago at Chicagoland Speedway were warning signs that the engine in his car wasn't planning to stick around for the checkered flag. It didn't. Logano, 23 and making his first appearance in the Chase, won the Coors Light Pole and led laps but none of that mattered when he pulled his No. 22 Penske Racing Ford behind the wall after just 175 of 267 laps. Previously sixth in points, he finished 37th, and fell to 12th in the 13-car Chase field. The gap between himself and points leader Matt Kenseth is a gulf greater than a full race -- 52 points. The engine in Earnhardt Jr.'s No. 88 Chevrolet lasted a little longer, but the Hendrick Motorsports driver eventually coasted into the garage with a 35th-place finish. His reward for the unexpected start? He's holding down the rear of the Chase field, 53 points out of the lead. "It’s unfortunate when something like that happens because we had a really fast race car last week, one that I felt like could have won the race, and instead we came home with a 30-something-place finish and that part is just really hard, but it happens," Logano said following his qualifying run Friday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. "That’s what our sport is -- you have to rely on a lot of things and sometimes you have a mechanical issue like that and the guy who wins the championship usually doesn’t have that, but that’s not to say we can’t come back. "This team is strong. We’ve been digging out of a hole all year, and every time we get our head just above water, we get pulled back under again and we keep fighting to get back up. We’ll be fine. I’m not worried about it." Logano will start sixth in Sunday's Sylvania 300. The first of his three career Cup wins came here in 2009. On Saturday, he was 13th and eighth, respectively, in the day's two practice sessions. Earnhardt Jr. will line up a bit deeper after putting his car 17th on the 43-car grid. What happened the previous week seemed to be of little concern -- Earnhardt Jr. was more focused Friday on getting his car to turn better on the 1.058-mile track before Sunday's race. "We haven't talked about (last week) much," Earnhardt Jr. said. "We're just trying to qualify here and get through the day. "We'll practice our car (Saturday) and see if we can make a good car out of it. That's all we've been thinking about. Just worried about my car today … worried about trying to win this race this weekend." Perhaps the focus on what's ahead and ignoring what's behind will pay off. Earnhardt Jr. was second fastest in Saturday's opening practice and fastest overall in the final shakedown. Time and opportunities are limited. Success stories are few for those who have found themselves falling behind early in previous Chases. Jimmie Johnson finished 39th in the first Chase race in 2006 at New Hampshire but came back to win his first of five titles. "You can't give up hope," Johnson said. "Last year I had two bad races -- really one in Phoenix where we crashed -- and still had a chance going into Homestead. So I think there's still a chance for them. Unfortunately they're losing control, and that's what no one wants to have happen." Johnson had an outside chance a year ago, but the timing of his Phoenix troubles left him punching at air, hoping to land a haymaker in the final round at Homestead. It never landed. "It is, I think, slightly deflating for the driver and probably the team," said Chase points leader Kenseth, the last driver to win a title before the advent of the Chase. "They’re like, 'Oh man, we just got ourselves who knows how many points behind because we busted something.' "Nobody likes to have that happen early; I’ve been in that spot a lot where we’ve had problems the first couple of weeks and been so far behind. You keep (up) the talk and you keep thinking it and you keep working toward it. Anything can happen. They can have trouble and (you're) right back in it. "But it is somewhat deflating to start it off with a bad week." Jeff Gordon won all four of his titles before 2004 and the arrival of the Chase. The Hendrick driver took a hit last year in the opener when he finished 35th. Already 12 points behind the leader before the start of the 10-race playoff, the result put him 47 points behind with only nine races in which to make up ground. "I think that in that position, you have absolutely nothing to lose," Gordon said of the situation faced by Earnhardt Jr. and Logano. "Instead of maybe having a game plan where you were going to try to fine tune a setup, you can just go completely outside the box and just go for broke and make very gutsy calls on pit road. You can be more aggressive as a driver. The engineers can be more aggressive in the set-up as well. "I think there is a part of you that just says 'OK, let’s just see how high up in points we can get' and there is a part of you that says 'we go for broke, and if we get on a heck of a role, we can still do this.' You certainly never stop giving up hope." It's not an uncommon feeling, Logano said, adding that his team has "had to fight like that and fight from behind all year. "We'll just have to keep doing that," he said. Ryan Newman will start from the pole for Sunday's race, with fellow Chase driver Kasey Kahne also on the front row. Gordon, Kurt Busch and Martin Truex Jr. will line up third through fifth, respectively. Kenseth, the series' points leader, will start ninth. Driver Reports: Chase favorites rise; others fall 13. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is 13th in the standings with 2,010 points. Last week: Earnhardt Jr. started the Chase in a hole, considering he had no wins in the regular season and therefore no bonus points. His 35th-place finish at Chicagoland, after his engine blew up late in the race, puts him last in the 13-driver field and 53 points behind leader Matt Kenseth. What he said: “We had a car we were pretty happy with and you know just thought we were going to have a pretty good night. Something broke there in the motor. It’s tough. It’s going to be really hard to win a championship this far behind.” Outlook: In 28 career starts at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Earnhardt Jr. has seven top-fives and 11 top-10s. In the past eight years at New Hampshire, Earnhardt Jr. ranks fifth out of 56 drivers with an average place of 11.7. He finished 14th in the first 2013 race at New Hampshire. Earnhardt, Logano have some real chasing to do If the plan was to spot the competition a lead, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Joey Logano have their rivals right where they want them. Both got off to a miserable start in the opening race of the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. Logano, the pole-sitter, was forced to drop out of Sunday's rain-delayed race at Chicagoland Speedway when his engine quit with 91 laps remaining. He finished 37th. Some 50 laps later, Earnhardt wound up following Logano onto pit road with a race-ending problem of his own. He settled for 35th. They were the only two in the 13-driver Chase qualifying field not to finish the first of NASCAR's 10-race, season-ending playoff series. None of the other drivers finished worse than 16th. ''I am pretty angry,'' Logano said. ''That was such a fast race car we had.'' Logano qualified for the Chase for the first time this year, and was embroiled in the scandal-plagued race at Richmond last weekend. After a wide-ranging investigation, NASCAR officials punished Michael Waltrip Racing for its role in manipulating the race. Additionally, Logano's Penske Racing team was placed on probation Friday for its role in bargaining for track position at Richmond to get Logano in the Chase. At least Logano's problems on this night were limited to the track. He had gone to pit road once before his exit, complaining of cylinder problems with his Ford. ''Unfortunately the motor blew up. You have these every once in a while,'' said Logano, teammate of defending series champion Brad Keselowski. ''It's a bummer to have it in the Chase when you are running for a championship. I feel like Chicago was one of those tracks we could win at. Everyone was doing the right thing. ... It just wasn't our day I guess.'' Earnhardt felt the same way. He got caught in a slow-speed pile-up on pit road, damaged the nose of his car and struggled to keep the front end together the rest of the race. ''We were going to get that patched up and maybe be able to make something out of it,'' Earnhardt said. ''But something broke there in the motor. It's tough.'' The question going forward becomes whether either man can make up the deficit. Five-time champion Jimmie Johnson finished 39th in the 2006 playoff opener and came back to win the title. But he only dropped to ninth in what was then a 10-driver qualifying field; Logano and Earnhardt will head to the next Chase occupying the last two spots in the 13-driver field. Earnhardt moves to the next race in New Hampshire ranked 13th, 53 points behind leader Matt Kenseth, who won the opener at Chicagoland. Logano is 12th, 52 points back. ''Everyone did a good job. That is what we have to hold our heads up about,'' Logano said. ''It is a tough break for this team. We are strong. We have battled through a lot of adversity this year and we will keep doing it.'' Earnhardt was not quite as optimistic. ''We have some pretty tough competition in the Chase,'' he said. ''The average finish is going to be inside the top 10 to win the championship. So you can do the numbers, you can do the math.'' Junior not surprised by Richmond outcome Dale Earnhardt Jr. took his name out of the running for head honcho of NASCAR Thursday, a decision he said was based in part on the collective fallout of this past weekend’s race at Richmond. "I definitely don't need to be running this sport," Earnhardt Jr., clad in his white and red driver's uniform, said. Such talk from the sport's most popular driver -- No. 1 at the box office and souvenir hauler -- no doubt has them breathing a little easier in Daytona Beach. His remark was only partly in jest. Earnhardt Jr. has been track president for a day (Daytona, circa 2004), but isn't ready to give up his racing career. It's been an eventful week for NASCAR. Questions about the finish at Richmond, penalties against Michael Waltrip Racing that resulted in a change to the 12-team Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup field, and inquiries into possible collusion between Penske Racing and Front Row Motorsports have dominated headlines. This weekend's Geico 400 at Chicagoland Speedway kicks off the 10-race charge to the title. On Thursday, much of the focus was elsewhere. "I wouldn't want to be in that situation," the Hendrick Motorsports driver said of the ruling body. "I don't think I could handle it as well as they did. "As much as everybody's got an … opinion on what they would have done … I don't know that I could handle those types of situations because it's not been a fun week for them." Earnhardt Jr. was the only competitor sporting his workday clothing. All 12 drivers present at the Navy Pier for this year's Chase media day were wearing their fire-retardant uniforms. Anticipating a heated line of questioning from the media? Not quite. Actually, it was for an updated photo of those in the Chase. Last Saturday's Richmond photo -- captured on stage following the race -- no longer passed muster once Martin Truex Jr. got the boot and Ryan Newman was added to the lineup. The fan response to the week's proceedings, particularly what transpired at Richmond, caught Earnhardt Jr. by surprise. "I'm surprised that this surprised so many people," he said. "People didn’t think it was happening or were so surprised that this went on." It's a new twist to a familiar occurrence. Playing fast and loose with the rules has typically been a one-driver endeavor. "In the past it's been one guy with the flat tire that gets the caution, or that's lost the draft at Talladega and is throwing roll bar padding out the window or something like that," Earnhardt Jr. said. "We’ve all done that or thought about doing it. It’s definitely a new twist on things." Did NASCAR do the right thing with its penalties to MWR? Earnhardt Jr. said he isn't sure. What was important, he said, was that they took action, something he'd like see more of in the future. "It's important for them to govern," he said. "We need them to make themselves known and they need to be the boss. We need to know that they're there." What about those involved, implicated or impacted by what has transpired? He said he feels bad for all of them -- MWR drivers Clint Bowyer, Truex Jr. and Brian Vickers. Hendrick Teammate Jeff Gordon, too. Truex Jr., once a teammate when the two were paired at Dale Earnhardt Inc., "probably had no idea what was going on," Earnhardt Jr. said. "You feel bad for Jeff (Gordon) because he had worked his way all night long to get into a (Chase) position. "I feel bad for Clint. I know Clint and I know what kind of person he is. I feel bad for him because he was part of something that is not a good reflection of his personality. It's unfortunate. But he'll be fine. "It's a unique thing. It's a very fascinating situation." Fascinating, yes. But similar to other things that have transpired in the sport, it has a limited shelf life. Chicagoland and the Chase beckon. Dale Jr. braces for tense regular-season finale It’s been a tense past few weeks for Dale Earnhardt Jr., as the driver and his No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports teams tried to lock down a berth in this year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. One race remains -- Saturday night’s Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond International Raceway. Seventh in points, Earnhardt Jr. can seal his sixth appearance in the 10-race playoff with a finish of 32nd or better, regardless of what others' fortunes may be. He can clinch with a finish of 33rd if he leads one lap (which earns a one-point bonus) or 34th if he leads the most laps (worth another one-point bonus) in the 400-lap race. A year ago, he headed to Richmond already guaranteed of a spot in the Chase. This year there are no guarantees. “I definitely understood last year when we were … locked in, that it was a much easier ride, much more enjoyable,” Earnhardt Jr., 38, said Thursday during his media availability at RIR. “The last couple weeks have been pretty stressful from a points standpoint. “It’s difficult … because you have to focus so much on those points, you have to focus on all those guys, that handful, half a dozen guys, that are around you in points (and) wonder what they're doing. You can't help it.” Keeping an eye on the competition, he said, isn’t nearly as enjoyable as being able to simply go out and run one’s race at one’s own pace. “You really like to concentrate on the balance of your car, working on your car with your crew chief, trying to give yourself a chance to win the race,” he said. The points leader briefly earlier this season, Earnhardt Jr. fell to seventh in the standings following back-to-back finishes of 30th or worse at Watkins Glen and Michigan. The result was a points cushion of only 20 points inside the top 10. Tenth and eighth in the Sprint Cup Series’ next two stops -- at Bristol and Atlanta -- provided his team with a bit more breathing room, and left him 55 points inside the top 10. Still, he said, he’s wary. “We’re not locked in by no means,” he said. “But we’re in a comfortable enough position to be able to pay attention to the race we’re running.” Earnhardt Jr. is one of three drivers heading into this weekend’s race without a win this year. But the .75-mile short track has been good to the third-generation driver through the years and the 13.8 average finish here is his fourth best. He has three career wins at Richmond -- the last coming in 2006. His team was strong a year ago, he said, and “in the conversation” among title contenders. “I felt like last year we really had put ourselves in a great position.” But a concussion, the result of a crash during testing prior to the start of the Chase, came to light after he was involved in an accident at Talladega, and led to him sitting out two races down the stretch. Now, he’s looking to make amends. “This year the speed has been there, if not even better,” he said of his No. 88 Chevrolet. “Even though we're working with a new car, the speed has been really good, but we've not finished all the races. Mistakes I've made, crashes I've gotten myself into, engine failures, things like that that have taken away from our ability to show how strong we are to get consistent finishes like we did last year.” Forbes Ranks 10 Highest Earning Drivers The highest-paid drivers in motorsports come from the world of Formula One, Nascar and MotoGP. We looked at earnings between June 2012 and June 2013 derived from salaries, bonuses, endorsements, as well as the drivers’ shares of winnings and licensing. Check out the list and count up to the highest paid driver in all of motorsports. No. 10 Jenson Button - $14 million – Formula 1 No. 9 Danica Patrick – $15 million – NASCAR No. 8 Sebastian Vettel – $18 million – Formula 1 No. 7 Jeff Gordon – $18.2 million – NASCAR No. 6 Tony Stewart – $18.5 million – NASCAR No. 5 Valentino Rossi – $22 million – MotoGP No. 4 Jimmy Johnson – $24 million – NASCAR No. 3 Dale Earnhardt Jr. – $26 million – NASCAR No. 2 Lewis Hamilton – $27.5 million – Formula 1 No. 1 Fernando Alonso – $30 million – Formula 1 Earnhardt on solid ground entering AdvoCare 500 Dale Earnhardt Jr. hasn’t clinched a spot in this year’s NASCAR Chase For The Sprint Cup, but the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series’ most popular driver is on much more solid ground today. He found his footing at Bristol, curtailing the freefalls of Watkins Glen and Michigan where 30th- and 36th-place finishes threatened to pull the Hendrick Motorsports driver completely out of the Chase picture. Heading into Sunday night's AdvoCare 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN), Earnhardt Jr., 38, says he feels much better about his team’s chances entering this year’s postseason. “I was real nervous going into Bristol,” he said Friday at AMS. “A bullring like that with only 20 points from 11th (place) was a bit difficult on our nerves. “We didn’t really get to race as aggressively as we’d like to, but we still had a good night, a good car and drove a smart race.” His 10th-place finish on the high-banked half-mile track in Tennessee expanded the gap from 20 to 33 points between himself and 11th place, a position held by defending series champion Brad Keselowski. A bit of breathing room as he seeks to make his sixth Chase appearance. His goal is to exit Atlanta no worse than his current situation, better if possible. “I don’t really have a set number (of points in mind),” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Thirty-three is good. … I don’t want to lose any spots. I don’t want to fall to eighth. I don’t want to fall to ninth. I don’t want to be 10th. I want to be seventh or better. We don’t want to go into the Chase sputtering and just making it by the skin of our teeth at all.” A 19-time winner in Cup, Earnhardt Jr. hasn’t won a Cup race since June of 2012 at Michigan International Speedway. He will start eighth in Sunday's race, second-best among the four Hendrick Motorsports drivers. The team, headed up by crew chief Steve Letarte, avoided a potential setback at Bristol, pitting for fuel with only 50 laps remaining in the 500-lap race. The call to guarantee gas wouldn’t be an issue came with a price -- Earnhardt Jr. went from fifth to 15th with the stop. He made up five spots in the final 50 laps. It was the correct call, he said, even though the team discovered afterward that “we were a gallon of gas to the good.” “That eats away at you, because you know you had a chance to run a little bit better,” he said. “But me and Steve understand … realistically we gave away two points, three points. We would have started on the inside right behind Jeff (Gordon) and on the inside was not the way to go. He got trained on the outside by a bunch of guys andfinished seventh. So we’d have been somewhere around where he was and finished maybe eighth or ninth. “At the time it was bothering me and I was real nervous inside the car; if we had run out we’d have been fools and made a lot of people upset, including ourselves. “It would have been really difficult. It was something we had to do. Under the circumstances, it was adecision we had to make.” Atlanta, where he has one career win (the March 2004 race) in 25 Cup starts, has been one of Earnhardt Jr.’s better tracks. His average finish of 12.5 is second only to Bristol. He finished seventh in last year’s race here. Driver Reports: Points battles heating up 7. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is seventh in the standings with 714 points. Last week: Earnhardt Jr. led 32 laps and ran in the top five, but essentially gave up his chance of winning when he pitted for fuel late. Without a win, the No. 88 team couldn’t gamble on running out and losing ground in the standings. So he went in, and wound up finishing 10th anyway while those on the Chase bubble struggled. Junior didn’t move up in the standings, but he’s now 33 points ahead of 11th-place Brad Keselowski. What he said: “We had a good car especially at the end. I’m real happy with the speed we had, just we weren’t sure about making it on fuel. Just a risk we couldn’t take.” Outlook: In 25 career starts at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Earnhardt Jr. has one win, eight top-fives, 11 top-10s and two poles. In the past eight years at Atlanta, Earnhardt Jr. ranks eighth out of 53 drivers with an average place of 13.0. He finished seventh in last year’s race. Wild Card Watch: Junior's cushion almost gone What would a Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup look like without Dale Earnhardt Jr., NASCAR's most popular driver 10 years running? A month ago, that question didn't seem necessary because Junior was sitting firmly in fifth place and had a 55-point cushion between him and 10th-place Kasey Kahne. What has happened since then, however, has Junior in a tailspin. Where did the cushion go? Well, it's like two elephants sat on it, which is to say it's not quite as cushiony anymore. A mere 16 points separate Earnhardt Jr. in seventh place from Greg Biffle in 10th. And after that, it gets dicey, because without a win this season, Junior would be out of luck for a Wild Card spot. How did it get this bad? It really hasn't been until recently. But a pair of finishes in the 30s at Watkins Glen and Michigan the past two weekends has conspired to cut our hero down to size. The wreck that caused Junior to finish 30th at The Glen was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. (See video.) Meanwhile, the 36th-place showing at Michigan was clearly because of frowning leprechauns as a tire went down and caused the No. 88 to smack the wall. Throw in engine failures earlier at Michigan and Charlotte and a couple of sub-par finishes at Martinsville and Texas and a dark cloud has managed to accumulate over the No. 88, threatening to rain on the popularity parade. And to think things looked vastly different when Junior began the season with five straight top-10 finishes. But sooner or later one has to find Victory Lane, or else these situations will inevitably happen when the bad luck does kick in. Junior has come close to winning several times thanks to five top-fives this season, including second-place finishes at Daytona and Fontana very early on. Can he finally finish? My magic eight ball says: It is decidedly so. Junior has had plenty of success on the three tracks that are up next: Bristol, Atlanta and Richmond. In fact, if you look at his average finishes in Cup races, his best mark is at Bristol, followed by Atlanta, with Richmond tied for fourth with Daytona. He has three wins at Richmond, one apiece at Atlanta and Bristol. That means there's still time for Junior to get his cushion back and enjoy a soft landing in the goose-down comforter that is the Chase. Winless, Dale Jr. worries about missing the Chase "The confidence is there, but the stress is there, too." That's how Dale Earnhardt Jr. described his emotions heading into the final three races before the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup cutoff while addressing media on Wednesday during a test session at Richmond International Raceway. Not exactly what we thought we'd be hearing from one of NASCAR's elite this late in the season, is it? Richmond, of course, is the third of those final three -- a race that's lining up to be a make-or-break event for a driver who is in realistic danger of missing the Chase for the first time since 2010. Coming off a pair of races at Watkins Glen (one of his worst tracks) and Michigan (one of his best) in which he totaled just 23 points combined, Earnhardt's stock is trending downward, while that of those behind him in the standings is skyrocketing. With 679 points and no wins to his credit -- and just one victory since 2008 -- Junior is forced to face the ugly truth that he could very easily lose his Chase spot to the likes of current Wild Card holders Kasey Kahne (659 points, two wins) or Martin Truex Jr. (653 points, one win). This wouldn't be as much of a concern for Earnhardt if Joey Logano (646 points) and Ryan Newman (636 points) -- both of whom have picked up a win in the past month -- weren't primed to slide right into those Wild Card spots should Kahne or Truex move up. Throw in teammate Jeff Gordon (637, no wins), who still has a chance and has made the Chase in all but one season since it began in 2004 -- and Earnhardt's playoff picture gets cloudier each week. "You definitely don't like to be in this situation," said Earnhardt. "I don't think anybody wants to be on the bubble or be even worried or concerned about points leading up to Richmond, so we hope to have a couple of good weeks and really put ourselves in a pretty comfortable situation before we even come into Richmond." To be fair, reigning Sprint Cup Series champion Brad Keselowski and former champion Kurt Busch are in similar positions, sitting in eighth and ninth, respectively, with no wins. But both have been on fire lately and appear to be standing on much firmer ground, with some of their best tracks on the docket. Earnhardt does have a total of five wins at the remaining courses, and his average finishing positions are encouraging for Bristol (11.6), Atlanta (12.5) and Richmond (13.8), but his most recent victory was over seven years ago (Richmond, spring 2006). "From my standpoint, this test could have been used at a Chase track," said teammate Jimmie Johnson. "Junior's been pretty comfortable -- well, I guess he's had some issues here recently that maybe make him a little less comfortable, but this track's tough." Needless to say, Earnhardt agreed. "I think it's a tough track. Just looking at everybody as a whole, nobody really comes here and is just great every time," said Earnhardt, who did earn the pole at this race last year before finishing 14th. "It's not a track that you see one team consistently dominate, and we've had good cars here and brought back the same setup and it just doesn't work. So you're never really sure when you show up, you just have to get here and do your best and hope that it's going to be a good car and hope the car is fast off the trailer, but sometimes it's not and sometimes it makes for a long night here. This place is so slick and just a little bit off, it's a battle just with yourself and the car all night." Earnhardt will attempt to get back on track this weekend at Bristol in the Irwin Tools Night Race (Saturday, 7:30 p.m. ET, ABC), which could certainly offer his best remaining chance at a victory. Even though his last win at the "World's Fastest Half-Mile" came in 2004, he finished sixth there in March after starting 32nd and hasn't finished worse than 18th since 2001, with seven top-fives and 13 top-10s since. Regardless, he's running out of time to earn his crucial first victory of the season, and he knows it. If Earnhardt plans on holding onto his Chase spot, he'll need brush those stressful feelings off and just stick with the confident side of his emotions. Driver Reports: After Michigan 7. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is seventh in the standings with 679 points. Last week: Earnhardt Jr.’s last two victories -- which came in 2012 and 2008 -- were both at Michigan. On Sunday, he had a fast No. 88 Chevrolet and led 20 of 200 laps. In the time it takes for a front tire to shred, however, his day was ruined. That busted tire sent Junior into the wall and essentially out of the race, although he came back on the track and finished 36th. Instead of challenging for his first win and strengthening his postseason positioning, Junior slipped to seventh in the standings and has no wins to fall back on with three races remaining. You can watch video of the incident below. What he said: “There are guys in worst positions than us. We ain’t got to outrun just one guy; there’s a lot of guys. And all of them have got to have clean races, just like we do. I think we’ll be all right. We’re not an 11th-place team. We’re a top-five team. We’ve just got to shake this luck, whatever is going on; it’s something different every time.” This week: In 27 career starts at Bristol Motor Speedway, Earnhardt Jr. has one win, seven top-fives and 13 top-10s. In the past eight years at Bristol, Earnhardt Jr. ranks ninth out of 54 drivers with an average place of 14.0. He finished sixth at the first 2013 race at Bristol. Last year: Junior’s no Bristol newbie. In fact, he’s a veteran of Thunder Valley with 27 career starts there. He finished 12th in the night race last year. More problems for Hendrick cars at Michigan Jimmie Johnson's exit was only the beginning. It was another rough day for Hendrick Motorsports in Michigan. Johnson, NASCAR's Sprint Cup points leader, was knocked out Sunday after 54 laps when he blew his engine, and Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s car was damaged when he slammed into the wall on the 135th lap. Johnson finished 40th, and Earnhardt was 36th. Kasey Kahne and Jeff Gordon did complete all 200 laps, with Kahne finishing seventh and Gordon 17th - but Gordon slipped to 14th place in the standings, and he could be on the outside looking in during the Chase for the Sprint Cup. During the Cup race at MIS in June, all four Hendrick drivers failed to crack the top 25. Johnson blew a tire with three laps left and hit the wall, Earnhardt blew a cylinder and was 37th, Kahne had a cut tire and ended up 38th, and Gordon placed 39th when he was involved in an accident with 10 laps to go. Sunday's race wasn't quite that bad for Hendrick, but it was a rare finish near the bottom for Johnson. He was forced to start from the back of the field after switching to his backup car following a crash during practice Saturday. It was only the eighth time in Johnson's career that he has finished 40th or worse. The five-time Cup champion said he's fortunate Sunday's finish won't drastically impact his points lead. ''You know, this track is hard on engines and these guys will figure out what went on there,'' he said. ''Days like today, I am thankful for the big points lead that we have and the bonus points we have been able to accumulate to get us to this position for the Chase. It happens, and I hope to get all this stuff out of the way now, although I hate losing momentum going into the Chase.'' Earnhardt echoed Johnson's hopes that recent problems would disappear before the Chase. ''It's just kind of frustrating,'' Earnhardt said. ''It's just bad luck. If we keep running like we're supposed to run and like we've been running, we'll get on into the Chase and not have to worry about it. But this bad luck, we need to shake that. We just can't keep having this every week. It's been biting us every week.'' Earnhardt was 30th the previous weekend at Watkins Glen. Johnson, Gordon, Junior talk NHMS test, Stewart Hendrick Motorsports drivers Jimmie Johnnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon gathered Wednesday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway for testing ahead of next month's Sprint Cup Series Sylvania 300 at the track. The trio sat down to discuss just how testing is preparing them for the rest of the season, the battle for the last few spots in the Chase and even how Tony Stewart's injury has affected their title hopes. As the race to the Chase dwindles down, Gordon is hoping that the tests benefit his team as the season makes its way into September. "Anything we can learn here that we can take somewhere else to help us get in the Chase is crucial," Gordon said, according to a release from the track. With the hopes of the Chase dangling in their future, the drivers feel that they have what it takes to make the cut. "We've got a good cushion right now over the guy in 11th and that's the way you want to keep it, " Earnhardt said. "We had a tough weekend, points-wise, at Watkins Glen and we don't want to repeat that in these last few races before the Chase." In preparation for the Chase, Earnhardt wants to avoid losing the cushion the team has built for themselves in order to have a smooth transition into the remaining races. "You want to go into Richmond actually feeling pretty comfortable about your situation," Earnhardt said. "And start thinking ahead and looking ahead to Chicago and all the tracks." Gordon has a slightly different mindset as they head into the final races before the Chase. "My approach has always been the same," Gordon said. "It doesn't change, whether you're trying to make it into the Chase or trying to win a championship or wherever you're at, you go week to week and try to get the most out of it and get your best result. Sometimes that's battling for a win, sometimes that's battling for 10th, sometimes that's running a wrecked race car to get every point you can." As for the impact that Stewart's injury has had on drivers, Johnson feels that not much will change drivers' ideas of participating in extracurricular races. "I don't think it's going to change much on that front because we all have contracts that state we need approval from sponsor, from team, to compete in these other cars," Johnson said. "So drivers that have already worked out those details with their team and sponsors -- that stuff is already in play for the year ? We all know the risks. When you choose to run other races and divisions, you work through all those things." Prior to his injury, Tony Stewart stood as an exceptional threat to racers that were hoping to make it into the Chase. "Anybody and everybody in the top 15 is a threat," Johnson said when asked how Stewart's absence effects his title hopes. "But Tony, when he gets hot, man, he gets hot. You just don't know when that streak's going to come. With the cushion that Earnhardt, Gordon and Johnson have built for themselves, their combined knowledge gained through testing and Stewart's unexpected absence, the drivers of Hendrick Motorsports are motivated to finish the season on top. Earnhardt tries to shake off poor showing at Glen Winless for more than a year and with just two victories since 2007, Dale Earnhardt Jr. predicted Monday that a Sprint Cup series triumph is right around the corner for him. ''We're working real hard, it could come any weekend,'' Earnhardt said. ''We're going to Michigan this weekend and feel like it's a place we can succeed at. Obviously, it's the place where we won our last two races at (2008 and 2012). We just anticipate it happening any week and go in every week with the attitude that we can be competitive and win the race, and we've been pretty strong all season, so the confidence is high.'' Earnhardt finished a dismal 30th in Sunday's road course race at Watkins Glen in upstate New York, one of three Hendrick Motorsports drivers who had bad outings. While points leader and teammate Jimmie Johnson finished eighth, Kasey Kahne wrecked late to finish 34th and four-time series champion Jeff Gordon finished 36th. ''Yeah, yesterday was kind of tough,'' Earnhardt said. ''We had a good car and was real happy how the car ran. You can't do much with the luck we had, but we are looking pretty good as far as making the Chase and feel pretty confident that we're going to be able to do that. . We feel like we've got a good shot and we feel pretty confident.'' In the season standings, Earnhardt dropped one position to sixth, while Kahne and Gordon both dropped out of the top 10. Kahne is now 12th while Gordon is 13th. The top 10 drivers in the standings after the race at Richmond on Sept. 7, plus the two highest-ranked wild card drivers will make up the 12-driver field for the 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. ''I think they have a great chance,'' Earnhardt said of Kahne and Gordon still making the Chase. ''They're in great equipment, with good teams and have good speed. They just need a little luck. I think the cream always rises to the top, and they're definitely two of the top teams.'' Earnhardt was in Chicago to promote the Chase opener, Sept. 15 at Chicagoland Speedway, about 50 miles southwest of Chicago in suburban Joliet. The fan favorite did a burnout on State Street in front of the Chicago Theatre downtown. If he doesn't win Sunday at Michigan or in the three subsequent pre-Chase qualifying races at Bristol, Atlanta or Richmond, Earnhardt hopes to win at Chicagoland, where he won in 2005 and has finished third and eighth in the last two races there. ''I'd love to win again to start the Chase off,'' Earnhardt said. ''Anyone who wins that race, that really propels them into a contender for the Chase and for the championship itself.'' Driver Reports: After The Glen 6. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is sixth in the standings with 670 points. Last week: Junior put himself in position to have one of his better finishes at Watkins Glen, but all of that careful work was undone late. When Matt Kenseth and Kasey Kahne bumped, Earnhardt Jr. was in the unfortunate position of gunning it through the esses. He had no chance of avoiding Kahne's spun car on the track, and he drilled it head-on, crumpling the hood of the No. 88 and essentially ending his day. He finished 30th. Watch video of the incident below. What he said: "I'm fine. The (No. 20) was going after the No. 9 and tried to wreck the No. 9 and ended up hitting the No. 5 (Kasey Kahne). The No. 20 was going after the No. 9 and missed him or got him a little bit. I don't know if the No. 9 ended up wrecking or not, but ended up knocking the No. 5 out of the race and knocked ourselves out of the race and a couple of other guys." This week: In 28 career starts at Michigan International Speedway, Earnhardt Jr. has two wins, six top-fives, 10 top-10s and two poles. In the past eight years at Michigan, Earnhardt Jr. ranks fifth out of 53 drivers with an average place of 12.6. He finished 37th at the first 2013 race at Michigan. Last year: Following his win at Michigan earlier in the season, Earnhardt Jr. finished fourth after starting 22nd. All in all, a great year at the track for Junior. Driver Reports: Jockeying for Chase position 5. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is fifth in the standings with 656 points. Last week: A popular pick to win Pocono, Junior couldn’t quite find the extra gear displayed by race winner Kasey Kahne and runner-up Jeff Gordon, his Hendrick Motorsports teammates. Still, Earnhardt’s day could have been a lot worse than his fifth-place finish. His team felt a small vibration during Friday’s track time and couldn’t further explore that potential problem Saturday, as rain washed out practice. So Junior started 25th, didn’t blow up his car and earned a top-five finish. Not bad at all. What he said: “Just didn’t have the edge we needed. I felt good coming in here thought we might win the race, but we came up a little short. I want to thank National Guard Youth Foundation for everything they do and helping us out this weekend, being a part of this weekend. I thought it was a good race. I really love coming here. I would just like to win here one time.” This week: In 13 career starts at Watkins Glen International, Earnhardt Jr. has two top-fives and three top-10s. In the past eight years at Watkins Glen, Earnhardt Jr. ranks 18th out of 50 drivers with an average place of 18.7. Last year: Junior was dejected last year after he spun out while a potential, rare top-10 finish on a road course was in sight. Junior’s initial spin while running 10th was due to him overdriving the car, he said. His continued trouble with his No. 88 came after he got into some oil that spilled onto the track. The result was a 28th-place showing. In the past seven races at Watkins Glen, Junior has just two top-20s. Dale Jr. dissatisfied with fifth at Pocono Every top-five finish brings Dale Earnhardt Jr. a step closer to a locked-in spot in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, but the driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet SS didn't seem particularly happy with his fifth-place run in Sunday's GoBowling.com 400 at Pocono Raceway. Earnhardt fought an annoying vibration in his car all weekend long but he solidified his hold on fifth place in the Cup standings with five races left before the Chase field is set at Richmond International Raceway. Still, "overjoyed" would not be an accurate description of Earnhardt's mood when he climbed from his car after the race. "We changed every part in the car but the engine," Earnhardt said of the efforts of crew chief Steve Letarte and the 88 crew to solve the vibration issue. "I think we helped it a little bit today." Earnhardt had qualified 25th with the same chassis he drove to a third-place finish at Pocono in June, but he gained track position through clever pit strategy and kept it. "I felt good coming in here -- thought we might win the race -- but came up a little short," Earnhardt said. "We changed (the car) a little bit from the last time we were here to try and get it better. I don't think we did. "But I felt pretty good this weekend, real confident. But the weather set us back (with the rain that washed out both Saturday practices), and then all that vibration stuff? So we just had to shoot in the dark (Sunday)." Driver Report: Through turbulence, Junior shines 5. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is fifth in the standings with 616 points. Last week: Somehow, Earnhardt Jr. persevered through travails both on and off the track to finish sixth. It may have been his most impressive outing of the year. For starters, Junior had to pit early when he thought one of his rear wheels felt loose. Crew chief Steve Letarte confirmed Earnhardt’s read after examining the machine on pit road. A fortuitous caution flag got Junior back on the lead lap, but his pit strategy was still off from every other driver -- and the 88 team executed it flawlessly throughout the race. And all of that came hours after Earnhardt learned his uncle Randy, brother of the late Dale Earnhardt, had passed away. What he said: “We had a loose wheel on the start of the race; that was weird to have a loose wheel then. We changed our strategy and made it work. The car had good speed. Right at the end, we were either running out of gas, or had a little bit of an engine problem the last two or three laps. I almost lost another spot. … “(Sunday) was really tough. Randy helped me through a lot of challenges when I was trying to become a race car driver. He was always there. It is just very, very sad, but I am glad his suffering is over with. He was loyal to Dad, and really looked after everything that was there and that was my father's and what would have been important to him as far as material things. Randy really looked after that. He is going to be missed." This week: In 27 career starts at Pocono Raceway, Earnhardt has six top-fives, 10 top-10s and one pole. In the past eight years at Pocono, Earnhardt ranks 14th out of 52 drivers with an average place of 15.1. He finished third in the first 2013 race at Pocono. Last year: The trend of Earnhardt Jr. running strong at Pocono stopped in this race last year. Junior busted the transmission in his No. 88 Chevrolet while running in second and had to go to the garage, where fans got to see just how focused the driver was. He pulled into the garage, climbed out of the car with his helmet still on and jacked up the car himself as the rest of the team filtered in. He made it back onto the track and finished 32nd. It’s his only finish outside the top 10 in his past five races at the Tricky Triangle. Earnhardt meets struggles on, off track at Indy NASCAR’s 20th event at the Brickyard was barely underway when the red, white and blue race car pulled unexpectedly onto pit road with what the driver correctly suspected was a loose wheel. But that mechanical issue was far from the only difficulty Dale Earnhardt Jr. overcame Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Randy Earnhardt, brother to seven-time champion Dale Earnhardt and uncle to the sport’s current most popular driver, died Sunday at the age of 60 after a long battle with cancer. A close confidante to the elder Earnhardt, Randy helped manage Dale Earnhardt Inc. and played a role in shaping Earnhardt Jr.’s early racing career. The driver of the No. 88 car finished sixth Sunday at Indianapolis despite competing with a heavy heart. “It was really tough,” Earnhardt said of his uncle's death. “He helped me through a lot of challenges when I was trying to become a race car driver. He was there when I started driving late models, and I went through the whole process of racing with Tony (Eury) Sr. and all them, and into the Bud car, and Randy was always there. I hurt for my (grandmother) and Randy’s brothers and sisters …. It’s just very, very sad. But I’m glad his suffering is over with. But he’s going to be missed. He was an awesome dude. Such an awesome guy.” The race, though, presented much less significant challenges that nonetheless demanded Earnhardt’s immediate attention. Foremost among them was a rare loose wheel he suffered at the beginning of the race, a condition crew chief Steve Letarte surmised was due to a lug nut not being tightened completely before the 160-lap event went green for the first time. Initially, Earnhardt wasn’t certain that a loose wheel was the cause of the vibration his vehicle had developed, but he took no chances and pitted anyway, dropping him a lap down just 12 circuits into the event. Over the radio, Letarte confirmed the move had been the right one -- the right rear had indeed been left loose. “The car’s shaking real bad and wandering in the back end on the straightaway -- you’ve got a wheel falling off, you’ve got something serious happening, you come in,” Earnhardt said. “It’s dangerous staying out there. You’re going to hit the wall or wreck some other people if you do that. It’s a long race. We had an early chance to fix that, and that’s fine. And it gives us an opportunity to try some different strategies that worked out for us.” It was one big save that required another, particularly since the unexpected pit stop left Earnhardt in last place on the track. Off cycle with the rest of the field, he’d rise into the top 10 when everyone else pitted, and then fall deep in the field again when it was his time to hit pit road. The No. 88 team needed a break -- which it caught on Lap 58 when Timmy Hill stalled out, bringing out a caution that left Earnhardt in 14th and as the last car on the lead lap. “Basically, we have the Nationwide race (left), starting 14th,” the always-upbeat Letarte said over the radio. “First two runs were just practice.” Indeed, everything changed for Earnhardt after that. When Jeff Burton busted a transmission to bring out another caution, driver and crew chief discussed their options: come in and take two tires, or stay out. They agreed unanimously on the latter. “I think that’s the chance to win,” Letarte told Earnhardt. “Nobody’s going to drive from 14th to first.” Afterward, Earnhardt admitted to being more concerned than he let on. “Yeah, a little bit,” he said. “But it’s still a long race. Steve’s a good strategist, and we ended up all right. I think the car had good speed, and we finished about where we should have.” Suddenly, Earnhardt was restarting fourth in one of the most important Sprint Cup Series events of the year, surrounded by other drivers with differing pit strategies. But the team's plan was set up for the end, and after his final stop Earnhardt emerged 22nd and a lap down -- but behind a slew of other vehicles yet to come in. “All right, we’re done,” Letarte said over the radio. “Let’s see if we can make it from here.” They did, inching up the scoreboard one last time as one driver after another -- such as Carl Edwards, Paul Menard, Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski -- conceded to the realities of fuel mileage and sacrificed track position for gas. Earnhardt’s strategy got him as high as sixth, where he stagnated trying to chase down Matt Kenseth. “Either running out of gas or had an engine problem those last two or three laps,” Earnhardt called it. “… Car just quit running.” But the resulting sixth-place finish, coming on the heels of last year’s fourth-place result at the Brickyard, still gave him consecutive top-10s at Indianapolis for the first time in his career. Earnhardt also maintained his fifth-place standing in Sprint Cup points. “I think it panned out like it probably should have,” Letarte said. “It’s the strategy to win the race, kind of. We were running (14th); when we went to that strategy, we ran sixth. I don’t think we were going to drive to sixth. Nobody was going to drive to sixth today. … I look up there and I think our strategy worked. The cars that beat us were faster than us, other than the 20 (car of Kenseth). We should have beat him.” They might have if not for that loose wheel to start the race, which is an uncommon occurrence. “It’s rare, but mistakes happen. For something to come loose that early in the race, it’s unfortunate. Things like that are costly. But it’s a long year. I’ve seen it before. We’ll see it again, on other teams -- hopefully we’ve learned our lesson. But that’s just part of it,” Letarte said. “We have a good group of guys,” the crew chief added. “They do a great job. Stuff like this is unfortunate, but it’s auto racing. It’s mechanics. People make mistakes. Fortunately, you get really lucky when a mistake happens, and you get to bounce back from it. Hopefully you can learn from it, which I know we will. Off to Pocono.” Last time around at Pocono Raceway, the site of next weekend’s event, Earnhardt finished third. But first, there will be the matter of mourning Randy Earnhardt, uncle to not only Dale Jr. but his sister Kelly Earnhardt Miller and brother Kerry, and a stalwart at DEI even after the organization shifted its racing operations over to Chip Ganassi’s team. “He kept things together,” Earnhardt said of his uncle. “He was … mainly in charge of just where every part and nut and bolt (were), being accountable for everything. And after the racing sort of left the race shop -- after I left and everything kind of went away -- he stuck around. He was loyal to Dad, and really looked after everything that was there, that was my father’s, that would have been important to him as far as material things. Randy really looked after that. It’s just tough. It’s part of life and it’s hard to get used to. I’m just glad his suffering’s over with. He was having a really tough time, and I loved him dearly and will miss him a lot.” Junior understands Indianapolis impact Dale Earnhardt Jr. says he knew how much competing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway meant to his father, even if the two didn’t have deep conversations about the matter. “... I remember how excited he was and everybody else was about that specific tire test,” Earnhardt Jr. said of a Goodyear tire test that took place nearly two full years before the inaugural 1994 Brickyard 400. “And I remember the mental and literal race to be the first guy on the race track once they got here. My dad and Rusty (Wallace) sort of were elbow-to-elbow trying to be the first guy to be on the track. For my father, for some reason, that was historic in its own right.” The elder Earnhardt had already won five of his seven championships in NASCAR’s Cup Series when a handful of teams arrived at the world-famous 2.5-mile facility for the first time. Along with Earnhardt (Richard Childress Racing) and Wallace (Penske Racing), other drivers participating in that test included Kyle Petty (SABCO), Darrell Waltrip (Dar-Wal Racing), Ernie Irvan (Morgan-McClure Motorsports), Bill Elliott (Junior Johnson & Associates), Mark Martin (Roush Racing), Davey Allison (Robert Yates Racing) and Ricky Rudd (Hendrick Motorsports). Although raised on the dirt tracks of the south, Earnhardt had become a savvy businessman on his way to the top, and he understood the importance of NASCAR’s Indy arrival perhaps more than anyone. Earnhardt Jr. said he knew it was a big deal as well. “I guess the first thing that raced through my mind was, 'What would the racing be like? What kind of race would we see?' ” he said. “ 'What kind of style of racing would we see when the cars went around such a big track with no banking and all the corners being 90 degrees; what would the cars do and how would the drivers be able to compete with each other?' “It turned out to be quite a thrill and a lot of fun to watch the first race. … I felt like the door was always closed to stock cars racing here. I felt like that was just one thing that would never happen; that IndyCar and open wheel would be too protective or that the history and tradition of this place would never be broken. But it was awesome that we got the opportunity to come here.” Sunday’s Crown Royal presents the Samuel Deeds 400 at the Brickyard (ESPN, 1 p.m.) will mark the 20th time NASCAR’s Cup Series has competed at Indy. Two decades after the first race, it’s an event that still ranks high in the eyes of the competitors. “I think it’s the history of the race track -- everyone wants to win here, and it’s about the trophy -- who has won here, how hard it is to win here and the history of the track and race itself,” said Jeff Gordon, a four-time Cup champion and four-time winner of the race. “I can’t believe it’s been 20 years since we won here in 1994. That certainly says a lot about how fast things can go by. To me, that inaugural race really set the precedent for how impressive this facility is and how prestigious the race was the first year and always will be.” Honing his skills in open-wheel sprint-car series in the surrounding area, Gordon said it was common for all young hopefuls to talk and dream of one day competing on the “big track.” “When you’re racing locally nearby here, it doesn’t matter your name or what kind of car you drive,” he said. “Your goal is to race here in May. Everybody that I raced with every weekend would talk about, ‘Oh, I have a chance at a ride with this team or that team.’ Whatever it was, it was always the buzz. Your goal … was to win enough races to get the opportunity to go race in the Indianapolis 500.” When those doors failed to open for Gordon (“I realized very early and quickly that the chances of me … getting a top ride was very slim,” he said), it became much easier to look elsewhere. With his stock-car career on the fast track, Gordon said he was pleased to learn that NASCAR would test at Indy, but disappointed because he had yet to begin his Cup career. “It looked like so much fun that day, the way they were swapping positions,” he said. “It was an exhibition but looked like a fun exhibition that I wanted to be a part of. I was thrilled to be a part of it in 1994 when it actually happened. It was a dream come true to win that race.” Gordon and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson are the most successful Cup drivers at Indy, with four wins each. Five drivers in the inaugural race are back once again for the 20th running -- Gordon, Martin, Bobby Labonte, Jeff Burton and Joe Nemechek. Eldora has Sprint Cup stars dreaming of dirt Because he was in New York doing some media appearances, Dale Earnhardt Jr. didn't get the chance to watch Wednesday night's Camping World Truck Series race at Eldora Speedway. So he avoided anyone who might spoil the outcome for him, and set his DVR to record NASCAR's first national race on dirt in over 42 years. Then he got home, and realized the recording had cut off after an hour and half. "Some kind of communication error," Earnhardt said Friday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. "It was disappointing, to say the least." But not the event itself, which was action-packed from beginning to end, and earned rave reviews despite taking place on a surface that NASCAR had not competed on in four decades. Sprint Cup Series drivers took notice, and at the Brickyard faced inevitable questions about whether the sport's premier circuit should one day return to the dirt as well. "I would love to see a Cup race at Eldora. Yes. I think that would be awesome," said four-time series champion Jeff Gordon. "I don't know. You don't know until you get out there and try. Those guys looked like they were having a lot of fun. I think I'd rather have Kyle Larson drive my car, because he was awesome. He was unbelievable. But I love Eldora, I love the dirt. I enjoyed racing the dirt late model there, so I would love to see what a Cup car could do." Larson, a budding Nationwide Series star who like Gordon started out on dirt, was the talk of the event before finishing third. Gordon is no stranger to Eldora -- like many other top NASCAR drivers, he's participated in the Prelude to the Dream, a charity dirt late model event track owner Tony Stewart has hosted at the facility. That's always seemed about as close as the sport's premier series would get to ever competing on anything beside asphalt or concrete. What about now, in the wake of a sold-out Eldora truck race that saw Larson and Ryan Newman leaning on each other over the final laps? "Why not?" asked Clint Bowyer, another Sprint Cup star who started on dirt. "You know what I mean? Again, if the fans liked it and it was well-received and people enjoyed it, then why not. This is a fan-driven sport, and it always has been, and we've always been able to deliver to the fans greater than most other sports and continue that. That's my opinion on it. It's all about the fans. These tracks didn't build as big as they are not having that fan base and not being able to deliver to fans. Whatever it takes. In my opinion, it doesn't matter as long as they're happy so I've got a place to make a living and have a lot of fun doing it." First things first. Stewart and NASCAR's Steve O'Donnell, the circuit's senior vice president for race operations, have indicated that the Truck Series event at Eldora could go on beyond this season. But there are no immediate indications that the sanctioning body is ready to move in the same direction with the Nationwide or Sprint Cup circuits. Still -- guys can dream, right? "Everywhere I've gone this week, I've had people who are huge NASCAR fans and people who aren't big NASCAR fans at all who watched it, and they were blown away," Gordon said. "They did not expect it to go the way that it did. And I thought, why not have more races on a dirt track? I don't think you'll ever see a Cup race there, at least while I'm driving. But I'd vote for it. I think it would be very cool to do." "The Trucks are such a neat choice because of the side force that they create, with the way the bodies are on the trucks. I'm not sure how the Nationwide cars or even the Cup cars would run there," Earnhardt added. "But I think it would be fun for the series to have a couple of dirt races, to be honest. I know Eldora is the perfect place to have this all tested out, and it seems to have been really awesome for the fans and something they really enjoyed, so I expect it's something we could see more of. We just have to see what NASCAR wants to do." No question, the rare weeknight night national-series event provided a boost to NASCAR heading into one of its biggest Sprint Cup weekends of the season. "Proud of NASCAR for taking a chance with that, and I believe that many great things came out of it," Bowyer said. "I think it opened some eyes to some options with this sport. Not just talking dirt racing, but I thought the Wednesday night deal was a different appeal that I liked, and kind of gave us a chance to showcase our sport to maybe a different crowd." Earnhardt's recording cut off before the main event, so he didn't get a chance to see Austin Dillon hold off Newman and Larson for the victory. But he saw enough to recognize that Wednesday night at Eldora was something special for NASCAR, despite all the unknowns going in. "I really thought that was extraordinary, for the race track, for the series, for the sport. What a risky, gutsy call to go do that," he said. "I thought it was just extraordinary that NASCAR was willing to make the leap, and that Tony was there at the right place at the right time with the perfect race track and a historical place to run it. It's awesome that it came together so well. And I thought the race was fun to watch. I really enjoyed what I saw. I think it would be fun to run there if they ever did an exhibition or something. I don't know about a full-on event. But maybe we end up doing that one day. What I saw was entertaining, and exciting, and something that I hope I see more of from a viewer's standpoint." Earnhardt still in the market for primary sponsor For sale by owner: Major sponsorship for NASCAR's most popular driver. Act fast, time is running out. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is not only looking for his first win of the season, he's still hunting for a big-bucks sponsor for 12 Sprint Cup races this season. Earnhardt said he's not worried, a sign that perhaps Hendrick Motorsports has a deal on the horizon. ''It is important to try to fill out what we have this season and we will,'' Earnhardt said Friday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. ''I don't have any doubt at all that we will get that done. I think we almost have to look forward beyond that to try to find out who is going to be the partner that we can put a long term deal together that matches up with what we want to do in the future.'' That's part of the problem. Hendrick and Earnhardt would love to find a primary sponsor that would fund what's left on this season's slate as well as 2014, and possibly beyond. With 16 races left, putting together a multi-year deal with a committed corporate backer seems almost impossible to pull off. ''It's just all the dollars and cents are accounted for at this point in the year,'' Earnhardt said. ''That doesn't mean we can't put some things together and do some creative stuff with some people and some partners that we already have.'' Earnhardt's sponsorship woes started when Pepsi, through Diet Mountain Dew and Amp, sliced its sponsorship from 20 races to five in 2013. The National Guard did bolster its support of the No. 88, going from 16 to 20 races. Earnhardt, who's made the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship each of the last two seasons, is somewhat hindered in finding the right fit because of conflicts with committed corporate sponsors. For example, his Pepsi deal is the reason he ditched Budweiser when he signed with Hendrick for the 2008 season. It's not like he doesn't have options. Earnhardt is one of the superstar faces of NASCAR. Even as the wins have dried up, he was still voted NASCAR's most popular driver for each of the last 10 years. Owner Rick Hendrick isn't interested in sponsors looking to work their way in for a race or two, or the kind of companies that would conflict with his corporate image. Earnhardt was set to drive an unsponsored race at Daytona until Hendrick put the National Guard on the No. 88. He'll use the National Guard again for Sunday's race at Indy. Another reason he can be picky: The sponsorship he does have on the 88 is so lucrative that he has one of the highest-funded cars in the garage even with available inventory. He's also kept an eye on sponsorship for his Nationwide Series program competing under the JR Motorsports banner. Great Clips signed on as primary sponsor for 28 races this season. Great Clips and Hendrick on Friday announced a three-year extension through 2016 that bumped its primary sponsorship from three Cup races a season to 10 for Kasey Kahne's No. 5 Chevrolet. Great Clips also will serve as a major associate sponsor. Great Clips will be on Kahne's car this weekend in Indianapolis and again for the Sept. 22 race at New Hampshire. ''They continue to see a great return on investment, and we're focused on continuing that trend by performing at a high level on the racetrack while delivering business wins,'' Hendrick said. Earnhardt, though, said he didn't know how Great Clips' increase would affect its future relationship with his Nationwide program. He seems just as confident that he'll find the right sponsors. ''We have some potential to have some really interesting things announced down the road with that,'' he said. ''Due to how well we've run this year and how we've been able to turn that program around, we definitely caught the eyes of a few sponsors and potential partners. So, we're looking a lot better on that front, too. I think everything is going to be fine. I don't believe anybody needs to be too concerned at this point.'' Dale Jr. in NYC: Walks dog, hails cab and more It’s his last day off before what looks to be a busy and action-packed weekend of racing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but Dale Earnhardt Jr. spent Thursday on a media tour in the Big Apple, promoting this weekend’s 20th running of the Brickyard 400 (Sunday, 1 p.m., ESPN). Kicking off his morning with a bright and early 8:30 a.m. interview on NBC’s TODAY, Earnhardt explained to show host Matt Lauer that while he hasn’t ever “kissed the bricks” at IMS (so delicately pointed out by Lauer), he feels confident that he has one of the best crew chiefs and strategists in the business in Steve Letarte. Earnhardt thinks Letarte could help push him over the hump at a track where his career-average finish is 20.3, making it one of just five Sprint Cup Series tracks where his average finish is 20th or worse. In his first two Brickyard 400 races under Letarte, Junior has averaged a finish of 10th. TODAY @todayshow: I dream about kissin' bricks all the time! - Dale Earnhardt Jr. is on the plaza with us now! #Junior Earnhardt also mentioned during the TODAY show interview that he's happy as an owner and a driver to be returning as a sport to NBC, beginning in 2015. It was recently announced that NASCAR and NBC have struck a landmark deal to bring Sprint Cup Series, Nationwide Series, Home Tracks and more coverage over a 10-year deal. From there, it was on to FOX News’ America’s Newsroom, where Earnhardt, voted the sport’s most popular driver for a record-tying 10th consecutive year by fans in 2012 (Bill Elliott also earned 10 of his 16 total awards in a row), touched on the polarizing subject of Richard Childress Racing driver Austin Dillon’s potential running of the No. 3 car in the Sprint Cup Series, possibly as soon as next year. The number hits home for Earnhardt, of course, whose father Dale Sr. has been associated with the iconic numeral since earning six of his seven Cup titles and 67 of his 76 career wins with with ‘3’ adorned on the side of his RCR ride. Earnhardt, who has previously stated that he’d be okay with seeing Dillon run the number, reiterated his point on Thursday, making the connection that Dillon is the grandson of Richard Childress, who owned Earnhardt Sr.’s No. 3 ride. He also again defended Danica Patrick, who was recently criticized by broadcaster and former driver Kyle Petty, when he said that the Stewart-Haas Racing driver is 'not a race car driver'. His last stop took him to ESPN’s Sportscenter at 11:40 a.m. ET, where he summarized his first 19 races of 2013 by saying it’d be nice to earn his first win of the season this weekend. He added that his speed has been consistent thus far, he’s just run into some bad luck. Some of that bad luck included blowing an engine in June at Michigan International Speedway, where he was running a special Superman-inspired paint scheme. Earlier in the day, he walked dogs with Dean Cain on the set of TODAY. Cain, of course, played the lead on the hit TV show Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman from 1993-1997. As you can see from the image at the top, Junior participated in all things NYC, including hailing a cab like a true New Yorker during a photo shoot for an upcoming issue of Men's Journal. From here, Earnhardt heads to Speedway, Ind. where the race weekend will kick off Friday with practice at 11:35 a.m. ET, culminating with the Brickyard 400 on Sunday at 1 p.m. ET on ESPN. Driver Report: Breaking down the Brickyard 5. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is fifth in the standings with 578 points. This week: In 13 career starts at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Earnhardt has one top-five and three top-10s. In the past eight years at Indianapolis, Earnhardt ranks 20th out of 51 drivers with an average place of 18.3. Last year: Earnhardt Jr. didn’t lead any laps and he didn’t win. But he vaulted 16 spots from his starting position to finish fourth on the day, and he also rose to first in the points standings, 14 ahead of Matt Kenseth. Most memorable Brickyard moment: Junior doesn’t have a great history at the Brickyard. Last year was his best finish (fourth), and he wasn’t truly in position to challenge for a win. Maybe this is a cop-out, but perhaps Junior’s personal most memorable Brickyard moment was getting to celebrate with his father when Dale Earnhardt won the 1995 race in just NASCAR’s second race at the speedway. Junior leads the charge for Dillon's use of '3' Some of Austin Dillon’s fondest childhood memories include afternoons celebrating in Daytona International Speedway Victory Lane alongside the man who made his car’s number “3” an iconic symbol of the sport. Now 12 years after that driver, seven-time NASCAR champion and Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt passed away, Dillon is preparing to return his grandfather Richard Childress’ legendary No. 3 Chevrolet to the Cup Series again. And one of his biggest supporters is Earnhardt’s own son, Dale Earnhardt Jr. “I think it will be great,’’ Earnhardt said Thursday before the Coke Zero 400 opening practice at Daytona. “It meant a lot to a lot of his (my dad’s) fans. It was an iconic number for my father. But this sport doesn’t retire numbers and all the numbers have history tied to them for several different reasons and the “3” is no different.’’ “For a kid like Austin. … he drove the “3” dirt racing and in the (Camping World) Truck Series and Nationwide Series. He’s earned the right to run that number as long as he wants. “It’s not right to deny someone that opportunity. I’m okay with it. I know that may not be how everyone feels, but I’m sure that’s a minority that feels that way. A lot of people will be telling Austin positive things about it.’’ Dillon, 23, is currently contending for the Nationwide Series championship with the number on his AdvoCare-sponsored Chevy. But although the team says nothing is official yet, the plan is for him to move up to the Sprint Cup Series fulltime – possibly as soon as next season. And while the idea of the number competing fulltime again in Cup may be an issue for some of the sport’s most sentimental fans, Dillon has never known any different. “I’ve been associated with it with everything I’ve ever been in sports-wise, baseball, basketball, football and racing,’’ Dillon said. “It’s a sentimental number to our family. Dale Earnhardt made it famous, he made that number in racing. And he’s one of my heroes.’’ The family has lots of photographs of Dillon being cradled in his father’s arms as the Richard Childress Racing team celebrated yet another of Earnhardt’s 76 wins. And he still remembers the other Sunday afternoons at home watching NASCAR races on television. “Being in Victory Lane when he won the Daytona 500 was very special,’’ Dillon said. “Dale was our family hero. When we were sitting around on Sundays watching the race, we watched Dale and pulled for him. He was our guy. Then, Dillon added with a big grin, “I always wanted him to win because that meant we got pizza after the race. Every time he won, we got to get pizza dinner and that was a big day for us.’’ NASCAR is unlike other sports, where a team retires jersey numbers to commemorate a legend. Instead, Dillon has a unique opportunity to pay tribute to his hero. And he has every intention of giving those legions of fans a chance to cheer again. “It’s very heartfelt and sentimental,’’ Dillon said reverently choosing his words. “There’s a lot behind that number and a huge history that goes along with it. I understand that. “I’m very fortunate to be running that number right now and I love the pressure that comes with it. I know the people love to see it up front and running well, and that’s where I like to be. “It’s a number that motivates me and I’ve been in it every car I’ve ever been in, from the very beginning. I’m fortunate my grandfather has let me run that number and it’s pretty awesome we’ve made it this far with it. “You have a lot of people that are true race fans that are very supportive of it, the guys that really know about racing and the history of it and what’s gone on. We’d never abuse the right to use that number.’’ Post-Kentucky Driver Reports 6. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is sixth in the standings with 512 points. Last week: Earnhardt Jr. won the Coors Light Pole and led three times for 11 laps Sunday. But this race was about perseverance for the No. 88 team. With a good car and a good shot at his first win in more than a year, plenty of setbacks arose. The biggest happened after Denny Hamlin blew a tire, the casing of which bounced into Earnhardt Jr.’s grille as he was leading. A massive (and quick) tape job kept Junior on the lead lap, but he had no shot at winning. Earnhardt made progress in the final 20 laps and finished 12th to move up a spot in the standings. What he said: “You just fix it and keep going. The guys did a good job on pit road all day long working on it and trying to fix everything. I'm not sure we got everything back where it is supposed to be, but we did well enough to get a decent finish out it. Just proud of how hard the team worked. Did a good job for qualifying, and put a good car out there for the race. Can't do anything about what happened out there on the race track with that casing.” This week: In 27 career starts at Daytona International Speedway, Earnhardt has two wins, 10 top-fives, 15 top-10s and one pole. In the past eight years at Daytona, Earnhardt ranks fourth out of 54 drivers with an average place of 14.5. He finished second in the season-opening Daytona 500. Last year: Junior was part of a Hendrick Motorsports fleet that had powerful engines, but somewhat disappointing finishes. Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon were caught up in various wrecks, and Earnhardt looked like he would avoid that distinction … until the very end when Junior, running in the top five, was collected. All that work, and a 15th-place finish to show for it. Earnhardt Jr. won't let bad luck keep him down Dale Earnhardt Jr. didn’t even wait to take off his helmet. He climbed out of his No. 88 car and walked directly around to the front end of the vehicle, where he stared at a grille opening that had buckled as if it were kicked by a boot. “I was curious, because it didn’t feel good,” Earnhardt said. “Just unfortunate bad luck there to catch that tire casing coming across the race track like that.” Earnhardt’s hopes of winning from the pole Sunday at Kentucky Speedway were effectively ended just 38 laps into the event, which had been pushed back a day by rain. Denny Hamlin cut a tire, and the casing from the separated rubber fell right into the path of Earnhardt and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson, who were running first and second, respectively, at the time. Johnson caught a glancing blow off the right headlight decal, and went on to lead a race-high 182 laps before spinning on a late restart and finishing ninth in the Quaker State 400 presented by Advance Auto Parts. But Earnhardt hit it first, and the debris put a dent in the front grille of the No. 88 car, which was never the same afterward. “I’m guessing the first one to hit it probably took the brunt of the blow,” said Earnhardt’s crew chief, Steve Letarte. “It looks like it hit them right in the headlight. It hit ours right in the lower grille. These cars are so sensitive -- you hit it in one spot, it doesn’t matter. Where it hit ours was not good.” That much was evident by the exchange over team radio, particularly in light of the fact that the No. 88 had suffered engine failures in two of the previous five races. “Awesome,” Earnhardt said sarcastically. “Yeah, I agree. Spectacular,” Letarte responded. Immediately afterward Earnhardt stayed out front rather than give up track position for repairs, but had to come in eventually, and fell back to 30th when he eventually did. “I knew it was real bad. I thought it had knocked the splitter off it. Those casings weigh maybe about 80 pounds, and we hit it wide open. … When I’m in the corner loaded up, I can’t drive it left to right,” said Earnhardt, who rebounded to finish 12th, and actually improved one spot to sixth in Sprint Cup Series points. “It knocked all the grille out of it and punched a bunch of holes in the nose. We patched it up pretty good. The splitter was bent, and … it just took all day to figure out what all was wrong. A bunch of little stuff. It was feeling really good at the end.” Although Earnhardt also finished 12th last weekend on the road course at Sonoma, Calif., Kentucky marked the second consecutive oval-track race in which he wasn’t able to reap the benefits of having one of the best cars in the field. Two weeks ago at Michigan, he led 34 laps before an engine failure -- again, while he was in the lead -- knocked him out 69 laps short of the finish. Sunday he started from the pole and led 10 circuits, but everything changed once the loose rubber thwacked the front end of his car. “I’m not a big believer in racing luck, but when a tire rolls out in front of you and you’re the leader, I don’t know what else to call it,” Letarte said. “It’s just disappointment. Disappointment for the guys. They worked real hard, they built a great car. Everybody in the whole building, they built two great race cars, us and the 48 (of Johnson). To qualify where we did, and see how fast the 48 was, was pretty disappointing, because we were pretty close to them, and I thought we probably would have run close to them.” Ultimately, Johnson didn’t finish much better. While Earnhardt was clearly disappointed with the finish, he was also pleased to have another solid car. “It’s good to be fast. I’m happy about that. We can’t do nothing about what’s happened to us, we’ve just got to keep working. Can’t get down about it,” he said. “I’m disappointed in the luck, but you can’t let that take away from how well the cars have been running. Inside the team, we’ve got to go, ‘Hey man, we’re doing everything right. Stay the course. Luck will turn around and things will add up and we’re going to finish well.’ You start getting angry and start pulling levers and trying to change stuff, we don’t need to. We’ve got fast cars. You can’t make luck like that good or bad. It’s going to happen to you sometime.” Sunday, that bad luck left Letarte shaking his head and showing a wry smile. “I’ve seen it all. We’ve hit concrete with Jeff Gordon at Martinsville, sealer with Jeff Gordon at Charlotte, and now a tire with Dale Jr. at Kentucky,” said the crew chief, who once oversaw Gordon’s No. 24 team. “Nothing really surprises me anymore.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. takes his first pole of 2013 Dale Earnhardt Jr. scored his third top-10 starting spot of the season Friday at Kentucky Speedway. And he did it in a big way. The Hendrick Motorsports driver earned his 12th career pole thanks to a track qualifying record lap of 183.636 mph to take the Coors Light Pole Award for Saturday’s Quaker State 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. With cloud cover dropping temperatures 10 or more degrees at times during the qualifying session, Earnhardt Jr. caught just the right amount of cloud cover at just the right time. He was the 15th of 43 drivers to make a qualifying attempt. Carl Edwards will start second, clocking a lap of 183.306 mph in his No. 99 Roush Fenway Racing Ford. Series points leader Jimmie Johnson, who held the previous track qualifying record at 181.818 mph, will start third while Kyle Busch and Marcos Ambrose completed the top five. Sixth through 10th were Denny Hamlin, Ryan Newman, defending race winner Brad Keselowski, Brian Vickers and Juan Pablo Montoya. Nine drivers exceeded the previous qualifying record. The Quaker State 400 will air on TNT Saturday, June 29 at 8 p.m. ET. Junior disagrees with Kyle Petty on Danica Dale Earnhardt Jr. said he disagrees with Kyle Petty’s assessment of Danica Patrick as a race car driver, coming to the defense of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series rookie of the year candidate Friday at Kentucky Speedway. Patrick, who competes for Stewart-Haas Racing, drove for Earnhardt Jr.’s JR Motorsports team in the Nationwide Series full-time last season while running a limited Cup schedule for SHR. She ran a limited Nationwide schedule with JRM from 2010-11 while making the transition from IndyCar to NASCAR. “I think she’s a tough competitor,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “She works really hard at what she does. She has run some really good races. On every occasion she’s outrunning several guys out on the circuit. If she was not able to compete and not able to run minimum speed or finishing in last place every week, I think you might be able to say Kyle has an argument. But she’s out there running competitively, running strong on several accounts.” In a piece that aired on NASCAR Race Hub on Thursday, Petty said Patrick was a “marketing machine,” but that the 31-year-old was “not a race car driver.” “Danica has been the perfect example of somebody who can qualify better than what she runs,” Petty said. “She can go fast, but she can’t race. I think she’s come a long way, but she’s still not a race car driver. And I don’t think she’s ever going to be a race car driver.” Patrick, 27th in points, became the first female to start on the pole for a Sprint Cup Series race earlier this year when she qualified No. 1 for the season-opening Daytona 500. She finished eighth in that race, her only top 10 thus far in 26 career Cup starts. “I think she’s got a good opportunity … to keep competing and she just might surprise even Kyle Petty,” Earnhardt Jr. said. Post-Sonoma Driver Reports 7. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is seventh in the standings with 479 points. Last week: Earnhardt remained seventh in the standings, but he’s actually tied with Greg Biffle (who gets the edge with his one win), and both guys are just two points behind fifth-place Matt Kenseth. That’s a battle worth watching. Earnhardt put himself in position to move up the standings with a good showing next week by finishing 12th at Sonoma, his worst track on the circuit. What he said: “We really didn’t have a lot of great speed. We just had good strategy on pit road and (came) home with a decent finish. We will take it. This is definitely my worst race track, my least favorite track. We will take a top-15 here any week.” This week: In two career starts at Kentucky Speedway, Earnhardt has one top-five and one top-10. In the past two years at Kentucky, Earnhardt ranks 10th out of 45 drivers with an average place of 13.0. Last year: Like his Hendrick Motorsports teammates, Junior had a great night. Although his race car became mega-loose over the final 30 laps, he kept control and emerged as the victor in a spirited battle with teammate Jeff Gordon for fourth place. Post-Michigan driver reports 7. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is seventh in the standings with 447 points. Last week: Earnhardt Jr. is the perfect example when describing Hendrick Motorsports’ day. His car was phenomenal. His finish was miserable. Junior led 34 laps at the track where he last won, but started losing speed around Lap 130 (of 200). He appeared to drop a cylinder; then his engine blew up. From a possible victory to an eight-point day, Earnhardt fell three spots in the standings. He finished in 37th-place … just above teammates Kasey Kahne and Jeff Gordon. What he said: “(It’s) worse than if it happens when you’re running in the back. I’m real proud of the car. We were really struggling in practice and I’m just real proud of (crew chief) Steve (Letarte) and the whole team. They made a lot of great changes. And that car was just flying at the end there. I don’t know if we had as good a car as Jimmie (Johnson), but we had certainly made some gains on it, even in the last stop.” This week: In 13 career starts at Sonoma Raceway, Earnhardt’s best finish is 11th in 2003, 2004 and 2010. In the past eight years at Sonoma, Earnhardt ranks 26th out of 48 drivers with an average place of 23.7. Last year: By his own admission, Earnhardt Jr. isn’t the best road-course racer in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. He’s probably not even in the middle. That’s what made last year’s 23rd-place finish so frustrating. Earnhardt was up to 12th place before a green-white-checkered finish and felt like he had a car that would challenge for his first-ever top-10 at the track. But a late-race incident resulted in several cars wrecking, and Junior was hit and spun into the dirt, where he was walloped by Aric Almirola (who had no visibility coming over the hill). Earnhardt Jr. pining for special sequel The newest installment in the Superman series to make it to the silver screen, “Man of Steel” has endured some mixed reviews heading into its opening weekend, hovering around 60% out of a 100 rating from well-known movie review site RottenTomatoes.com. As for Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s No. 88 Chevrolet, which has a paint scheme inspired by the Last Son of Krypton himself, there’s been nothing but favorable returns from some of the toughest critics in NASCAR -- his teammates. “I thought Junior had a very impressive run last week,” Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon said. “He was very competitive and it was great timing for them because (Michigan International Speedway) is a track that I know he likes and does well at; he did well last year. So, if this is a window of opportunity for him, it’s opening.” “He could win here again,” added Kasey Kahne, another teammate. “He was really good here last year and they’re always right there and consistently in the top 10.” Earnhardt Jr. was one of the fastest drivers in Friday’s opening practice session, his National Guard “Man of Steel” Chevrolet clocking in fifth at 199.922 mph to Kahne’s chart-leading 200.619. He was a little faster in qualifying at 200.100 mph, but ended up placing 12th. Earnhardt shouldn’t take his marginal qualifying position to heart, considering that in his last two races here he finished fourth and first, starting 22nd and 17th, respectively. “Hopefully (the car is) as fast as it looks good. That is going to be more important to be able to repeat and get the win this weekend,” Earnhardt said. “We feel pretty good coming in to this race.” The annual expectation ahead of each of the two Michigan races is that Earnhardt will run well at the track, as his average finish of 10.5 at the track in the past eight races ranks among his best. Not many could have predicted that he’d be riding a wave of momentum from the week before, however, following a third-place finish at Pocono. The fact that Earnhardt now sits in fourth place in the Sprint Cup standings is impressive. After all, he had not a single top-five finish in all of April and May following three in the first five races. “We had a great run last week that sort of hopefully got us back in the right direction,” Earnhardt said. “We started the season off so promising, the best that I had ever started a season. It just seemed like things were going so perfectly and it’s the way it is in this sport. You will think you have everything going in the right direction and then odds and fate and everything else got in the way.” While Earnhardt is currently in no danger of missing the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, a win at Michigan is almost a necessity to ensure he stays near the top of the standings. He and third-place Clint Bowyer are the only two drivers in the top eight without a win. Meanwhile, some of Bowyer’s best tracks -- Sonoma and New Hampshire, two tracks where Earnhardt struggles -- are on the horizon. “We feel like we are coming through a stretch of races and race tracks, if you take out Sonoma, that we should run pretty well at and have a lot of confidence at,” said Earnhardt. “Not that we won’t go to Sonoma and hope to run well, we will, but the track record (13 starts, no top-10 finishes) speaks for itself there.” Perhaps there’s a little extra jolt that comes along with racing at one of his favorite tracks, but Earnhardt appears rejuvenated and ready to make a summer run as he tries to secure his first Sprint Cup championship. Now 38 years old, he isn’t surprised that there is concern over his age and his motivation after 15 years of Cup racing, but he’s as determined as ever. “I feel like I have good energy. I’m not burning out,” said Earnhardt. “I think that the passion and the commitment probably goes before the physical end of it goes in this particular sport. I feel like I’m in the best opportunity of my career. There is a ‘seize the moment’ kind of feeling because I’m in such good equipment around such good people. “We want to win more races. We want to win numerous races and multiple races in a season. We want that to be the status quo. We want that to be the norm.” Junior switches superhero; will powers remain? Last year it was Batman. This year it's Superman. Dale Earnhardt Jr. drove the Hendrick Motorsports No. 88 Diet Mountain Dew/Dark Knight Rises Chevrolet, promoting last summer's Batman blockbuster, in the 2012 Quicken Loans 400 at Michigan International Speedway. Earnhardt drove the Caped Crusader-themed race car to Victory Lane, his first trip there in four years. This Sunday, during the Quicken Loans 400 at Michigan (1 p.m. ET, TNT), Earnhardt's race car will be touting a different superhero -- the Man of Steel. The North Carolina native's black and steel-colored car promotes "Man of Steel," the latest Superman movie, which hits theaters Friday. If Earnhardt has a track that is his kryptonite, it definitely isn't the two-mile track nestled in Michigan's Irish Hills a stone's throw away from Detroit. Over the past eight seasons (16 races) at the track, he has the fifth highest average driver rating (97.1), which is his second highest rating among all NASCAR Sprint Cup Series tracks. Earnhardt has a 98.8 rating at Martinsville Speedway. He ranks in the top 10 in most Loop Data categories: second -- pass differential (237); third -- green-flag passes (1,313); fourth -- average finish (10.5), fastest laps run (161), fastest late in a run (174.469 mph); fifth -- average running position (12.512), quality passes (697), green-flag speed (175.789 mph), percent of laps led (7.3%, he's tied with Matt Kenseth); sixth -- fastest on restarts (173.013 mph), laps led (229); seventh -- speed in traffic (174.852 mph); eighth -- laps in top 15 (2,083); and ninth -- fastest early in a run (177.910). Although he has found success at the track, including his last two series wins, his approach won't differ greatly from other weekends. "I think you approach it like any other race, but we are going in with a lot more confidence because we ran well there last year," Earnhardt said. Over the past four seasons at Michigan, he only has one start in the top 10 (August 2011). However, he has relied on his pit crew to make adjustments during the race to put him in contention at the end of the race. When he won the race last June, he started 17th. In the second Michigan race last year, he started 22nd and finished fourth. "You've got to be patient. I looked through the notes from last year, and we didn't unload perfect," said the 10-time Most Popular Driver award winner, who has four top-fives and nine top-10s on the year going into the weekend. "We had to work to get it right. You don't go in with confidence that you are going to go there and it will be perfect. You have the confidence to know that we will get it dialed in." Earnhardt started the 2013 season strong with a streak of five top-10 finishes and led the standings after the fifth race of the season at Auto Club Speedway, where he was runner-up to Kyle Busch. It was the first time in his career that the veteran driver held the top spot in the standings in back-to-back seasons. A 24th-place finish the following week at Martinsville, however, knocked him from the perch back to third. He arrives in Michigan in fourth place, 82 points behind points leader Jimmie Johnson. Will Earnhardt be able to channel those superpowers in Michigan as he did last year and move up a spot or two in the standings? Only time will tell. "We got a good package going to Pocono and going to Michigan. Hopefully going to Michigan we got a good package; we'll see when we get there," Earnhardt said. Post-Pocono driver reports 4. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is fourth in the standings with 439 points. Last week: Heading into the track where he last won (Michigan), Earnhardt has some considerable momentum following his Pocono performance. Junior pushed eventual race winner Jimmie Johnson down the stretch before eventually ceding second place to Greg Biffle and finishing third. It’s Earnhardt’s second-best finish of the year, behind only his second-place effort at Fontana in March. It was his first top-five showing since that race, too. What he said: “Yeah, we have been carrying momentum for a good solid year now. We had better finishes last year; we started this year off really good. We just had a lot of problems since then and just struggled to get good finishes. We are all right. We know what we need to do. Confidence is there, all the fans can rest assured we feel like we are on the right track. We want to get a win, man.” This week: In 27 career starts at Michigan International Speedway, Earnhardt has two wins, six top-fives, 10 top-10s and two poles. He is the defending race champion. In the past eight years at Michigan, Earnhardt ranks fifth out of 51 drivers with an average place of 12.5. Last year: After four years and 143 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series starts, it happened. Dale Earnhardt Jr., the circuit’s most popular driver, got back into Victory Lane with a dominance performance at the 2-mile Michigan track on Father’s Day. Junior started 17th, but pit strategy following a two-hour delay due to weather helped the No. 88 car make huge gains. In 29th place through 20 laps, Earnhardt was in the lead by Lap 70. All told, Earnhardt led 95 of 200 laps, including the final 30. There was no fretting the finish either, as he beat second-place Tony Stewart to the start/finish line by more than 5 seconds. Earnhardt gearing up to make a run at victory By the time Dale Earnhardt Jr. reached Victory Lane last season at Michigan, the win seemed as much inevitable as implausible. One top 10 finish at a time, Earnhardt built and built before a four year and 143-race winless streak was snapped; a legion of fans sent into a frenzy as NASCAR's most popular driver finally gave them all a reason to go wild. Well, look who's back on a hot streak. And look what track's on deck for the ol' No. 88. Earnhardt is set to roll into Michigan International Speedway, site of his last two Sprint Cup victories, enjoying a bit of a of a renaissance for Hendrick Motorsports. He's in fourth place in the points standings (he finished 12th last season) and is coming off a third-place finish Sunday at Pocono Raceway. Earnhardt can't be blamed too much for being unable to pull out his first win of the season. No driver was going to beat his Hendrick teammate Jimmie Johnson, who led 128 of 160 laps en route to his third win of the season. Earnhardt was there at the end, though, battling Johnson off two restarts over the final 10 laps before finally yielding to Greg Biffle for second. He has two straight top 10s and three in his last four races. Oh, did we mention he's going to Michigan? If Earnhardt was traded on Nasdaq, it'd be time to buy. ''Hopefully, we can do this throughout the summer and get ourselves in the Chase pretty comfortably,'' he said. ''We've got a little work to do to get to where some of the other guys are.'' Earnhardt can grab a cheat sheet from the guys working across the shop on Johnson's No. 48. While the results - and certainly, the championships - don't show it, Earnhardt and five-time champion Johnson have the cars built pretty much side by side at Hendrick's shop. Earnhardt crew chief Steve Letarte and Johnson's pit box guru Chad Knaus swap ideas, setups and a sneak peek other useful tidbits, if needed, before every race. While it's hard to tell sometimes because Johnson could make the New York Yankees envious of titles won the past decade, Earnhardt and crew have benefited from the data sharing. ''They grow stronger and stronger each week,'' Johnson said. ''I know there's a bright light on these guys and what they do week and week out. They're strong and they elevate their teammates, as well. They're great teammates. They help us out. We certainly do all we can to help them out and help them grow and get stronger.'' Johnson hasn't done too bad, himself. He won his third race and his 63rd career Cup victory helped stretch his points lead to 51 over Carl Edwards. He even survived a brief scare when the No. 48 had to make two attempts through post-race inspection because the car's weight was a bit off balance on the first try. The car was allowed a few moments to settle and passed on the second attempt, a common courtesy, NASCAR said. The issue was about the way to slow down Johnson on Sunday. Earnhardt's performance had tailed off a bit after opening the season with five straight top 10s, including two runner-up finishes. A five-race dip, with four finishes of 16th or worse, was next. At the rate he's rebounded, those results could just be a blip that happens to just about every driver over the taxing 36-race season. ''We've been carrying momentum for a good solid year now,'' Earnhardt said. ''We started the year off this year off really good. We just had a lot of problems since then and just struggled to get good finishes. We are all right. We know what we need to do. Confidence is there. All the fans can rest assured we feel like we are on the right track.'' That's a lot of fans considering Earnhardt has long ruled NASCAR's most popular driver for a decade. They hope to be there again cheering him on - at the track, at home, on Twitter - this week at Michigan. Or Sonoma. Kentucky. Wherever. ''They're clicking,'' Johnson said. ''They're doing a great job.'' Earnhardt expects to keep rolling straight into Michigan. Earnhardt's 143 races between wins was the sixth-longest streak in Sprint Cup history. It was the 19th Cup victory of Earnhardt's career and second in 159 starts for Hendrick Motorsports. He had 17 victories in 291 races for Dale Earnhardt Inc. He wasn't won since Michigan. But Earnhardt followed Michigan last year with three fourth-place finishes over five races and only a concussion that kept him out of two Chase races truly ended his championship hopes. ''It's good to be able to run good again,'' Earnhardt said. Mix in a little of last year's successes at upcoming tracks with a dash of this year's contending runs and Earnhardt just might find himself yet feted in Victory Lane. Or maybe - try not to get too excited just yet Junior Nation - walk up to the banquet to deliver his speech as series champion. Now if only Johnson would just get out of his way. Junior gets his mojo back at Pocono Sunday at Pocono Raceway, Dale Earnhardt Jr. did more than record his best finish in more than two months. NASCAR’s most popular driver may also have regained some of the edge he had on the competition in the first few weeks of this season. Although Earnhardt was unable to overtake race winner Jimmie Johnson on a trio of late restarts, he still seemed to rediscover some of his mojo at Pocono, where his third-place finish was his best since late March. Sunday was reminiscent of the five-race streak of top-10s Earnhardt used to open this year, one bookended by season-best runner-up finishes in the Daytona 500 and at Auto Club Speedway in Southern California. “You’ve got to be there to win races. You’ve got to be there at the end. We haven’t been able to do that over the last couple of months,” Earnhardt said on pit road. “We’ve been struggling. But hopefully, we’ve got it turned around. Summer used to be my Achilles’ heel, and now it seems to be one of our strong suits. We’re going to try to maximize that and take advantage of the opportunities.” Indeed, last summer was perhaps the best stretch of Earnhardt’s 2012 campaign. He had arguably the best car at Pocono before pitting for fuel, snapped his 143-race winless skid the next week at Michigan, and briefly moved into the Sprint Cup Series points lead after a fourth-place result at Indianapolis. He occupied that top spot again following his run earlier this year at Fontana, but his team hasn’t seemed to be the same since. Sunday, though, was a different story. Although Earnhardt didn’t lead a lap -- hardly anyone did other than the dominant Johnson, who paced 128 -- and fell from second to third on the final restart, the No. 88 car was in the top five virtually all afternoon on the 2.5-mile track. “The first five, six, seven races, we had a tremendous amount of speed,” crew chief Steve Letarte said. “Texas we had great speed. Kansas we got caught by a yellow, Texas we broke an alternator. And then really we’ve lost our edge. We’ve been running like fifth to 10th, fifth to 15th. So it was nice to come back here. We didn’t really have car enough to win unless the 48 would somehow mess it up. And … if the 48 messed it up, I was going to be mad, because that’s the best car I’ve seen here in a long time. But that’s OK. You bring the second-best car to enough race tracks, you’ll win.” At Pocono, Earnhardt’s only real opportunity to do that came on a trio of late restarts -- one prompted when Dave Blaney and Aric Almirola crashed with 22 laps remaining, another when AJ Allmendinger’s engine blew with 12 laps left, the last when Dave Blaney wrecked with six to go. Each time, Johnson was able to stay out front. “That was the only shot I had, was the restarts,” Earnhardt said. “I had to try to beat him and get him behind me and try to get him some dirty air. He’s just so fast through (Turn) 3. If I didn’t get by him at that point, I wasn’t even going to get to him. He was just driving away.” Letarte knew his driver needed Johnson to make a mistake -- which he also knew was unlikely to happen. “Anybody can miss a shift, make a mistake, miss a groove. There’s a lot of opportunity,” the crew chief said. “We take for granted how easy Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. and these guys make this look. They’re doing a lot of work out here. There’s a lot of opportunity for mistake. But that guy that won, he’s won a lot of them, so we weren’t expecting him to make too many mistakes.” That doesn’t mean Johnson wasn’t concerned. “Restarts are so tough, and around here if you can get the clean air on a short run, especially with the series of cautions we had, it would be tough to pass him,” he said. “But even with having a dominant car, I didn't want to be in that position of running second and have to worry about getting by somebody. I learned a lot on the two restarts where I was on the outside of the (Ryan Newman), and that helped me a lot going into those final three with Junior on the outside of me.” Regardless, it was still a return to the form Earnhardt showed earlier in the season. At that point, Letarte said, his No. 88 team enjoyed an edge in the development of the Generation-6 car, a redesigned and more brand-identifiable vehicle that debuted on NASCAR’s top circuit this year. But in a sport that’s constantly evolving, they found it difficult to stay on top. “I think everybody else gained,” Letarte said. “I think we came out really strong with the new car, had a big advantage, and we’ve (found it) hard to keep turning the Rubik’s Cube for the next advantage, and we haven’t found one. We came here with a little different concept in both the 48 (car of Johnson) and the 88, and I think it worked better. But this place is different, so we’ll just have to see as we get through the summer.” The cars of Johnson and Earnhardt are fielded out of the same facility at Hendrick Motorsports. Although the results may not have indicated it before Sunday, Johnson’s crew chief, Chad Knaus, said he can see the progress his stablemates are making. “I think Stevie and Dale are doing a really good job,” he said. “Their communication level has just soared over the last couple years, and I'm very proud of what it is that they do and how they communicate. They've got an amazing amount of respect for each other, and they believe in each other, and that's something that's very hard to find in the garage. When things go bad, a lot of teams, the driver will point fingers at the crew chief, the crew chief will point fingers at the drivers or the pit crew or mechanics or however it goes, and they don't do that. If they have a good week, they all celebrate it. If they have a bad week, they don't point fingers. They just say, ‘Well, we've got to get better.’ I think they are in a great spot.” Particularly if Sunday’s performance ignites another summertime hot streak for Earnhardt -- who next week heads back to Michigan, the scene of that drought-buster a year ago, which is also his most recent victory. “I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “Hoping we can have a good run. We’re a good team, and if we can get up front there, we might get us a win and get us a repeat.” Post-Dover driver reports- Dover 6. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is sixth in the standings with 398 points. Last week: Earnhardt had a steady car at Dover, and his steady 10th-place result was more than welcome after a stretch of inconsistent finishes. Junior qualified 12th for the event and was in the top 15 the entire time. The finish gives Earnhardt just his third top-10 in the past eight races and sets up an interesting battle to watch over the next few weeks; fourth-place Matt Kenseth and fifth-place Kevin Harvick are each just one point ahead of Junior. What he said: “It was real hot, but we knew that going into the race. We made our car better. I felt like we had a real strong car the last half of the race. We just couldn’t get track position, couldn’t pass. We were faster than the guys in front of us at the end, but just couldn’t pass.” This week: In 26 career starts at Pocono Raceway, Earnhardt has five top-fives, nine top-10s and one pole. In the past eight years at Pocono, Earnhardt ranks 16th out of 48 drivers with an average place of 15.9. Last year: Earnhardt had a car capable of snapping his winless streak, but a few long cautions spoiled his pit strategy. The driver managed an eighth-place showing and, despite some tense moments on the radio during the race, Earnhardt said he supported Steve Letarte’s decision to pit for gas on a late caution. A caution on Lap 125 came with Junior in the lead, and he pitted for tires. A caution on Lap 138 brought him in again for fuel, and he restarted 15th before making up some late ground. Post-Coca-Cola 600 driver reports 6. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is sixth in the standings with 364 points. Last week: Earnhardt Jr. had never won in Charlotte, and that trend continued in the Coca-Cola 600. Although Junior worked his way to just outside the top five through 120 laps, he began to fizzle and fade thereafter. On Lap 259, Earnhardt brought out the caution flag when his engine blew up, with the aftermath of that explosion collecting Greg Biffle, Dave Blaney and Travis Kvapil. It was a 39th-place finish, five-point night for Junior. What he said: “We had a massive catastrophic failure in the motor. We never have those problems. Hendrick guys always build good stuff, so not worried about this down the road. We will be all right.” This week: In 26 career starts at Dover International Speedway, Earnhardt has one win, five top-fives and eight top-10s. In the past eight years at Dover, Earnhardt ranks 21st out of 49 drivers with an average place of 19.2. Last year: Earnhardt’s loose car made it so that the No. 88 couldn’t challenge for the win, but it was certainly good enough for a top-five showing. Junior finished fourth last year after starting 17th. His No. 88 Chevrolet was in the top 10 by Lap 80, and it stayed there through 400 laps. He ran in the top five for the last half of the race. The finish also ended an eight-race streak at the track in which Earnhardt finished outside of the top 10. Post-All-Star weekend Driver Reports 4. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is fourth in the standings with 359 points. Last week: Earnhardt Jr.’s high spot came during driver introductions, when the North Carolina native was cheered long and loud at Charlotte. The race, though, was a difficult one for Earnhardt to get a handle on. He finished seventh. What he said: "This place is great as far as the history and the connection to the sport. Being local and having a lot of the crew members and mechanics and everybody involved in the sport get to bring out the wives and the girlfriends and the kids and all that stuff. Everybody gets to enjoy the race and gets to come and enjoy the weekend.” This week: In 26 career starts at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Earnhardt has five top-fives, 11 top-10s and one pole. In the past eight years at Charlotte, Earnhardt ranks 25th out of 52 drivers with an average place of 20.2. Last year: Junior nearly broke through for his first top-five at Charlotte since 2008, a span of eight points races. And although the No. 88 didn’t crack that mark, he did finish sixth -- after losing a spot to Brad Keselowski during the final green-flag run due to a loose lug nut on a pit stop -- much to the delight of his fans in Concord, N.C., less than 20 minutes away from where the driver was born. It was also his second consecutive top-10 in the Coca-Cola 600. Earnhardt has a connection with Charlotte track At the height of his father's success at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Dale Earnhardt Jr. would sit in the Turn 1 condos overlooking the track. The Earnhardts are from Kannapolis, just one town away, and watching Dale Earnhardt at the speedway was a source of pride. Next week marks the 20th anniversary of the late Earnhardt sweeping both the All-Star Race and the Coca-Cola 600, an event his son compared to the years his father dominated NASCAR. ''In '86 and '87, they were really about as great as you could be, and it was just a lot of fun to watch,'' Earnhardt said. ''I know the 600 was a big race and it's still a big race, but we didn't have Indy and places like that to share the spotlight. This was a big event, and it was similar to Daytona, and everybody was at the 600 and everybody was here. ''We would sit up in those condos and watch everything. All the practices and every lap, that every car ran all weekend long, and it was just a lot of fun, and certainly a different time and different sport than it is today. But it was a good experience for me in just being young and having the run of the place really.'' It's helped create a connection for Earnhardt with the speedway, where he won the All-Star race as a rookie in 2000. He's never won the 600 or the fall race at Charlotte in 26 tries. It made it difficult for NASCAR's most popular driver last October when a concussion forced him to miss the race. It marked the first time an Earnhardt didn't race at Charlotte since 1978, and the first time an Earnhardt missed a Cup race since the 1979 Southern 500. Regan Smith replaced Earnhardt in the No. 88 Chevrolet, and he wrestled with whether to attend the race or watch it on TV at home. He ultimately decided his presence would have been a distraction and unfair to Smith, who was thrust into the substitute role on little notice. ''I wanted Regan and the guys to concentrate and do the best job they could,'' Earnhardt said. ''Emotionally, it was just really hard to watch the car practice. Watching the race was - I knew I wasn't going to race - but the hard part is to see the car practice because I enjoy the process that we go through in practice when it's me and the guys and we are trying to figure out how to go faster. ''Once you are in the race, you have set the table and you sit down and you have dinner and whatever happens, happens. The preparation and buildup to it is what I enjoy most and I just really didn't like watching that. They were fast but man, when the car would go fast it was just a lot of emotions like envy and jealousy and just wishing to be out here. I was real selfish about it, I guess to a fault. But I am competitive and I wanted to be in the car and glad that I am back.'' Post-Darlington driver reports 4. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is fourth in the standings with 359 points. Last week: Earnhardt Jr. has struggled at Darlington recently, and he looked to be in for another long night at “The Lady in Black.” And while the No. 88 Chevrolet never fooled anybody into thinking it was a potential winning race car, it did get better as the night went on, and Junior drove to a ninth-place finish. It was Earnhardt’s first top-10 at Darlington since 2008 and gave the driver a 10-point cushion over fifth-place Clint Bowyer. What he said: “We had a real good car all weekend, just never really got great track position. The last half of the race the car was a little bit up out of the race track, but we were still pretty happy.” This week: In the past eight NASCAR Sprint Showdown non-points races at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Earnhardt ranks fifth of 39 drivers with an average place of 5.4. In the past eight non-points NASCAR Sprint All-Star Races, Earnhardt ranks 16th out of 37 drivers with an average place of 11.1. He has automatically qualified for the 2013 NASCAR All-Star Race. Last year: Without a victory in 2011, Earnhardt qualified for the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race last year by winning the 40-lap NASCAR Sprint Showdown. That win gave Junior an automatic entry into the main event later in the evening. And Earnhardt made the most of it, driving well and challenging for a win in the four 20-lap segments. In the final 10-lap dash to end the event, he finished fifth. Driver Report following Aaron's 499 3. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is third in the standings with 324 points. Last week: It has to be a great feeling to finish 17th behind Dave Blaney and then move up a spot to third in the standings. He’d be even closer to second-place Carl Edwards had he held on late, when he was in the top 10 on a restart with 10 to go. What he said: “We were on that inside lane and weren’t going forward. We were going backwards. Everybody was going by on the outside, and when it’s three- and four-wide, you can’t really go up. I don’t know.” This week: In 18 career starts at Darlington Raceway, Earnhardt has three top-fives and seven top-10s. In the past eight years at Darlington, Earnhardt ranks ninth out of 49 drivers with an average place of 12.6. Last year: Earnhardt wrestled with a loose car throughout the duration of the race, and he also had to overcome a pit road speeding penalty. But he stayed out of trouble enough to be on the lead lap late -- where he wasn’t early in the race -- and salvaged a 17th-place finish. It was his fourth consecutive year finishing outside of the top 10 at Darlington. Dale Earnhardt Jr. ready to take on Talladega The last time Dale Earnhardt Jr. climbed from his race car following a race at Talladega Superspeedway, he had some biting comments for the wild, crash-filled racing that had just unfolded. Bloodthirsty. That’s what he called those that enjoyed the dangerous events that often develop on the series’ biggest and baddest track, a 2.66-mile ribbon of asphalt that provides packs of cars the room to run three- and four-wide at speeds of 195 mph or more. He said if that type of racing took place every week, he’d find another line of work. He was angry. He was ailing. He had suffered his second concussion in barely one month’s time, the result of getting swept up in a multi-car crash on the final lap of the Oct. 7 Good Sam Roadside Assistance 500. Now, some seven months later and two days before NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series lines up once again for an afternoon of restrictor-plate mayhem, the Hendrick Motorsports driver is a bit less critical. “Well, I hate to put the blame on the concussion, but the feeling that I had physically when I got out of the car, I knew that I had set myself back somehow with the concussion thing,” Earnhardt Jr. said Friday. “And so I was really angry with that because I had spent four weeks to get to where I could feel like I was great. “And then now I’m going to take two steps back and have to do all that again, I was really, really mad that I couldn’t just get through that wreck and not have that happen.” A 19-time winner in Cup, and the series most popular driver for 10 years running, Earnhardt Jr. suffered a concussion in a crash while testing at Kansas Speedway in August of 2012. A little more than one month later, he was hurt again when his No. 88 Chevrolet was swept up in a 25-car pileup on the final lap at Talladega. The injuries sidelined Earnhardt Jr. for two races, Charlotte and Kansas, and erased any hopes of contending for the Chase For The Sprint Cup title. He plummeted from seventh in the standings to 12th by the time he returned to the seat three weeks later at Martinsville. “I don’t care if I’m in the crash and out of the race, but to get out of the car and feel concussed and feel like, ‘Oh shoot man, now I’ve got to go through the process again’ and ‘you’re not supposed to have them close together’ and all this stuff so you just have all kinds of worry running through your mind,” he said. “It had me really, really angry and not myself, obviously. “So, I’ve regretted that. I’ve regretted making those comments and I think I overreacted and overstated my feelings quite a bit. It’s frustrating when you run around and we spend all day running 495 miles and then crash in the last five (miles). The whole field crashes. It’s really frustrating to sort of accept that. … That’s hard to wrap your brain around.” A five-time winner at Talladega (including four in a row from 2001-03), the 38-year-old Earnhardt Jr. is much more at ease today, he said, as he and his team prepare for the series’ second restrictor-plate race of the season. “I don’t think about Talladega when I come here for a race such as this weekend in a bad way,” he said. “I think about it as a place where I’ve done well. I think about it as a place where we need to win and we can win. I know what I need to do to win at places like this and we can make it a good weekend. “And if I drive the way I need to drive, I’m not in position to be in a wreck. I’m up front where I’m supposed to be. That’s my feeling inside … I’m supposed to be up front.” Fourth in the points standings, Earnhardt Jr. had the best 10-lap average in Friday’s opening practice for Sunday’s Aaron’s 499 and posted the 12th fastest single-lap time. He was 23rd in the afternoon session. Qualifying for Sunday’s race is scheduled for 12:10 p.m. (ET) on Saturday. Driver reports following Toyota Owners 400 4. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is fourth in the standings with 297 points. Last week: Earnhardt Jr. wasn't particularly fast in practice or qualifying at Richmond, but the No. 88 team turned in a 10th-place performance that was more grit than glamour. In fact, when Junior crossed the start/finish line in 10th, it marked the first time of the race that he cracked the top 10. It was Earnhardt's sixth top-10 of the year, but his first in the past four races. This week: In 26 career starts at Talladega Superspeedway, Earnhardt has five wins, nine top-fives and 13 top-10s. In the past eight years at Talladega, Earnhardt ranks second out of 50 drivers with an average place of 15.0. Last year: Much like his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kasey Kahne, Earnhardt deftly avoided a large wreck -- this one during a Lap 186 restart -- by steering his No. 88 Chevrolet toward the middle of the track, then going high to avoid a spinning Paul Menard. Avoiding that pileup allowed Earnhardt, who once won four consecutive races at the track, to finish ninth. Post-STP 400 driver report 5. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is fifth in the standings with 263 points. Last week: Following a brutal week in Texas, Earnhardt Jr. had a good race car -- but more bad fortune-- in the STP 400. Junior worked his way to the front of the field after starting 23rd and was in the top five with less than 50 laps to go. Like most of the lead pack when a caution flew on Lap 217, Junior got caught in a bad position with pit stops. He finished 16th. This week: In 27 career starts at Richmond International Raceway, Earnhardt has three wins, nine top-fives, 11 top-10s and one pole. In the past eight years at Richmond, Earnhardt ranks ninth out of 48 drivers with an average place of 15.2. Last year: Earnhardt snapped a skid of six consecutive races in which he had finished outside the top 15 at Richmond. In the spring race last year, Junior gained positions on pit road all day and, even with brake issues plaguing his No. 88 Chevrolet at the end, got enough of a jump on a late restart to finish second. He was the highest finisher for Hendrick Motorsports, which had three drivers in the top six. What he said: “We were fine. We were running in the top five. We had good speed. I think we would have finished in the top five. We had a shot at it.” Earnhardt pleased with team's progress An ill-timed caution thwarted Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s run at Kansas Speedway, turning a potential top-five finish into a battle to race his way back into contention. But time ran out and the Hendrick Motorsports driver finished 16th in his first start at the 1.5-mile track where he suffered a concussion during testing last August that eventually sidelined him for two races. Third on lap 200 of the 267-lap race, Earnhardt Jr. was one of a handful of drivers that had just pitted when the caution flag appeared for debris in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. “We didn’t need that caution,” a concerned crew chief Steve Letarte told his driver via radio. After a bit of initial confusion about who would get the free pass (awarded to the first car one lap down), NASCAR officials awarded the spot to Ricky Stenhouse Jr., meaning Earnhardt Jr. was one of several cars one lap down and taking the “wave around.” Unable to pit without losing any additional track position, Earnhardt Jr. restarted the race in the 21st position. “I was real worried,” he said. “I was a lap down. I just had an idea there that we was in big trouble and were going to have a hard time finishing as well as we were running. “We were the ‘lucky dog’ because we were ahead of the No. 17 (Stenhouse), a lap down; but NASCAR has a way of scoring it and they scored it the way they scored it. That’s the rule. It’s not a real big deal. “If we were the ‘lucky dog,’ we would have been able to have the advantage of coming down pit road and work on the car a little bit and take some tires. But we weren’t.” Mired in the middle of traffic, Earnhardt Jr. was able to pick up several positions in the closing laps, but with no more cautions falling and track position paramount, his fate was sealed. Still, the performance of the team and the speed in the car was welcome, coming on the heels of two finishes outside the top 20 that had seen Earnhardt Jr. fall from the points lead to sixth in the standings. “We’ve ran good in all of them,” he said. “We’ve had poor luck; you can’t do much about that. “We’ll just have to keep working. But the cars are fast. We know we can run well. I’m really happy about how the cars have been driving and the work we’ve been doing. I’m extremely happy with the engines today. The power in the car was just incredible.” Driver reports following Texas race 6. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt is sixth in the standings with 234 points. Last week: Earnhardt struggled for the second consecutive week, finishing 29th and four laps down, losing three spots in the points standings in the process. The crucial moment came when Junior was running third and his engine cut off. The battery was dead, but the driver made a snap decision to enter pit road -- which cost him greatly. After diagnosing the problem, Earnhardt switched to his backup battery, but was busted for speeding on pit road and had to take a pass-through penalty. Crew chief Steve Letarte ordered fresh tires on the pass-through, which was a violation, meaning Earnhardt had to pass through -- again -- the next lap. Next week: In 13 career starts at Kansas Speedway, Earnhardt has one top-five, six top-10s and one pole. In the past eight years at Kansas, Earnhardt ranks 16th out of 50 drivers with an average place of 16.7. Last year: Following a three-race stretch of struggles at Kansas, Earnhardt took steps to solve his team’s malaise, finishing seventh in the 2012 STP 400. Junior ran in the top 10 all day and held his position late despite a race car that gradually lost its rear grip. What he said: “I don't know what else we could have done different aside from me understanding better what was going on with the car and diagnosing it on the race track and switching to the second battery and not losing any laps. That was just my mistake.” Power outage dims Earnhardt's hopes in texas One second. That’s how much time Dale Earnhardt Jr. estimates he would have lost had he realized immediately that an electrical problem seizing his No. 88 car Saturday night at Texas Motor Speedway was due to a dead battery. Instead, confusion and bad timing combined to spark a crisis that cost Earnhardt five laps on the race track, and produce another difficult finish for the former Sprint Cup points leader. “Got no power!” Earnhardt reported while running third on the 1.5-mile track where he earned his first victory on NASCAR’s premier series 13 years ago. Entering Turns 1 and 2, his dashboard gauges went red and his tachometer went haywire. Going into Turn 3, his engine cut off completely. With pit road approaching, he was forced to make a snap decision -- so he pulled off the race track, rather than risk stalling out on it. “Things break on these cars, and you don’t know right away what it is,” Earnhardt said after the race. “It’s real easy to have hindsight and say man, that’s pretty simple. But when the motor quits running, you don’t really know why. You have to diagnose it, and it took us more than a few seconds. I couldn’t coast past pit road, because if it was something we couldn’t fix on the car, we were going to be stalled on the track and lose a ton of laps that way anyway.” As soon as Earnhardt reached his pit stall, though, the problem was evident -- his battery had gone dead, the result of an alternator that was acting up. For drivers, changing over to a backup battery is a fairly simple task that involves throwing a switch inside the car. But with his dashboard gauges dark, he didn’t have much information to work with, and the approaching pit road elevated the urgency of the situation. “I don’t know what else we could have done different aside from me understanding better what was going on with the car, and diagnosing it on the race track and switching to the second battery and not losing any laps. That was just my mistake,” Earnhardt said. “All the gauges went bad. All the gauges just went haywire, and so I couldn’t read the gauges to diagnose what was happening. But once you start to think about it, you’re like, well, if all the gauges are going bad, we’ve got an electrical issue. Then you go right to the battery.” Which the No. 88 team quickly did once Earnhardt arrived at his pit stall. The switch was thrown and the car restarted, but the problems were just beginning. Because his engine had quit, Earnhardt couldn’t read his tachometer, so he sped entering pit road and was ordered by NASCAR to serve a pass-through penalty. Crew chief Steve Letarte opted to use the extra trip to take fresh tires, with one problem -- by rule, he couldn’t. That meant the No. 88 car had to come down pit road a third time. By the time the saga had ended, Earnhardt was five laps down and in 35th place. He finished 29th, and dropped three positions to sixth in the standings. Earnhardt said he was aware of the rule prohibiting cars from being serviced while serving a penalty. But he didn’t blame his crew chief, saying they probably would have had to make an extra trip for fresh rubber anyway, given they were nearing the outer limit of their pit window. “I thought we were probably better off getting tires anyway,” Earnhardt said. “We’d probably serve the penalty and then think about it, go ahead, come on and get tires and try to cycle, because we were about 15 laps away anyway. … I don’t know how it would have worked out, but I was pretty aware of that penalty. I’ve had a few of these speeding on pit road.” It all added up to a second straight rough week for Earnhardt, who was the only driver to finish in the top 10 in each of the season’s first five races, and led the Sprint Cup standings entering the short-track event last week at Martinsville. But there his track bar came loose and made the car tighter as the event went on, and played a role in contact with Danica Patrick that led to a 24th-place result. “It has been rough, but we had a real good car tonight,” Earnhardt said. “If we’re running bad and having these kinds of nights, we could have a hard time making that Chase (for the Sprint Cup). But running good, things will turn back around for us. We’ll get going. We’ve got a lot of confidence and a lot of positive attitude, and I feel like we’ll have no problem rebounding.” Even so, it had to be difficult to know that flipping one switch might have prevented the problem -- although the faulty alternator would likely have forced the No. 88 in for an eventual battery change. But that result would have been preferable to finishing five laps down. “Switch the battery, we’re good,” Earnhardt said. “We probably would have ended up putting a battery in it, because we burned down the second battery. We’d have probably had to go to the back of the lead lap at some point in the race and give up a ton of track position to fix that second battery. But we still would have finished in the top 20 rather easily.” Earnhardt eager to leave frustration behind Dale Earnhardt Jr. couldn’t wait to get to Texas Motor Speedway, and his eagerness had nothing to do with how well he typically runs on the big track in the Lone Star State. No, that anticipation level was directly related to his performance last weekend at Martinsville Speedway, the first real bobble in what has otherwise been an extremely steady early season for Earnhardt and his No. 88 team. He entered that race as the Sprint Cup Series points leader, and the only driver on the circuit to have recorded top-10s in every start to that point. He left after a problematic 24th-place finish that he stewed over until arriving Thursday morning in Fort Worth. “Everybody handles that kind of stuff differently. I really didn’t get over that run last week until we touched down today at Texas. I wanted to get to the race track as soon as I could, just to get that behind me and put a good result on the board and just forget about that run. You can’t really do that until you get to the race track,” Earnhardt said behind his hauler. “Steve’s got kids -- those kids seem to get you over things like that a little faster,” he added, referring to crew chief Steve Letarte. “You get home and you see what they’re doing and get involved in their lives and kind of forget about all the bad things happening in your life. I did spend some time with my nephew this week, so that helped out a little bit. But everybody handles it differently. It’s hard for me to get over stuff like that, and it takes until I can get to the race track and redeem myself, really, to be able to get over it.” The frustration is understandable, particularly given that much of the damage was self-inflicted. Although Earnhardt was involved in a scrape with Danica Patrick and wound up two laps down to race winner and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson, he said the problems all started with a loose bolt in the track bar that left the No. 88 car too tight to drive. “The track bar came loose on the left side and was moving all over the place,” Earnhardt said. “We had what Steve labeled as an improper installation. There’s a key in the back that holds the sway bar in place on the mount, and that key came out and got turned, so when they tightened the sway bar up in the morning, the key wasn’t in place to hold the sway bar tight, and the bolt was able to back out rather easily with just the general forces that it sees in the corners laterally and with all the loads. It came loose and it dropped down, and when you move the track bar down it really, really tightens the car up. … It moved an inch, which is a big, big, major change, and it really affected the handling of the car. The car just wasn’t driving very well, especially at the end of the race.” The problem manifested itself most clearly late in the race, when contact with Patrick caused Earnhardt to spin. But Earnhardt knew it was only a matter of time. “I’m surprised I didn’t get run over sooner,” he said. Johnson put him a lap down, leading some spectators to wonder if his teammate should have tried to cut him a break --- which Earnhardt said simply wasn’t feasible. “Jimmie couldn’t slow down. You slow down, the guy behind you has the right to take your position. I lost a position to (Denny) Hamlin under caution at Phoenix, so I know all about that situation all too well. Jimmie, leading the race, couldn’t take that chance,” Earnhardt said. “He did actually try to slow down, and I think he saw I had two left-side flat tires and it was pretty pointless of him to wait. If he stopped at all, the guys behind him would have been able to pass him for that position. He couldn’t give up that opportunity or take that chance, take that risk. I would have done the same thing Jimmie did leading the race. I’ve got to think about my team, my car, what I’m trying to do. I don’t think he did it out of spite or anything like that. I think he’s just driving his race. We shouldn’t have been back there in the first place and been in that position to be run over. But fortunately, it was just a bad day for us, and it just seemed to get worse. But he wasn’t doing anything he’s not supposed to be doing. The guy’s leading the race, you know? He’s got to take care of what he’s doing. He’s got to race to win.” Earnhardt, meanwhile, was left to get whatever he could out of a car that deteriorated as the event went on. Now his attention gratefully turns to Texas, which remains a special venue for a driver who earned his first premier-series victory here in 2000. Although he hasn’t won on the 1.5-mile track since then, he has finished inside the top 10 in five of his last six starts. This Texas race weekend opened with a test Thursday, so teams could collect data on Generation-6 cars making their first laps at the facility. But to Earnhardt, it was less a shakedown and more a step toward returning to Victory Lane here for the first time in 13 years. “I’m not looking at this like a test,” he said. “I’m looking at this like, this is us preparing for the race. … We’re just going to work toward getting our car ready to race, and getting our car fast enough to try to win the race on Saturday night.” Post-Martinsville driver report 3. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt is third in the standings with 219 points. Last week: In the STP Gas Booster 500, Earnhardt had his worst showing of the year. He started the season with five consecutive top-10s, but finished 24th at Martinsville. Making matters worse -- Earnhardt finished two laps down, and his three Hendrick Motorsports teammates all finished in the top five. Next week: In 21 career starts at Texas Motor Speedway, Earnhardt has one win, three top-fives, 12 top-10s and two poles. In the past eight years at Texas, Earnhardt ranks fourth out of 48 drivers with an average place of 11.5. Last year: Earnhardt earned his third consecutive top-10 finish in the spring race at Texas Motor Speedway, coming in at 10th. After starting 16th, he was near the top five midway through the race, but his car became too tight to challenge drivers Carl Edwards (eighth) and Kevin Harvick (ninth), who were both conserving fuel. What he said: “At the start of the race we had a good car. We made a lot of adjustments to change that, though. It was a bad car at the end of the race.” Earnhardt loses spot atop standings Dale Earnhardt Jr. entered Sunday’s STP Gas Booster 500 as the points leader in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings. He exited third in points, hampered by an ill-handling car that grew steadily worse in the waning stages of the 500-lap race. By day’s end, Earnhardt Jr., 32, was two laps down to race-winner and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson; a 12-point advantage suddenly a 12-point deficit thanks to a 24th-place finish. “At the start of the race we had a good car,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We made a lot of adjustments to change that, though. It was a bad car at the end of the race.” The car was bad enough that Johnson put a lap on his teammate with 74 laps remaining. After that, it was a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time -- with 34 laps still on the board, Brian Vickers nudged Danica Patrick, who slipped up into Earnhardt Jr. and sent the No. 88 Chevrolet for a spin. Just like that, the former points leader found himself two laps down. There was talk that Johnson could have slowed up enough for Earnhardt Jr. to get his car headed back in the right direction once the caution flew on Lap 467, thus remaining only one lap off the pace. Crew chief Steve Letarte wasn’t looking for charity, however. There were no issues with Johnson or the No. 48 team, he said. “No, the issue is when you run like crap and you get in the back,” Letarte said. “That’s the issue. “I would never expect a teammate who was leading in the race to help you not go two laps down. That’s pretty embarrassing to ask him to do that.” While he remains winless through 27 Martinsville starts, Earnhardt Jr. has typically fared well on the small, tight half-mile track. History went for a spin, however, and his streak of five consecutive top-10 finishes to open the season came to an abrupt halt. It was a missed opportunity, he said, adding that, “I think we have to capitalize at the tracks where we run good and this is one of them. “I’m pretty disappointed that we ran like we did. We just have to try better when we come back … it’s a long year, things are going to happen. That doesn’t mean you have to like it. “I thought we would run great here.” A problem with the car’s track bar may have been at fault early on, Earnhardt Jr. said, but Letarte wasn’t putting the blame solely there. “I don’t think that was an issue for how we ran,” Letarte said. “Our car after about 30 laps was probably one of the worst in the field. We tried to fix that and as we did that took away some of our front-end speed. It just wasn’t good. You’ll have those days here.” Jeffrey Earnhardt to drive uncle's car at Richmond JR Motorsports says Jeffrey Earnhardt will drive the team's No. 5 Chevrolet in the Nationwide Series race in Richmond later this month. Earnhardt is the nephew of team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. He has competed in 14 career Nationwide Series races, including four this season for Archie St. Hilaire and Go Green Racing. He recorded a season-best 20th-place finish at Phoenix on March 2. The Nationwide Series race at Richmond is scheduled for April 26. The son of Kerry Earnhardt also made 10 starts in NASCAR's truck series in 2010 and 2011. He is only the second fourth-generation driver to compete in NASCAR's top touring series, joining the late Adam Petty. The No. 5 car is usually driven by Kasey Kahne or Brad Sweet. Points leader Earnhardt happy to cede spotlight It took a second post-race fracas in as many race weekends to relegate NASCAR's most popular driver to an afterthought. While crews and drivers were pushing and shoving on pit road, Dale Earnhardt Jr. departed Auto Club Speedway with the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series points lead in tow. Now he carries it into tiny Martinsville Speedway, once again overlooked given the continuing saga involving Southern California combatants Joey Logano and Tony Stewart, and the injured Denny Hamlin. As far as Earnhardt is concerned, everyone else can keep on scuffling. He doesn't mind working in the shadows, for once. "I feel like it gives us the opportunity to keep focusing on what we need to do. We're still not winning races, and I don't expect to get much attention until we can win races," Earnhardt, leader in the standings by 12 points over Brad Keselowski, said Tuesday on a conference call with reporters. "We've finished well, but I think there's a lot of areas where we can improve. We get to focus on that being out of the scope and out of the spotlight. We can pay more attention to, how do we keep getting better as a team? If we go out and win some races, we'll get credit where credit is due. But we've run well, we've gotten lucky, we've had good cars, we've worked hard. But everybody in the garage has done the same thing. There are other guys in the series not doing anything any flashier than we are. So I wouldn't expect the spotlight to be much brighter than it is. Hopefully we can win some races, though, and change that." Earnhardt may not have won since his victory last summer at Michigan that snapped an epic 143-race skid, but his level of consistency has become the standard on NASCAR's premier series. This season, he's the only driver to have finished in the top 10 in all five Sprint Cup events. Since missing two races late last year because of lingering concussion symptoms, he's notched top-10s in seven of his nine starts and completed all but two laps over that span. That trend continued in the most recent Sprint Cup event at Auto Club Speedway, where Earnhardt used a devastating finishing kick to surge from 18th to second over the final green-flag run. Now it's on to half-mile Martinsville, where Earnhardt has never won, but where he finished third last spring, has a personal-best driver rating and has led more laps (868) than at any other venue on the sport's top circuit. As he did in Southern California, Earnhardt has shown a knack this season for making up positions late in a race -- a trait for which he credits strategy calls made by crew chief Steve Letarte. At Fontana, a decision to take four tires and a fortuitous restart position in the favored outside lane helped Earnhardt seize the points lead from reigning champion Keselowski, who suffered his first finish of the season outside of the top five. All of which makes Earnhardt wonder if his current points position really reflects how well his car has run. No question, he's managed the finishes. But looking back over the first five races, he sees room for improvement. "Just circumstance and good fortune has been a big part of it," Earnhardt said. "We've ran good, we've had good cars, good speed. ? I think we're a better team than we were last year but still ?? I just feel like that we need to be winning races, we need to be running up in the top two, three all day long. We just need to run a little bit better. There's just a little bit there for us to gain until I feel super comfortable and feel, I guess, like our statistics and our points position really reflect on our performance." Between the blocking controversy ignited by Logano and Stewart and the fractured vertebra that's sidelined Hamlin -- who will be out at least five races, and have Mark Martin substituting for him at Martinsville -- there's plenty going on to steal the spotlight from Earnhardt, who sounds more than willing to give it up. While attention is diverted elsewhere, the points leader wants to improve his No. 88 program and prepare for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. "We've got time in the season to get there, and we did that last year. We got faster throughout the season. And by mid?summer, we were really one of the best teams out there, I thought," he said. "So I've got good confidence in the team that we're going to be able to gain what I think we need to gain to be able to compete once the Chase comes around, and hopefully we'll have that opportunity to be in the Chase at that point. But we've still got more to gain. There's guys out there that I see that have more speed, and I think that's the only thing that concerns me." Earnhardt, Sprint team up for safe driving Sprint Drive First could describe Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s points lead after the first five races as NASCAR Most Popular Driver enjoys a strong start to 2013 at the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season's first off-weekend. But Sprint Drive First? is a mobile application which helps drivers avoid the distraction of texting while driving. Earnhardt teamed up with Sprint for a 30-second ad to promote the app, which can block and send automatic replies to text messages while you drive. Scott Vincent, a director for three years on comedian Dave Chapelle's "The Chapelle Show," directs the spot, which was shot at Charlotte Motor Speedway in mid-March. It will begin airing during the race weekend at Martinsville Speedway. The overarching message is that driving isn't the problem, and texting isn't the problem; "and" is the problem -- as in texting "and" driving -- and we all can live without the "and." To help remove the temptation to drive and text at the same time, the Sprint Drive First app is offered as a solution. The ad features Earnhardt Jr. with two members of his crew in the garage at a track. One of them says, "Hey Dale, I got your text that said you couldn't text." Then the other says, "Wait. What? Why would he text that he couldn't text?" Earnhardt replies: "I was driving." The exchange ignites a discussion about how and why a text is sent when the person who sends the text doesn't actually send it -- all of which refers to the Sprint Drive First app and how it sends reply text messages while someone is driving. An additional video will be shown at the Sprint Unlimited Experience at tracks each weekend throughout the season where they can interact with Earnhardt by texting his number. The video features Earnhardt at a Sprint Unlimited Experience race simulator, where he talks about how driving in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series takes laser-like focus. He invites fans to try and distract him with a text as he gets into the simulator and sets his phone down at his side as the simulated race begins. Throughout April, fans who sign up to receive information from Sprint at the Sprint Unlimited Experience or online at www.Sprint.com/drive will receive a special poster of Earnhardt that includes Sprint Drive First information, and fans who sign the Focus on Driving pledge will receive a bumper magnet. Late charge vaults Earnhardt Jr. to series lead Dale Earnhardt Jr. wanted to get to the top of the race track. And on Sunday’s final restart he managed to do just that, riding it right to the top of the standings in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. “The restart before, he wanted to be on the top, and he went to the bottom and it didn’t work,” said Steve Letarte, Earnhardt’s crew chief. “I could tell he was very upset with himself. So we were pretty confident that he was going to the top. And he went to the top, top, tippy-top.” Indeed, there was Earnhardt making one of his patented runs in the high line over the final green-flag run Sunday at Auto Club Speedway, gaining one spot after another and clawing his way to second behind winner Kyle Busch. In the race, he was helped by the mutual assured destruction that rivals Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin unleashed on one another. In the standings, he was helped by a damaged race car that couldn’t keep Brad Keselowski at the front. And in the end there was Earnhardt, picking his way through the field before swooping low to avoid the fracas in front of him, and using his second-place result to seize a 12-point lead over Keselowski in the standings. “We just stick together,” said Earnhardt, the only driver to finish inside the top 10 in each of the first five events this season. “We were pretty good at closing races, something I never really was good at for years, and now we're doing it as good as anybody. Just riding the wave. Just real happy with how things are going for our team.” Earnhardt made up 17 spots over the 10-lap green-flag run that closed the race, and assumed the lead in the standings after Keselowski finished 23rd. Sunday marked the first time NASCAR’s most popular driver had led the Sprint Cup Series since last summer, when he was on top for two weeks. Earnhardt ultimately finished 12th in the standings last season after sitting out two races due to concussion symptoms. “I’d really like it if it were after race 36,” Letarte said, referring to the final points event of the season. Even so, the top spot is indicative of the consistency Earnhardt and his No. 88 team have shown since last season. “We’re racing very well,” Letarte added. “I don’t think we’ve had the best cars. I think we’ve had good cars. I don’t think we’ve been bad. But we’re racing vey well, and it feels good to race well. I know that sounds silly, but sometimes we get lost in all this practice speeds and social media and the world and they report every lap and every this and every that. It’s a contest of not just speed, but the guy has to get to the finish. You’ve got to do pit stops, you’ve got to do restarts, you’ve got to communicate. We had a lot of stuff not go our way today, so to recover and come back was pretty nice.” No question, Sunday featured its challenges, most notably a 21-second pit stop caused by a dropped lug nut that mired Earnhardt back in 22nd with -- appropriately enough -- 88 laps remaining. “Guys, we can’t have those,” Letarte told his crew over the radio, sounding like a school principal disappointed in a prized student. Earnhardt urged his team to shake it off. “Just a blip on the radar,” the driver said. “We dropped a lug nut and just didn’t do a very efficient job of putting it back on,” Letarte said after the race. “We’ll have to practice that. Because you can’t drop a lug nut and have a 21-second pit stop. It needs to be a 16- or a 15-second pit stop. But it’s hard to say much, because man, they have saved the car enough times over the last 10 or 15 races, and I think everybody heard that in Dale’s voice in the car. He has a lot more patience, because he sees the potential there.” In what would become a bit of foreshadowing for the end of the race, Earnhardt rapidly picked his way up through traffic. Soon enough, he was back up to 10th. “Hell yeah, buddy. Doing awesome,” Letarte told him over the radio. “Everybody just kind of patted each other on the back, and we were going to get another chance to redeem ourselves on pit road,” Earnhardt said afterward. “We had a good car. On that next restart we drove back up to 10th before the next caution, so I felt like we were back up in position to run well and everything was fine. We got a good pit stop on the next caution, and put that mistake behind us.” The pit crew was flawless at the end, although Earnhardt did drop back in traffic once again after a late set of tires didn’t agree with his car. It all set the stage for the finish, where Earnhardt was able to take four tires under the last caution and get into his preferred restart position. On the last one, he was right where he wanted to be. And as Earnhardt has done so many times on big tracks, he climbed up the race track and made his climb to the front. “He’s a great closer, and I don’t think he gets enough credit for that,” Letarte said. In fact, according to NASCAR Loop Data, Earnhardt leads the Sprint Cup Series in the Closers statistic, gaining 26 positions in the final 10 percent of races this season for an average of 5.2 spots gained per race. “Unfortunately, it hasn’t been for the wins, so maybe that’s why they haven’t seen it. But … the last 20 percent of every race, I think we’ve done the most gaining of about anybody. So that feels good to do.” Junior fills out first NCAA bracket Dale Earnhardt Jr. hates to lose -- even if it involves filling out an NCAA tournament bracket. Earnhardt, a serious fantasy football player and an avid Washington Redskins fan, ventured far afield this week and for the first time filled out an NCAA tournament bracket as part of a competition with race fans. “I got asked to do it,” Earnhardt explained during a question-and-answer session with reporters Friday afternoon. “I never filled out a bracket before, so it was my first time. I kind of like to watch the tournament, it’s interesting to see who the Cinderella teams are and how far (North) Carolina can go. I tend to pull for Carolina in college basketball. “I think Jimmie (Johnson) and I got asked to do it together, so (road manager) Mike Hoag came over to the house the other day and we sat down, thought it through and made my picks. I think I was 11-and-5 (after the first day of play).” Earnhardt said he enjoyed the challenge. “Well, I’ve only ever done fantasy football, and I didn’t really know if brackets were even that fun to do,” he said. “It’s my first foray into that. I think it’s pretty fun to do with your friends, but I’m such a football nut and focus so much on fantasy football that’s really all I ever thought about doing as far as fantasy sports go. “But this is pretty fun. I’m having a good time with it. I hate losing. I hate making the wrong pick. But what are you going to do? There’s a lot of games.” Earnhardt modest about fast NASCAR season start Dale Earnhardt Jr. had never filled out an NCAA tournament bracket before this year, even though he's a hoops fan. He would have done it earlier, but he doesn't like to lose. ''I didn't really know if brackets were even that fun to do,'' he said Friday. ''I hate making the wrong pick, but what are you going to do? There's a lot of games.'' NASCAR's most popular driver seems to be getting a whole lot closer to some more important victories during his outstanding start to the year. With two top-five finishes already, Earnhardt is second in the standings through four races, trailing Brad Keselowski by nine points heading into Sunday's race at Fontana. After his second straight second-place finish at the Daytona 500, Earnhardt followed up with three solid races, coming in fifth at Phoenix, seventh in Las Vegas and sixth last weekend at Bristol despite a rough day. Earnhardt has been driving too long to get excited a mere month into the season, even if his fans don't share his caution. ''When I hear people talking about the fast start, I just feel like you've got to take a lot of different factors into the equation,'' he said. ''We've had good fortune. We've got real lucky. ... We've ran well. We've had good cars, too. We also had real good fortunes on where we were restarting, what lane we were in, and just having good opportunities to get positions for various reasons at the end of these races.'' His teammates realize it's more than luck that's keeping Earnhardt up front. He's already comfortable in NASCAR's new Gen-6 car, which suits his driving skills well. ''Junior Nation, as we all know, is very vocal and large,'' Jimmie Johnson said. ''Any time he wins, it's a nice reprieve from the pressure that's associated with that. It would mean a lot to him on many levels, and for his team. They've been getting so much stronger year after year, week after week, and I think they'll be winning on a regular basis here before long.'' There's a good reason Earnhardt always brings discussions about his early steadiness back around to the importance of finishing first. He has made a tradition of getting off to strong starts - most notably in 2004, when he won at Daytona and Atlanta early - only to cool off late in the season. Earnhardt has been fairly consistent in recent seasons, yet has still won only four races in the last eight years. His victory at Michigan last August was his first win since 2008. Yet his current start is his best yet: Earnhardt had never put up an average finish of better than 10.25 in the first four races of the Sprint Cup series. He's just one of five drivers to complete all 1,283 laps this season, and nobody has spent more time on the lead lap - 99.53 percent, or all but six laps. ''It's a long year, and we're going to have some bad luck,'' he said. ''It's bound to happen. Nobody runs the whole season perfectly, and I'm just trying to get as many points as we can early, so when that bad luck comes, it doesn't hit us as hard as it hits some of these guys early.'' Earnhardt saw the importance of early points up close last season, when Hendrick Motorsports teammates Kasey Kahne and Jeff Gordon got off to slow starts and spent all summer playing catch-up. After two straight trips to the Chase, Earnhardt has proved he knows plenty about consistency. While other drivers whine about the new Gen-6 car's quirks and worry about its development during its first four races, Earnhardt has been a vocal supporter from the start, and his comfort is showing up on the track. Earnhardt's Chevy SS is lighter and more suited to his driving style. Earnhardt also loves the well-worn 2-mile track at Fontana, where he finished third last year. ''I like racetracks where you can move,'' Earnhardt said. ''It's real rough down the straightaways, really. The corners are fine, not rough at all. If they would just re-pave the straightaways, this place would be a blast. ... We should have a pretty good run here if we do everything right.'' If last week was an indication of Earnhardt's readiness, this could be his time. Earnhardt started 32nd at Bristol and moved up 26 spots, with third-year crew chief Steve Letarte guiding him through smart pit stops. When Kahne won, he brought Hendrick's Victory Bell into the shop for everybody's enjoyment - and it served as a reminder to Earnhardt. ''Every employee rings the ball,'' Earnhardt said. ''It's fun. I enjoyed that. I thought it was a good way to bring everybody together as one unit, one team. I'm ready to ring the hell out of it.'' When Earnhardt isn't working on another win, he's checking out his bracket, which he said was 11-5 on Thursday. As a big fantasy football player and a North Carolina basketball fan, he's even got a strong feeling about the NCAA final. ''I think Indiana will beat Duke,'' he said. ''I'm not a big Duke fan.'' Driver report following Bristol race 2. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is second in the standings with 157 points. Last week: In the Food City 500, Earnhardt finished with his fourth consecutive top 10 to open the season, and he had to work his way through the field to do it. The No. 88 started 32nd, and it appeared his run of top-10 finishes would end at Thunder Valley. Earnhardt, though, stayed steady -- and stayed out of trouble -- to finish sixth. This week: In 20 career starts at Auto Club Speedway, Earnhardt has four top fives and five top 10s. For point-paying races in the past eight years at Auto Club, Earnhardt ranks 20th out of 47 drivers with an average place of 20.2. Last year: Earnhardt broke through at Fontana, finishing in the top 10 for the first time since 2007. Junior was fifth when the day’s lone caution flag came out, but he moved up to third place when two cars in front of him pitted -- the forecast called for rain throughout the day, so most cars stayed out. Third place is where he finished, too. What he said: “I have to give all the credit to (crew chief) Steve Letarte. He made a couple, two, three great pit calls there at the end, and gave us the opportunity to get some guys on some old tires, and beat a few guys that we probably weren't going to beat. Great call by him.” Earnhardt Jr. keeps top-10 streak going Dale Earnhardt Jr. wasn’t entirely satisfied with his sixth-place finish in Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway, but said he was pleased that he was able to ease out of town with his fourth consecutive top 10. And a lot of the credit, he said, should go to crew chief Steve Letarte, whose late-race pit calls helped get the 38-year-old driver in position to race his way back into contention. “We need to do a little bit better; (I’m) not real satisfied with the overall performance,” the Hendrick Motorsports driver said, “but what Steve does on pit road is magic every week. He’s pretty sharp.” Earnhardt is now second in the point standings after four races in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series. He trails defending series champion Brad Keselowski by nine points (166-157). Hendrick teammate Jimmie Johnson, the previous points leader, finished 22nd due to a late-race problem and dropped to third in points. It was Earnhardt’s best finish since placing fifth on the fast, high-banked half-mile in 2008. Starting deep in the field at a race track that had been cleaned of rubber by overnight rains, Earnhardt raced his way into 12th by Lap 75 of the 500-lap event. Traffic and track position, however, kept him from moving forward until the latter stages of the race began to play out. He was 18th with just under 100 laps remaining, and just outside the top 10 when the race resumed with 40 laps left on the board. “We didn’t loosen the car up enough as the race went on,” he said. “Steve saw what was happening there and the last couple of adjustments really helped me. And I was able to take a little bit better tires and get around some guys and make some ground up and salvage a good finish. … The last 150 laps he made a lot of good pit calls -- two or three that really put us in position to get that finish.” Letarte said it was a combination of things finally coming together at a track where the team has been mostly mediocre in recent outings. “Luckily it came out way,” he said. “We’ve really struggled with completing good races here. We’ve had better cars here. We’ve made pit-road mistakes, pit strategy mistakes. It was good to finally have it go our way. “I wish we had had a little better car … maybe we could have finally won one. But to finish sixth with about a 10th-place car, that’s always a good day.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. Tops List Of Nascar's Highest-Paid Drivers Dale Earnhardt Jr. has been a lightning rod for Nascar fans since the he joined the top level of the sport in 2000. Fans have voted him the sport's most popular driver 10 straight years. He has dominated Nascar merchandise sales over the past decade with estimates putting his share as high as 35% of the total during some years. But the critics question his ardent following after extended winless streaks of 76 and 143 races and figure his support is simply a function of his famous name. Love him or hate him, there is no denying that Dale Jr. is still the biggest star in the sport. Earnhardt is also the highest-paid driver in the sport for the fifth straight year with total earnings of $25.9 million in 2012 by our count. Earnhardt's on-track performance has improved, and he made the Chase in 2012 for the second straight year after missing the cut in 2009 and 2010. He broke that 143 race winless streak at the Michigan International Speedway in June and is off to a strong start in 2013 with three straight top 10 finishes. We estimate that Earnhardt earned $12.9 million in combined salary and his share of prize money, which is split with Hendrick Motorsports. Earnhardt signed a contract extension with Hendrick in 2011 that will keep him part of Nascar's most valuable team through at least 2017. But what really separates Earnhardt from the rest of Nascar's top drivers is his off-the-track earnings, which were $13 million last year. While Earnhardt's licensing income is down like all drivers (some as much as 80%), he still generated the most licensing dollars in the sport last year. His endorsement income is tops as well, thanks to personal deals with Chevy, Goody's, Nationwide, Wrangler and more. His latest deal is a partnership with Minnesota snack company KLN Family Brands to form Dale Jr. Foods. Last month, they introduced four Dale Jr. flavors of potato chips: Crispy Original, Carolina Barbecue, Creole & Green Onion and Zesty Jalapeno. Another Hendrick driver, Jimmie Johnson, ranks No. 2 with earnings of $23 million. In fact, all four Hendrick drivers are among the 10 highest paid with Jeff Gordon No. 4 ($18 million) and Kasey Kahne at No. 9 ($12 million). Johnson barely missed his sixth Sprint Cup title in 2012, but it was still a banner year on the track, as he earned a Nascar-high $8.1 million in race winnings for the No. 48 car. His "Special Awards" and Sprint Cup bonuses added another $2.3 million. Johnson is the heavy betting favorite to win the Sprint Cup title in 2013 and got off to a strong start with his second Daytona 500 victory in February. His long-time primary sponsor, Lowe's, recently signed an extension with Hendrick Motorsports that will keep the sport's most successful pairing together through at least 2015 when Johnson's contract expires. Johnson's personal sponsors include: Gatorade, Chevy and Tylenol. Danica Patrick, ranks No. 7 with earnings of $12.9 million in 2012. Her merchandise was Nascar's ninth best seller in 2012, according to Fanatics.com, one of the largest online retailers of officially licensed sports merchandise. But that ranking will jump this year, as she only raced in 10 Sprint Cup races last year and will be running a full-time Sprint Cup schedule in 2013 for the first time. Her merchandise was flying off shelves after her she secured the pole for the Daytona 500. Her gear was Nascar's best seller in the week leading up to Daytona on Fanatics.com--a spot usually reserved for Earnhardt. The Go Daddy girl has 15 personal sponsors including: Coca-Cola, Nationwide, Tissot and Sega. Patrick gave Nascar a shot in the arm with her performance at Daytona, where she finished eighth and became the first woman to lead the Great American Race. Ratings for the race jumped 24%, and it was the most watched since 2008. The race was a hit for her car sponsor, Go Daddy, which received the second most exposure behind Lowe's, who sponsored Johnson's winning car, according to brand analysis and research firm Repucom. Go Daddy received $2.8 million in media value and all brands affiliated with Patrick garnered $6.8 million in value at Daytona by Repucom's count. Her fire suit was tops in overall sponsor exposure among the 43 drivers at Daytona. Patrick has attracted new followers to Nascar and elicited strong reactions, good and bad, from the sport's longtime fans. "She has polarized some fans and that is a good thing for a sport," says Nascar chief marketing officer Steve Phelps, who adds that Danica is a "great brand" and a "marketing phenomenon." Patrick is similar to Earnhardt in several ways. They are among the only drivers to garner significant personal endorsements with non-Nascar sponsors. She dominated IndyCar merchandise to a greater degree than even Earnhardt did with Nascar. She outsold the other 32 drivers combined at the 2005 Indy 500 and her merchandise was 43% of IndyCar’s total in 2006. Patrick raced for Earnhardt's Nationwide Series team, JR Motorsports, between 2010 and 2012. Nascar launched a five-year action plan last year that includes six core initiatives. One of those key areas is "driver star power," which is intended to raise the visibility of drivers. Danica and Dale Jr. already aced the class, as the two crossover stars in the sport. Drivers should pay close attention to this initiative. Star power is good for the bank account. Dale Jr. alters Nationwide schedule Looking to get more seat time at 1.5-mile tracks, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has altered his 2013 NASCAR Nationwide Series schedule and will compete in the Sept. 14 Dollar General 300 at Chicagoland Speedway. Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kasey Kahne, originally scheduled to compete at Chicagoland for the JR Motorsports organization, will replace Earnhardt Jr. in the May 4 Aaron’s 312 at Talladega Superspeedway. “Dale actually wanted to see if he could get some more time on the mile-and-a-halves and Kasey came back with the fact that he’d like to win at the superspeedways like Talladega,” Kelly Earnhardt Miller, JRM general manager, said on the team’s Dale Jr. Download, a weekly podcast on Dirty Mo Radio. “(It) just works out well with the mile-and-a-halves that we can work closely with Hendrick and be an asset to them, get our drivers more track time on those tracks so they can in turn hopefully be an asset to the Hendrick program as well.” Earnhardt, tabbed for four races in the team’s No. 88 Chevrolet, finished fourth at Daytona and seventh at Las Vegas earlier this year. In addition to the Chicagoland stop, he will also race in the April 12 event at Texas Motor Speedway. Kahne is slated to split time in the seat of the No. 5 entry with teammate Brad Sweet in 27 of 29 Nationwide races in which the team will carry Great Clips sponsorship. Driver report following the Kobalt Tools 400 3. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is third in the standings with 119 points. He is 10 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson and 17 points ahead of fourth-place Denny Hamlin. Last week: In the Kobalt Tools 400, Earnhardt Jr. stayed in the top 10 throughout the duration of the race to continue his strong start to the season. Junior’s seventh-place finish was actually his worst of the season, which again indicates how strong he’s been through three races. This week: In 26 career starts at Bristol Motor Speedway, Earnhardt has one win, seven top fives and 12 top 10s. For point-paying races in the past eight years at Bristol, Earnhardt ranks ninth out of 47 drivers with an average place of 14.0. Last year: Earnhardt’s recent middle-of-the-road showings at Bristol continued with a 15th-place finish. It was Junior’s fourth consecutive race at the .533-mile track in which he finished outside the top 10. What he said: “We ran a little bit better than where we finished, but just needed a little track position at the end. We got a pretty good little start to the season. We are working on (the car), trying to improve and we are running up front. So, real happy with that.” Streaking Junior ready for green flag Dale Earnhardt Jr. said he was ready to start Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Thursday afternoon. A full day of testing on Thursday only confirmed what’s been a candidly positive attitude from him about the performance and potential of the new Generation-6 car. And the performance and potential of himself. His eagerness to take the next green flag is easy to understand when you consider NASCAR’s favorite son is a perfect two top-five finishes in two races this season. And there’s no mistaking the swagger and smiles for someone never more committed to regaining championship form. “I’m feeling good,’’ Earnhardt told reporters Friday. “I just hope we get a little time just to make sure everything is working right and get a couple laps Saturday just to make sure everything is cool. “We’ll be ready to go.’’ Earnhardt has made good on a promise that his runner-up finish in the season-opening Daytona 500 -- his third second place in NASCAR’s Super Bowl in the last four years -- was a sign of good things to come. He led 47 laps last week at Phoenix and his fifth place finish keeps him in a tie with reigning Cup champion Brad Keselowski for second place in the standings -- only eight slim points behind leader Jimmie Johnson. It’s Earnhardt’s best 1-2 start to a season since he won the 2004 Daytona 500 and answered it with a fifth place at Rockingham, N.C. the next week. He led the points going to Las Vegas that year and ranked among the top-three in the standings for 31 of the first 32 races. Points leader, and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Johnson, along with Keselowski, are the only other drivers with two top fives to start the season. Depending where you are in the early points standings, it’s either a strong statement out of the gates or nothing to get excited about yet. “A one-one would be dominant, one-two is competitive,’’ said Johnson, who won the Daytona 500 and finished second at Phoenix. Conversely, Tony Stewart, who is ranked 23rd , cautions it’s too early to be worried about the standings. “There are so many things that can happen that I think it’s way too early to be thinking about that,’’ said Stewart, defending winner of Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 400. Earnhardt has a pair of runner-up finishes at Las Vegas and has led laps in seven races -- including 70 laps last year en route to a 10th place finish. Since 2007, he’s only finished worse than 11th once (16th in 2010). And unlike some of his competitors, Earnhardt doesn’t seem overly concerned with the transition to the Gen-6 car on the 1.5-mile tracks such as Las Vegas. “We always want to get better and always want to strive to be better as a sport,’’ Earnhardt said. “I think we’re going in a good direction. I like the new car. “Obviously, I’ve had a couple good runs with it so I’m excited about what we have going on and things are only going to get better from here as we learn more and more about tires. Earnhardt turned more laps (70) than anyone else in his No. 88 Amp Energy Orange Chevrolet in Thursday’s test and was immediately pleased with the results. “We had pretty good speed right off the trailer and just worked with a lot of things,’’ Earnhardt said. “We were ready to race in two hours (of practice) yesterday." Cleveland Show Sneak Peek: Driving Miss Donna, Courtesy of Dale Earnhardt Jr. The Cleveland Show feels the need for speed! On the March 17 episode, Cleveland (voiced by Mike Henry) convinces Donna (voiced by Sanaa Lathan) to unwind with a few drinks during her campaign run and they party a little too hard — so much so that they end up on a NASCAR track. Fortunately, that means they have a ride home — in the form of NASCAR drivers and guest-voice stars Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kasey Kahne and Tony Stewart. But what happens when Earnhardt runs out of gas and pulls into a self-service station? Check out an exclusive sneak peek below to find out. The Cleveland Show airs Sundays at 8:30/7:30c on Fox. Earnhardt, Kahne and Stewart's episode will air at a special time 7:30/6:30c on Sunday, March 17. (Video) Driver report following the Subway Fresh Fit 500 Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) - Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is second in the standings with 82 points. He is eight points behind leader Jimmie Johnson and zero points ahead of third-place Brad Keselowski. Last week: In the Subway Fresh Fit 500, Earnhardt Jr. led the third-most laps of the race (47) and was in contention for the win. In a final surge of pit stops, Earnhardt got hung up in traffic, which allowed Edwards to beat him onto the track in first place -- a spot he never relinquished. Junior managed to save his fuel during a caution before a green-white-checkered finish and finished fifth. This week: In 13 career starts at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Earnhardt has two top fives and six top 10s. For point-paying races in the past eight years at Las Vegas, Earnhardt ranks 14th out of 62 drivers with an average place of 15.9. Last year: On the pole, Earnhardt led for the first 43 laps, and then again for an additional 27 laps early in the race. An on-track incident with Mark Martin, though, both annoyed and slowed the No. 88 driver, who finished 10th. What he said: "Well, I hate to be frustrated at Phoenix, but I think we are. We had a real good car. We feel like we could have finished better than fifth, maybe won the race." Dale Jr. done in by Pit road pitfalls in Phoenix It might have been the result of a game of “cat and mouse” as crew chief Steve Letarte said, but it got his driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr., in the lead. And on a track where passing seemed difficult and lead changes were often determined by what took place along pit road, being out front was crucial. Earnhardt Jr. led 47 laps in Sunday’s Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix International Raceway, the second stop for NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series. Had he won the race off pit road during a caution on Lap 238, he might have led more. Including the all-important final one. But he didn’t; Carl Edwards did. And Edwards, riding a 70-race winless streak, came out of PIR with the victory. Earnhardt Jr. took little solace in a fifth-place finish, enough to keep him second in the series’ points standings. The two drivers were racing off pit road, Earnhardt Jr. appeared to have the advantage, and then the car of Casey Mears slowed to enter his pit stall, blocking Earnhardt Jr.’s progress and leaving Edwards to win the race back onto the track. “I hate to be frustrated at Phoenix, but I think we are,” Earnhardt Jr. said of his Hendrick Motorsports team. “We had a real good car. We feel like we could have finished better than fifth, maybe won the race. Just didn't get the breaks on pit road. “I just had to lift and give the spot to the 99 (of Edwards). That was the race in my opinion, and we almost had it won right there.” Earnhardt Jr. had qualified 21st, but made his way inside the top 10 by Lap 120 of the 316-lap race. He was able to stay there for the remainder of the race, eventually taking the lead at Lap 192 during a round of pit stops under the day’s sixth caution. When the yellow flew once again at Lap 311, fuel concerns among the leaders intensified. A green-white-checkered finish could erase a full day’s worth of hard work. “We were playing cat-and-mouse with all the crew chiefs on pit road all day about how much fuel you took each stop,” Letarte said. “I knew (Edwards) took more than us the stop before because that’s how we got the lead. So we basically just put as much fuel in as we could until they were next to us on pit road and we left, trying to race them around the corner.” Mears, however, was the unexpected player. “He was doing nothing wrong,” Letarte said. “He still had to go into his stall, and we had to check up because of him. That was basically the race for us.” Edwards, who entered pit road fourth, said he saw Mears' car ahead as he and Earnhardt Jr. were leaving pit road “and I thought, ‘I’m not exactly sure how this is going to work out’ and (Mears) turned left. “Dale could have run me up into the wall … spun Casey out and I could tell he thought about it. I think he did because there was that little pause and I thought, ‘He’s going to do it.’ And then he stood on the brakes and kept from tearing all the cars up; that had to be very difficult for him because I think we all knew right then that that could be the race.” Second a week ago at Daytona, Earnhardt Jr. left Phoenix trailing teammate Jimmie Johnson by eight points (90-82). With only one top-10 finish at the 1-mile track in his last six starts, Earnhardt Jr. tried to temper his disappointment at what he considered an opportunity lost. “We haven’t been good here,” he said. “So that was a good run for us. I was a little disappointed because I think we could have won. And you hate to give away … points. And I’d love to get to Victory Lane. “This is a good sign for us though that we’ve improved this much at Phoenix. Hopefully it’s a sign for the rest of the season and that we’re going to be all right.” Letarte said if there was any track where the team could use a top-five finish, “this is definitely it.” Given the fuel concerns, however, he wasn’t so sure his driver would be able to come home with a top 10, much less a top five. “We were scared to death,” Letarte said. “The first time the car has been full all day long is right here in post-tech. All day long we left short on gas, that’s how we gained our track position.” But, he said, “you don’t know how much is in it and … you don’t know what you’re getting for mileage. A lot of educated guesses, but I’ve been wrong with a lot of educated guesses before.” Slimmer Dale Jr. still 'no health freak' Dale Earnhardt Jr. fans can breathe easy. NASCAR’s most popular driver isn’t turning in his man card for Pilates, soy burgers and non-alcoholic beer. “I’m no health freak by no means,” Earnhardt Jr. said Friday at Phoenix International Raceway, site of Sunday’s Subway Fresh Fit 500 for NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series. But Earnhardt Jr. has, he said, dropped approximately 15 to 20 pounds since last year. Watching what he ate, how much he ate and a two-week long “detox diet” contributed to the slimming down of the 38-year-old. “I think the older you get, the more you have to do to kind of maintain a healthy weight,” he said. “That’s really what it’s about for me is just trying to maintain my weight so I don’t have to keep getting my driver suits altered throughout the season. Last year I was like, ‘Man, they’re shrinking, something is wrong with the washer.’ The detox diet was a 15-day process of “just fish, chicken and steamed vegetables,” he said. “And then there was like two days where you just ate vegetables and fruit. That was pretty tough for me to not have any meat.” Earnhardt Jr. said he really didn’t think about what -- or how much -- he was eating. “All kinds of stuff like pizza and wings and … not really watching portion controls and stuff like that,” he said, explaining that it had gotten out of control. “Reining all that back in; not getting too crazy about it though.” • Earnhardt Jr. said he felt no ill effects from his crash in the Feb. 23 NASCAR Nationwide Series race, and that he “felt awesome” the following day as he prepared for the season-opening Daytona 500. Earnhardt Jr. was one of 12 drivers involved in the last-lap crash that saw the car of Kyle Larson slam into the catchfence on the frontstretch. More than 30 fans were treated for injuries following the accident. Earnhardt Jr. was one of several drivers in the incident that endured hard impacts. Having sat out two races near the end of the 2012 season after suffering two concussions, he said he was pleased the incident didn’t trigger any more issues. “I was real happy that I was able to pass a personal test I guess,” he said. “When you have concussions sometimes they’re easier to get the second, third, fourth time around, so we survived that one. We’ll move on and try not to get in anymore wrecks.” Earnhardt passes big test after wreck Dale Earnhardt Jr. shook off a hard hit in last week's Nationwide Series race to start the Daytona 500 the next day. For someone who's coming off a concussion, it was a big step. ''I was real happy I was able to pass a personal test, I guess,'' Earnhardt said from Phoenix International Raceway on Friday. ''When you have concussions, sometimes they're easier to get the second, third, fourth time around, so we survived that one. We'll try to move on and not get in anymore wrecks.'' Earnhardt made the Chase for the championship last season, but finished 12th after missing the final two races due to post-concussion symptoms. He had his health tested right away this season after hitting the wall hard during a last-lap crash in the Daytona Nationwide race last Saturday. The 12-car melee started as the cars headed toward the checkered flag and leader Regan Smith attempted to block Brad Keselowski, setting off a chain reaction. Rookie Kyle Larson's car went airborne during the wreck and flew into the fence, injuring more than two dozen fans. Earnhardt tried to steer clear of the carnage in front of him, but was blocked and got sent into the wall hard. He was cleared in the medical center after the wreck and returned the next day for the Daytona 500, where he finished second for the third time in four years after a late charge. ''I was concerned just how my body was going to react to that,'' Earnhardt said. ''I felt pretty good after the wreck and that evening and the next day felt awesome, and was able to get in the car. Everything came naturally and (I) was able to put together a good race.'' Post Daytona 500 Driver Reports 2. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88) Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet Where he stands: Earnhardt Jr. is second in the standings with 42 points. He is five points behind leader Jimmie Johnson and one point ahead of third-place Mark Martin. Last week: In the season-opening Daytona 500, Earnhardt -- who blew out an engine early in the week -- recovered to place second behind teammate Jimmie Johnson. Junior was outside of the top five with two laps to go before bolting toward the front. This week: In 21 career starts at Phoenix International Raceway, Earnhardt has two wins, four top fives and eight top 10s. For point-paying races in the past eight years at Phoenix, Earnhardt ranks 20th out of 63 drivers with an average place of 17.7. Last year: Starting 29th, Earnhardt found speed and steadily bettered his track position. He finished 14th, and was one of 17 drivers to finish on the lead lap. What he said: “The engine was great. The car was real fast. You had to be real patient and if you tried to pull out you would go to the back of the field.” Runner-up finish bittersweet for Junior For the third time in the last four years -- and fourth time overall -- NASCAR’s favorite son, Dale Earnhardt Jr., has finished runner-up in the Daytona 500. And he’ll take that. Eighth place with six laps to go and fourth place as the pack took the one-to-go white flag on Sunday, Earnhardt once again put on a drafting and passing exhibition with his No. 88 National Guard Chevrolet, thrilling the fans and setting his season off on the right foot. “I think it’s important to get a good start, points-wise,’’ Earnhardt said. “It’s important to put a good foundation of points together. If you get behind early, it seems like you’re still chasing that Chase spot at Richmond. “Hopefully we can keep the pressure on them and stay up in the top five in the points and win some races. I want to really try to win some more races this year. That’s our focus.” And Earnhardt is serious about that. After last year’s second-place finish in the Daytona season-opener, he only finished worse than 10th three times through June and a result worse than 15th once in that span. He picked up his first win in four years at Michigan later in the summer and was leading the Sprint Cup Series championship standings by August. Although he qualified for the Chase and was even considered a front-runner, he missed two races recovering from a concussion and ultimately finished 12th in the standings. In that case, it wasn’t about where the season ended, but how it started off. NASCAR’s most famous stage, Daytona International Speedway, has always been Earnhardt’s playground. He won the 2004 Daytona 500 and 2001 July Sprint Cup race here and has six Nationwide Series victories on the 2.5-mile track. He’s won three Daytona 500 qualifying races and a pair of Sprint Unlimited exhibition events too. So it surprised no one, that when the checkered flag waved Sunday, Earnhardt was in contention to win. He hung around among the leaders all afternoon, but never led a lap, instead carefully negotiating his way through the field, plotting his ultimate strategy. “I just went to where I needed to go all day long,’’ Earnhardt said. “You had to really pick and choose your battles and really be decisive on whether to go or not go on certain runs.’’ “I really don’t remember much -- except for the last lap -- of the rest of the race … anything we did, who we raced with even. It was a lot of fun, I had a good time.’’ “I was just trying to get the best finish I could,’’ Earnhardt said, smiling as he explained why he chose not to stick with his former driver Danica Patrick as a drafting partner in the final laps. “I wanted to get in the media center to thank my crew and everything. Was just trying to get on the podium.’’ Like so many of his fellow competitors, the Daytona 500 remains the ultimate prize. And while coming this close this many times is encouraging, Earnhardt says there’s nothing like celebrating this victory. “You just don’t know when you’ll ever get the opportunity again or if you’ll ever get that opportunity again,’’ Earnhardt said. “I knew before I won in 2004, I was reserved to the idea I may be trying to win this race my entire career, because I knew all too well how that was for my father. “I felt so much relief when I did win it, I’m ready to do it again.’’ Earnhardt finds speed just in time for 500 They had engine trouble in practice on Wednesday, and fell out of the draft. They were too tight in their qualifying race Thursday, and not as competitive as they’d hoped. For much of these Speedweeks, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his No. 88 team have fought a battle to get their car in shape to contend in the Daytona 500. Saturday, those efforts paid off when Earnhardt Jr. posted the fastest speed of final practice -- and indeed, the fastest speed of these Speedweeks -- for the Great American Race. “We knew we had work to do, and we found a lot of good stuff on Friday and just confirmed it again today,” said Steve Letarte, Earnhardt’s crew chief. “We’re excited. We’re excited to get the 500 underway. We feel like we have a whole lot better car than we started the week with.” Earnhardt made 11 laps Saturday, his fastest a circuit of 198.592 mph that bettered any other speed posted this week -- including Danica Patrick's pole-winning run six days ago. Although several top drivers including Patrick, Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon sat out the final session, 34 of the 43 drivers in Sunday’s starting field took part. Prior to Saturday, Earnhardt hadn’t been much of a factor at Daytona. He wasn’t a contender to win The Sprint Unlimited exhibition last week, he posted the 19th-fastest speed in front-row qualifying the next day and placed ninth in the first of Thursday’s 150-mile qualifying Duel races. But Earnhardt participated in every practice at Speedweeks, and showed speed Friday before topping the chart in the final session before the Daytona 500. “I think we were an average car when we were here early in the week, but we have way higher expectations than average,” Letarte said. “We can’t guarantee success, but we can guarantee no one will outwork us. We took part in every practice. As far as being on track, we were out there with them. You’re not always going to be able to turn over the right stone, but we feel like we have turned over the right ones a couple of times down here, and we have a much better can than we had earlier in the week.” David Gilliland was second-fastest Saturday, followed by Clint Bowyer, Marcos Ambrose and Aric Almirola. Gilliland is no stranger to solid runs at Daytona, having won a pole here with Yates Racing in 2007 and finishing third in this event two years ago with his current Front Row Motorsports team. “Hopefully we can get a win here. I feel like we can,” Gilliland said. “I feel like our team is capable of doing it, and obviously it is 500 miles at Daytona, but it is a great feeling going into the race knowing that (car owner) Bob Jenkins and everybody have really put a lot into our program over the winter.” Kevin Harvick, who won The Sprint Unlimited and the first Duel race on Thursday, made 10 laps in his car Saturday and placed 19th on the sheet. It was a last shakedown for Harvick, who sat out Friday’s two practices. Some others skipped the final session, believing their car was ready enough, and not wanting to risk damaging anything before the main event. “I think the more accidents you see earlier in the week, the less people want to practice the day before the Daytona 500,” said Gordon, who will start alongside Patrick on the front row. “… We learned a lot in the 150, and we just needed to fine-tune, and we were able to do that yesterday. And so we don’t really have any reason (to go out). If there was something that popped out that we would try to do, we’d be out there today. … The thing is, unless you’re in a big pack, you’re not going to learn a whole lot more. And we don’t want to risk being in a big pack in practice. We’ll do that in the race when it really counts.” That comes Sunday, in the biggest race of the NASCAR season. And if final practice speeds are any indication, Earnhardt’s car appears to be rounding into shape just in time. “I think we have a car that can win the Daytona 500. Unfortunately, I think there are 20 guys who can say the same thing,” Letarte said. “What makes the Daytona 500 such a prestigious race is, you’ve got to have a good car, and you have three and a half hours to not make mistake. You have to be very efficient all day long.” EARNHARDT JR. CONFIDENT FOR DAYTONA 500 DESPITE STRUGGLES Quiet most of Speedweeks, Dale Earnhardt Jr. made a little noise Saturday. Earnhardt topped the speed chart for the final practice session before Sunday's season-opening Daytona 500. The 2004 Daytona 500 champion turned the fast lap by averaging 198.592 mph around the 2 1/2 -mile superspeedway. David Gilliland was second, followed by Clint Bowyer, Marcos Ambrose and Aric Almirola. Pole-sitter Danica Patrick and Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Tony Stewart were among 10 drivers who skipped the 1 1/2 -hour final tuneup. Patrick is trying to become the first driver win the Daytona 500 from the pole since Dale Jarrett in 2000. Only nine drivers have accomplished the feat in 54 years. Three-time Daytona 500 winner Jeff Gordon, 2010 Daytona 500 champ Jamie McMurray, Casey Mears, Terry Labonte and Joe Nemechek also sat out the session. So did Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth. "We don't have any plans to go out," Gordon said. "We feel like this entire week we have been able to learn everything we need to get prepared for the race tomorrow. ... We've got a great race car. We are excited. We've got a great opportunity here." Before Saturday, Earnhardt had done little during Speedweeks. He finished eighth in the Sprint Unlimited and ninth in his qualifying race. He will start 19th in the "Great American Race," his lowest opening spot in 14 years at NASCAR's premier event. His speed in the final practice had to boost the team's confidence. Almirola, however, posted the best 10-lap average. He averaged 196.195 mph over 10 laps on new tires. Earnhardt was sixth on that chart. "We are excited about this weekend and feel like we have a good car and got it driving good in that last practice session," Almirola said. The final session involved little bump-drafting and even less side-by-side action -- no doubt because teams were leery of wrecking race cars about 24 hours before the Daytona 500. Defending Sprint Cup Series champion Brad Keselowski provided the most action when he hit a bird. "I killed a Tweetie bird," said Keselowski, one of auto racing's top Tweeters. Keselowski was 17th in the final practice. "This is our 500 engine, so trying to get an idea of how it's going to perform," he said. "My car is really good. Definitely faster than what it was, so that's good, right? I'm definitely optimistic." Of the teams that didn't practice, most of them valued keeping their car intact over incremental gains that could be found so late in Speedweeks. Patrick, Stewart, Gordon and the Gibbs cars have been some of the fastest all week. NASCAR's big names take time to find right sponsor For sale! Made-for-TV premium ad space on the hood of the car of NASCAR's most popular driver. Believe it. Even Dale Earnhardt Jr. has coveted sponsorship up for grabs. In fact, his No. 88 Chevrolet lacks a primary sponsor for about one-third of the 36 Sprint Cup races this season. The perfect corporate sponsorship has yet to materialize for Earnhardt and team owner Rick Hendrick. Both are preaching patience, believing the right deal will eventually fall into place, and not a dire sign that big business has soured on NASCAR. ''We're just looking for the right corporations that are a good fit for us, that are long-term, that want to be in the sport for a while,'' Earnhardt said. ''You don't just take the first guy that comes along.'' Earnhardt is one of the lucky drivers that can afford to be picky in the race for cash. But Hendrick is not alone when it comes to teams still trying to make all the sponsor pieces fit for a season that opens with Sunday's Daytona 500. Stewart-Haas Racing - owned and operated by three-time Cup champion Tony Stewart - has about 20 races spread out over three cars that need a top sponsor. Not even NASCAR's biggest stars are immune from the economic pinch that plagues a sport dependent on Fortune 500 dollars. Earnhardt's sponsorship dried up when Pepsi, through Diet Mountain Dew and Amp, sliced its sponsorship from 20 races to five in 2013. The National Guard did bolster its support of the No. 88, going from 16 to 20 races. Earnhardt, who's made the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship each of the last two seasons, is somewhat hindered in finding the right fit because of conflicts with committed corporate sponsors. For example, his Pepsi deal is the reason he ditched Budweiser when he signed with Hendrick Motorsports for the 2008 season. At Daytona, Earnhardt has the National Guard on the No. 88 for ''The Great American Race.'' His sponsorship deals run low around mid-summer, so there's time to sign new business partners. Earnhardt is one of the superstar faces of NASCAR. Even as the wins have dried up, he was still voted NASCAR's most popular driver for each of the last 10 years. He can't be associated with any fleeting or cheesy sponsors. ''You have to think about what's good for his image,'' Hendrick said. ''Some of that has stopped us. There's been a lot of interest.'' Hendrick announced at Daytona he locked up Lowe's for five-time champ Jimmie Johnson's No. 48 Chevy for 2014. Lowe's has sponsored Johnson for the first 399 races of his Cup career. With a new paint scheme, Lowe's again will be on the side of the car for start No. 400 in the Daytona 500. Lowe's, in fact, is likely one of the biggest sponsor spenders in NASCAR. While most numbers are never publicly announced, NASCAR insiders say it costs about $18 million to $20 million a year to fund an elite driver's car for a full season. Some of the low-budget teams try and get by on around $5 million. ''You can have the best financed team in the series, but if they don't know how to apply it, it doesn't matter,'' Stewart said. ''There's teams that have taken less money and gotten better results out of it because they know how to use the money, where to put it.'' Stewart-Haas lost the U.S. Army from Ryan Newman's No. 39 Chevy and Office Depot is gone from Stewart's No. 14. Danica Patrick came aboard this season with the potential of rare, full-season sponsorship from Go Daddy. Winning the Daytona pole only spiked the buzz among all the brands. Drivers are hampered by NASCAR policy in some cases. Sprint's exclusive naming rights deal for the Cup series eliminates other communications companies like AT&T from consideration, and big tobacco sponsorship money is no longer welcome in NASCAR. Unlike other sports, where a fast food chain could become the official burger of multiple teams in the same league, there's no crossover in Cup. Johnson and teammate Jeff Gordon won't both be driving with Lowe's plastered on the car in the same race. But walking down pit road is still like entering a Costco: chips and soda, oil and beer, car parts and fertilizer as far as you can see. Still, challenges remain. ''It just continues to be a tough sponsorship market,'' said Jill Gregory, the NASCAR vice president of industry services who helps connects sponsors with teams. ''There's more inventory available and I think teams are starting to have to get more creative. Some of that sponsorship that cascaded down to the Nationwide and Truck Series are sticking with Cup. There's more competition than ever.'' If a business is willing to open its wallet, NASCAR is still among the best bang-for-buck value in sports. Mobil 1 is entering its 11 year as an official NASCAR partner and a new contract extension runs through 2017. According to Mobil 1, NASCAR fans are nearly twice as likely to prefer, try and recommend the brand because it is the ''Official Motor Oil of NASCAR.'' ''What's appealing to us is the ability to be able to tell our technology story, and we know how engaged fans are involved from a digital standpoint,'' Mobil 1 global brand manager Rebecca Aldred said. ''We wanted a way to reach and engage the fans with the technology story and explain why half the NASCAR teams choose Mobil 1.'' Mobil 1 signed up again even with fewer eyeballs on the televised product. ESPN's ratings from the championship finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway were down 25 percent from 2011, the most-viewed race in network history. Ratings were down or flat for all 10 Chase for the Sprint Cup championship races last season. Earnhardt Racing president Steve Lauletta said ratings are just one slice of a successful sponsorship puzzle. ''When people see TV ratings are lower than they were, and attendance lower than they were, it doesn't mean it's still not a viable place, because it is,'' he said. ''You just have to think differently. We just have to be more creative and figure out ways to deliver value.'' With team budgets slashed, that means thinking outside the car. Teams and sponsors team up for contests on social media and other outlets to spread the word of various products. Kevin Harvick hitched a ride with Budweiser Clydesdales on Wednesday morning down a random Florida street to deliver his sponsor's beer, among other prizes, to Marine veterans. This Bud's always for you - even at 10:30 a.m. Gone are the days of the early 2000s - before the crippling economic swoon - when corporate America was the one offering the first pitch. ''I tell Chip (Ganassi), part of me is wishing I was here when CMO's were knocking on the door saying, 'How much do I make this out for?''' Lauletta said. James Finch spun the money he made in his own construction company into a racing team that has operated in NASCAR on a shoestring budget for most of the last 25 years. Finch has piecemealed sponsorship deals for his Phoenix Racing team with Guy Roofing and Tag Heuer to run this season and has Regan Smith entered in the No. 51 Chevrolet for the Daytona 500. Finch suggested a cap, akin to a salary cap in other sports, on how much sponsors can spend on a team in NASCAR. Finch took on Kurt Busch for most of last season until the combustible former Cup champion left for a better ride at Furniture Row Racing for the last six races. No hard feelings, Finch said. After all, money drives the sport harder and faster than any racer behind the wheel. ''If someone came to me and said, 'I've got sponsorship but Kurt needs to go,''' Finch said. ''I'd say, 'Where we putting the sponsorship at?''' Earnhardt suffers blown motor in first practice Dale Earnhardt Jr. ran 11 laps before suffering a blown motor and going to the garage during first practice on Wednesday for the Duels. He will change his engine and have to move to the back. Earnhardt wasn't worried at all about the blown motor, saying the team will figure out what happened and that it was probably something logical. "Everything seemed like it was working," he said. "Just trying to find a little more speed, and we found a few things that seemed to help the car. We'll try to get out in this next practice, and see what else we can learn, but everything should be fine." Just a few laps before his motor issues, a three-car wreck involving Carl Edwards, Ryan Newman and Mark Martin sent all three to the garage. Martin's crew said they would be done for the day, while crews worked on Newman and Edwards' cars to attempt to get them out. Newman, who came down on Edwards, saw a replay of the wreck and talked with Edwards. "I think it’s just an aero situation, but that was news to me. Carl (Edwards) came over and said ‘hey man’… I said ‘I don’t even know what to tell you yet’. It was unfortunate for our Quicken Loans Chevrolet, but that is why we had practice," Newman said. "That was my first experience, but I guess my car just got light in the back going into the corner.” Edwards had a similar assessment of the accident. “I was up close to Ryan and then all of a sudden his car just got a little loose and there was no space. I could have given him more space, but I don’t think either one of us really understands why his car got so loose. It was just all of a sudden and he was turned sideways. It’s really interesting and something I’m gonna be careful of during the race.” Matt Kenseth got a flat tire while simulating a pit stop but was able to get back out on the track quickly. Reigning champion Brad Keselowski had an issue early on in his run when he had an issue with his fuel system. "Something went wrong with the fuel system in the car," Keselowski said. "That’s not what you want when you’re in front of the pack because when your car slows down, they’ve got nowhere to go and it could cause a wreck. So we’re gonna spend a little extra time to make sure we’ve got whatever it is figured out.” Michael Waltrip posted the top speed at 198.347 mph with a best time of 43.375 seconds. Tony Stewart and Clint Bowyer said they would not practice in the final practice, which is at 2:30 p.m. ET on SPEED. For Dale Jr., Daytona crash turns to hope Dale Earnhardt Jr. has recorded some of the greatest moments of his career at Daytona International Speedway. But the crash he was involved in two weeks ago while testing at the restrictor-plate track does not rank among them. Twelve cars were banged up in the first -- and ultimately, only -- drafting session at Preseason Thunder, the debut of NASCAR’s new Generation-6 Sprint Cup cars on Daytona’s high banks. The accident was sparked when Earnhardt made contact with the rear of Marcos Ambrose’s car, unaware that the bumpers on the more brand-identifiable vehicles wouldn’t match up as well as those on their predecessors. “I thought long and hard, and that was probably the most embarrassed I’d ever been, in a long time,” Earnhardt said Wednesday during a stop at Hendrick Motorsports by the NASCAR Sprint Media Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway. “As long as I can remember.” The emotion is understandable, given that Earnhardt is a Daytona 500 champion and regarded as one of the greatest restrictor-plate drivers of his era. His trademark has always been his ability to make something happen on his own, to swoop through the high line and roar to the front -- which is how he nearly won the Great American Race in 2010, when he finished second to Jamie McMurray. The next season, tweaks to the cars’ front ends and a resurfacing at Daytona brought about tandem drafting that made drivers more dependent on one another, and frustrated a competitor like Earnhardt more accustomed to taking control by himself. Now, though, what little drafting teams did at Preseason Thunder gives Earnhardt the impression that his fate might once again be in his own hands. “The draft really reminds me of how we had the cars probably in ’06, ’07,” he said. “The cars pull up well, and you can work with other people even though the bumpers don’t line up exactly the way they used to the last couple of years. The way you help people is more how we used to do it six or seven years ago. … I’m really excited about that, and getting back to that sort of older style of plate racing.” Also excited is crew chief Steve Letarte. “I think the more you separate the responsibility or accountability to have a second car, and have two cars faster than the pack, I think is just going to work into Dale Jr.’s hands,” he said. That’s a far cry from what it was like in 2011, his first Speedweeks with NASCAR’s most popular driver, when the tandem drafting emerged. “I remember the first year we showed up at Daytona … and he went out and made it look so easy in practice,” Letarte said. “I was like, ‘This is going to be the best Speedweeks ever. This is going to be amazing.’ Then about 15 minutes later, they hooked up nose-to-tail, and Pandora’s Box opened. … So what I saw down there in Daytona (at testing) gave me a completely rejuvenated feel about speedway racing, and I’m much more excited to go down there to Daytona than I have been for years.” That optimism only made the testing crash more of a downer. Earnhardt didn’t feel the need to contact anyone afterward -- he believes everyone involved understood it was an honest mistake -- but that didn’t make it any easier to watch so many teams leave the test early, either because they sustained too much damage to continue or weren’t willing to draft anymore. “Everyone was really excited to see how they drafted and how things went,” he said. “And after that accident, nobody wanted any more drafting. We didn’t, either. A lot if teams went home, and I realized it’s a new car, and everyone’s there to learn new things and uncover specifics about the car, and a lot of that was taken away from those teams because of the mistake and the accident. So I feel like I short-handed a bunch of guys at that test.” But it didn’t dampen Earnhardt’s hopes for this season’s Daytona 500, particularly given how much more control individual drivers seem to have in the draft. Earnhardt finished second in the event last year behind Matt Kenseth. “I feel pretty good about my abilities,” he said. “It didn’t really bother me as far as my confidence goes and how I’m going to drive and how I’m going to race out there. But I definitely don’t like being that guy that makes those type of things happen. I tend to not want to be in that conversation.” Given that the testing crash could be a glimpse of the end of the Daytona 500, memories of Preseason Thunder probably won't last for long. “Give it another four or five weeks, and everybody will have forgotten about that crash,” Letarte said. “I’m sure there’ll be a lot more.” Great expectations remain for Hendrick drivers The Wednesday afternoon session of the 2013 Sprint Media Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway at Hendrick Motorsports saw four confident drivers take the stage to address the media, sporting a combined nine Sprint Cup titles between them. The most self-assured? Team owner Rick Hendrick, planted right in the middle. After making the claim at last year’s event that he’d have four cars in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup -- and seeing his declaration come through -- Hendrick emerged from the 2012 season a proud owner, but knows there’s more work to be done between Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kasey Kahne. “As a whole, we’re more confident this year and we feel we have a shot to win this year. We’re as prepared as we’ve ever been,” Hendrick said. “(Last year), we fumbled the ball in the closing minutes of the game. We want to get back to the Super Bowl.” Between the notion that Hendrick has more faith in his drivers this season, and his hunger to bring the franchise its first Sprint Cup championship since Johnson’s five consecutive titles from 2006-10, there is an added pressure to his team that other organizations might not encounter. “Last year, he kind of shocked all of us in throwing down the gauntlet by saying all four cars would be in the Chase and that was a lot of pressure,” Gordon said. “Rick typically in the past is the guy that really didn’t make those kinds of demands, but when Rick asks for something, we all try to achieve it because he’s the kind of guy that you ask him for something, he’s going to make it happen.” Certainly the burden on Gordon, who hasn’t had a Cup title to call his own in more than a decade (2001), weighs heavier than it might on Johnson. “It doesn’t (add any extra pressure), because we feel (that we’ll have four cars in the Chase) and we believe that,” said Johnson, who finished third in the Cup standings in 2012. “Last year, when he went on the record in front of everybody and said that, that was a lot of pressure. I was waiting for him to drop the hammer this year and I think a couple of us were smiling on the stage wondering what he was going to say, but he let us off the hook there. I’m sure we’ll hear about it all year long in our meetings, and that’s great. You know we love to have that; it’s a kick in the pants to get things going.” It was a bit of a different story for Johnson last season, however, as he acknowledged that there was “a pressure on me that I didn’t know existed until the streak ended.” Now he says he’s got a “clear mind” and he isn’t worried about the streak anymore. Perhaps the forgotten man among the four heavyweight Hendrick drivers, Kahne figures to take the added pressure that comes with competing alongside the sport’s biggest stars to improve upon his best-ever Cup finish (fourth) and make himself a household name in his second season with the organization. “I don't think we were far off,” Kahne said. “But if we can keep that same drive and same competitiveness that we've had, hopefully we can get right back in that same situation and make a strong run at a championship this season.” One thing that appears to be a constant throughout the team is the shared excitement in the Generation-6 car, best illustrated by Gordon’s one-liner of “Now, that’s a race car.” When the comparison was given to Johnson that the Car of Tomorrow was like a suit that he took off the rack and it fit just right, Gordon quipped that his suit was about five sizes too big. Despite that previous perfect fit, Johnson is embracing the change. “All in all, it’s a different animal,” he said. “There’s a lot more downforce and the aerodynamics are there. It’s a lot more forgiving (than the Car of Tomorrow).” Earnhardt Jr., who hopes the change in body style gives him the edge to finish in the top 10 in the final points standings for just the second time in his sixth year with Hendrick, feels there’s going to be a learning curve to the Gen-6 car and admitted his crash at the Preseason Thunder testing at Daytona earlier this month was the most embarrassed he has ever been on a race track. When the season wraps up in November and the winner of the Sprint Cup Series is hoisting the trophy over his head in celebration, don’t be surprised if it’s one of these four drivers, with the other three right behind him in the standings. Just like Rick Hendrick drew it up. Earnhardt Jr., Petty form Goody's bond Two of the most recognizable faces from the world of NASCAR have teamed up to support one of the most recognizable brands in the Sprint Cup Series for 2013. Seven-time series champion Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt Jr., the sport’s most popular driver, will combine efforts to promote Goody’s headache powders, one of the longest running sponsors in NASCAR. “I’ve been doing this for (Goody’s) for like 37 years,” Petty said Monday night of his association with the company. “And I guess they figured they needed a new face on Goody’s. … For them to get to the next generation, I think that’s what they’re thinking -- most of the older generation takes Goody’s anyway; to get the next generation and some new blood into it, I think that’s why they decided to go with Junior.” The company will use radio, television and digital platforms that will feature Petty and Earnhardt Jr. Goody’s has been a longtime sponsor of Cup events at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway, and has previously served as race sponsor for the popular night race at Bristol Motor Speedway as well as the Nationwide Series season opener at Daytona International Speedway. But it has been the association with Petty, the sport’s most recognizable figure, which helped put its stamp on the sport. Earnhardt Jr. said he was “kind of shocked, actually” when he was approached with the opportunity to work with two such well-known entities, “because (Petty) had managed the Goody’s brand for so long. “When you think about Goody’s, you think about Richard Petty,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “When you think about Richard Petty, you think about Goody’s. They just go hand in hand. “I was shocked and really humbled because Richard has done such a good job and part of his efforts have helped maintain their relevance, not only in this sport but as a brand goes. “This is an exciting time for me. I get to spend some time with a legend.” The company’s longevity, Earnhardt Jr. said, is more than just admirable. “It’s something that’s been here a while, it will be here long beyond me and I wanted to be just a chapter in the story,” he said. Goody’s officials indicated that the involvement with Petty and Earnhardt Jr. could go extend beyond serving as spokespersons for the company. Any such announcements, they said, would be made at a later date. Dale Earnhardt Jr. 2013 preview For Dale Earnhardt Jr., this year is all about confidence -- carrying it over from a season that returned him to championship contention, building it over the first 10 races of this year, and using it as a springboard toward another run at the Sprint Cup championship. NASCAR’s most popular driver made huge strides in 2012, snapping a 143-race winless streak, ranking among the point leaders for much of the regular season, and making the Chase for a second consecutive year. The effects of two concussions took him out of the title hunt, but the season as a whole laid the groundwork for what could be a more serious challenge in 2013. He likes the way he ran much of last season. He likes the way the new Sprint Cup cars drive. He likes the momentum he’s built with crew chief Steve Letarte. Now, it’s time to see if all those good feelings translate into results on the race track. “I feel like I can go into (this) year confident that we’re going to put good cars on the track, and I’m going to like the way they drive and I’m going to enjoy the races that we have,” Earnhardt said. “I think the first 10 races of the season are the most important in terms of making the Chase, putting down a good foundation of points. … It’s nice to get up there and get up front early and stay there. So that’s our outlook, and I think we’re in (a) good position.” He has reason to feel optimistic, particularly after ranking in the top three for 19 weeks last season. Even so, Letarte sees ample room for improvement, saying the No. 88 was the dominant car for only two races last year, the skid-snapper at Michigan and one at Pocono, and leveled off late in the year when other teams improved. The difference is simple: Earnhardt simply needs to be faster more often. “Last year we found some good speed, and then as the field caught up, we couldn’t distance ourselves from the group as fast as we needed to in the second half of the year,” Letarte said. “… It’s simple, but the faster you go, the easier the races are to call, the less pressure there is on drivers on the restarts, the less pressure there is on the pit crew. Even as much today as it takes to run well in NASCAR in the Sprint Cup Series, it comes down to lap times. If you’re a faster car, so much opens up. It takes pressure off everybody and you find yourself making less mistakes.” Earnhardt would also like to get better in qualifying, which he felt cost him at times last year. But the No. 88 program has progressed to the point where improvement is targeted not for types of tracks, but individual venues like Texas and the road courses. “We don’t have the big chunks to gain like we did before,” Earnhardt said. Now, small improvements may mean a lot, which is why Earnhardt is eager to test as much as he can, and build some more confidence heading into Speedweeks. “We can’t let anybody get a head start on us,” he said. “We need to go into Daytona and then Phoenix and Vegas feeling real confident about the start of our year, because the first 10 races really shape your chances are of making the Chase.” 2012 rank: 12th Biggest change for 2013 is...: Other than a little shuffling on the sponsor side, none. His team returns essentially intact. Watch out for...: The gaps in consistency that took Earnhardt out of the championship mix last season before his concussions made it official. The No. 88 team started strong, but couldn’t improve as other teams did, and was at its lowest as the Chase approached. For a driver who doesn’t win many races, every week is crucial. Will win the title if...: Earnhardt thrives in the new Sprint Cup vehicle, which he says reminds him of the Car of Tomorrow’s predecessor, and suddenly it feels like 2004 all over again. The last two years have proven that he can points race. If he starts getting victories in bunches, watch out. Dale Earnhardt Jr., an engaged driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. is engaged. Hold off on the congratulations, though. Make that more engaged. NASCAR’s most popular driver appears happy in his current relationship, but wedding bells weren’t the topic of Earnhardt Jr.’s conversation during a break in testing Friday at Daytona International Speedway. It seems the Hendrick Motorsports driver has become more involved in what most drivers see as the day-to-day drudgery of testing. While crew chiefs, crewmen and engineers buzz around Sprint Cup cars during Preseason Thunder, a driver’s workload consists of pushing the car to its limits, then reporting how the car reacted. The process is repeated often as adjustments are made throughout the day. For drivers, much of their time is spent sitting behind the wheel on pit road, waiting for the opportunity to make a solo run on the track unimpeded by traffic. Boring? “Yeah, it can be,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “As a driver, and this is specific to the Daytona tests only, you don’t really have to pay attention to what they are putting on the car, what they change. “If you don’t ask and if you don’t really get into it, rarely will a crew chief include you in that conversation.” Now, however, Earnhardt Jr. said he has gotten more involved in what takes place when he isn’t in the car. “I just plug into what they are doing,” he said of his No. 88 team. Not only does it give him a better idea of what changes are being made, but why each is being made as well. And that, he said, “helps me because we have been doing this a long time, and something they are doing might dig up a memory of a test or something we tried on some cars back in the DEI (Dale Earnhardt Inc.) days that worked. “It’s good for me to be involved as much as I can," he said. “So that helps me get to clicking; the day goes by fast when you are plugged in like that.” Fourth on the speed chart after Saturday’s final session, Earnhardt Jr. had much to occupy his time. Although involved in a 12-car accident on Friday that sent several teams home a day early, his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet escaped the incident unharmed. Crew chief Steve Letarte said his driver, whom he has worked with since 2011, “always seems relatively involved, pretty interested in what we’re doing.” “He’s got quite a knack for speedway racing, so he’s always put his two cents in,” Letarte said. “We’ve had some good speedway cars down here … we just try to back that up.” The Daytona 500, Letarte said, is a different animal, and additional input from his driver is welcome. "The other three (restrictor-plate races) are impounds (where only minor changes can be made to the car following qualifying). You just show up and race them. If you survive them, you’ll be pretty good. February’s not like that.” EARNHARDT STARTS 12-CAR WRECK AT DAYTONA; TEST SHUT DOWN Dale Earnhardt Jr. started a 12-car accident at Daytona International Speedway that essentially shut down a three-day test session. NASCAR's most popular driver tapped Marcus Ambrose as they drove across the back straightaway, lifting him "like a forklift" and turning him into the wall. Ambrose's car bounced back across the track and collected a host of others. Two of Earnhardt's Hendrick Motorsports teammates, Jeff Gordon and Kasey Kahne, also were involved. So were defending Sprint Cup champion Brad Keselowski, new teammate Joey Logano, Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch, Jamie McMurray, Martin Truex Jr., Aric Almirola and Regan Smith. Kahne's car sustained significant damage. The wreck caused several teams to pack up and leave Daytona, and ended the pack racing that NASCAR wanted to see to evaluate its redesigned cars. Evolving Nationwide Series forces JRM to adapt JR Motorsports is the organization that helped Brad Keselowski make the transition from unknown driver to Sprint Cup champion. It provided Danica Patrick her first foothold in NASCAR and gave Cole Whitt his biggest break. The NASCAR Nationwide Series team founded by Dale Earnhardt Jr. was built on the concept of affording up-and-coming drivers the chance they needed to take the next step in their careers. But the changing landscape of the Nationwide Series has forced JRM to alter its approach, and the team heads into the 2013 season with two cars fronted by NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race winners. Former Southern 500 champion Regan Smith will compete for the championship in the organization’s No. 7 entry, while the No. 5 car will run the majority of the season and be split between Brad Sweet and three-time Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup participant Kasey Kahne. A large part of that puzzle came together Wednesday when the Great Clips Inc. sponsorship that had backed an entry for Kahne and Sweet at Turner Motorsports moved to JRM, becoming primary sponsor of a No. 5 car that will compete in 27 events. Earnhardt will run a No. 88 car in four Nationwide races this season, the opener at Daytona among them. For the time being, that leaves no place for Whitt, the 21-year-old who finished seventh in final Nationwide points last season. It’s a shift in focus that clearly pains the folks at JRM, who looked at the evolving Nationwide scene around them -- one that includes former Sprint Cup drivers in Elliott Sadler and Brian Vickers, and other entries fielded directly by Sprint Cup teams -- and believed they had no choice but to follow suit. “We’re competing for wins against Gibbs and Penske and Childress. Putting the effort together, the whole combination of car driver and crew has been at the forefront of our mind this past year as we’ve worked to compete with those guys,” said JRM General Manager Kelley Earnhardt Miller, whose team featured Whitt and Patrick -- now at the Sprint Cup level with Stewart-Haas Racing -- behind the wheel last year. “We don’t want to be an eighth-to-15th place car week in and week out,” she added. “And if you look at the top drivers … just trying to compete with that at the Nationwide level, we’ve kind of had to abort the up-and-coming drivers stance that’s kind of been strong with this company. Before we had Danica, we were able to do that with one car -- we’d have our strong driver in one car, and our up-and-coming driver the other, and it would balance out and showcase what our program could do. These last couple of years where we’ve had rookies in there, which was the case with Cole and Danica, it’s been much harder to evaluate our equipment ... because they’re both still learning and they’re both still figuring it out.” The change in philosophy paid an immediate dividend late last season when Smith won at Homestead in a tune-up start for JRM. It was the team’s first victory since Jamie McMurray won at Atlanta in 2010. Even so, the team was prepared to go into 2013 with only one full-time car until JRM received a call from a Great Clips representative in early December. Although the schedule for the No. 5 car hasn’t been finalized, Miller guessed Kahne would start 10 to 15 events in the vehicle with Sweet filling out the rest. Kahne had started a handful of Nationwide events for JRM in the past, and Miller said Kahne was interested in running more even if his longtime Great Clips backing had remained with Turner. The fact that Kahne and Earnhardt compete for the same Sprint Cup team, Hendrick Motorsports, probably didn’t hurt in enticing both driver and sponsor to a new home. “He’s always been a possibility to race for JR Motorsports, if we had the funding and the cars available for him,” Miller said of Kahne. “Really, the situation with him and Brad wasn’t an option until we received that phone call in December. It does make great sense for us, though, with our relationship with Hendrick, and Kasey and Dale both being drivers there. It’s a good opportunity for everybody to kind of work together.” Whitt remains the odd driver out. Miller said JRM would like to fill out the balance of the season and compete for the owner’s championship with the No. 5, which could involve putting Ron Fellows in the seat for road-course races. There’s also hope sponsorship can be found to allow Whitt to drive the car for those remaining events. “Cole is extremely talented. He’s a great kid, and youth is on his side. So I think there’s a lot of opportunity for him in the sport in the future, and we’d definitely like to keep that relationship,” Miller said. “I’ve told him, he’s still welcome here, and we’re still working really hard to put something around him. He can travel to the races with us and stay involved as much as he wants until hopefully something comes together. But when these sponsors are paying these dollars, they want to see their cars in Victory Lane.” NASCAR gets good reviews of 2013 car Dale Earnhardt Jr. gave NASCAR's new car a solid review in his first test drive, putting the 2013 model ahead of its predecessor. The buildup to the previous model's launch in 2007 was mixed as drivers were lukewarm to the "Car of Tomorrow." Kyle Busch won the debut race at Bristol and panned the car in his victory celebration, forever tainting its image with fans. The car was finally retired in last month's season finale, and NASCAR spent this entire year developing the 2013 model that will debut in February. On Tuesday, 16 drivers tested the car at Charlotte Motor Speedway, including Earnhardt Jr., who said he was very impressed with its drivability. NASCAR is banking on the "Gen 6" car to improve the on-track product. Top drivers to headline Acceleration Weekend For NASCAR fans who have been counting the days to the opening of the 2013 season, their wait is almost over. For the second consecutive year, reigning Sprint Cup Series champion Brad Keselowski, five-time premier series winner Jimmie Johnson and NASCAR's most popular driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. will help race fans celebrate the past, present and future of NASCAR with the return of Acceleration Weekend. The fan-friendly, interactive experience is scheduled for Feb. 8-10, 2013, at the Charlotte, N.C., Convention Center. It includes the 2013 NASCAR Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and NASCAR Preview 2013. NASCAR Acceleration Weekend tickets are on sale at www.nascaracceleration.com and the NASCAR Hall of Fame box office. Tickets for Friday night's induction ceremony start at $45. In addition, a $20 ticket will gain fans all-day access to NASCAR Preview 2013 and the NASCAR Hall of Fame on Saturday, Feb. 9. "We are excited about bringing NASCAR Acceleration Weekend back to Charlotte this year," said Kim Brink, NASCAR managing director of brand, consumer and series marketing. "It is one of our biggest fan events to kick off the season and provides unprecedented access to our best drivers, new cars and the NASCAR Hall of Fame." The weekend's activities begin Friday, Feb. 8, with the 2013 NASCAR Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. The five inductees are Buck Baker, Cotton Owens, Herb Thomas, Rusty Wallace and Leonard Wood. Legendary broadcasters Ken Squier and Barney Hall also will be honored with the inaugural Squier-Hall Award for Media Excellence for their significant contributions to the success of NASCAR during their distinguished careers as media members covering the sport. More than 50 drivers across NASCAR's three national series are scheduled to participate in the NASCAR Preview 2013 event, which begins at 7 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 9, in the Charlotte Convention Center. Similar to last year's event, the all-day fan festival will allow fans to interact with top drivers from all three national series and to get autographs, to participate in driver Q&A sessions, to get a first-look at the new Cup cars and paint schemes and to check out various interactive displays, among other activities. Year in Review: Earnhardt broke 143-race winless streak with victory at Michigan Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Christmas wish list provides a bit of insight as to how his life is changing: He's hoping for new running shoes, cutting boards and a set of kitchen knives. At 38, Junior realizes sitting on the couch and playing video games all day isn't particularly productive. "My body's changing and I'm starting to think, 'Man, I need to get up and start doing something active,' " Earnhardt said last week in Las Vegas. "I've been trying to work out a lot more. And I enjoy cooking. I've always enjoyed cooking." Some of that new-found maturity may have to do with the calendar, but Junior readily admits the events of this past summer gave him time to re-evaluate his career and his lifestyle choices, of what Earnhardt considers "normal" and how to continue to make time for the things he loves doing. That seemed the furthest thing from his mind when he began experiencing headaches from a pair of accidents that left him with two concussions within a six-week span, the second coming in a last-lap melee at Talladega. Doctors suggested he sit out a couple of races to let his brain heal -- which guaranteed Junior wouldn't win a long-sought Cup championship in 2012 -- but once he came to grips with the seriousness of the situation, Earnhardt realized the long-term consequences outweighed the short-term disappointment. "I definitely take it more seriously now after everything I've learned," Earnhardt said after returning to the track at Martinsville. "I'm glad I did what I did. I hate the attention that it got, and hate kind of being in front of you guys talking about it. But, I'm glad it did what I did. I'm glad I took the time off and made the choices that I made. "They were hard to make, but I had to do it. I had to do it. I didn't have a choice. I knew something wasn't right. You can't ignore concussions. It's really dangerous doing that. You read about it in the papers, and I was going through it. I was living it. So, I had to make a choice, and I feel like I made the right one." In order to win a championship, you have to make the Chase. And Junior put himself in perfect position to do that right from the season's opening race. He finished second at Daytona, then followed that up with back-to-back third-place finishes at Fontana and Martinsville. In order to make the Chase, you have to win races. And Junior snapped a 143-race winless streak in June at Michigan in dominating fashion. Even though his car was the class of the field, Earnhardt said he was as nervous in the cockpit as he's been in years. "I was just thinking, man, those laps could not go by fast enough," Earnhardt said in his post-race comments. "I was like 'I've got a big lead, I'm going to take it easy' no, I want to run it hard, get it over with. So I was just in there going crazy, thinking and I'm looking all around the racetrack hoping there's no debris around the next corner. "I just knew I was going to come around the next corner and see a piece of metal laying in the racetrack. I was just waiting on something to happen. So that was terrifying, to be honest with you." A fourth-place run at Indianapolis put Junior in the points lead for the first time in eight seasons. And even after a pair of poor finishes at Pocono and Watkins Glen, Earnhardt was still a lock for the Chase. But a hard crash during tire testing at Kansas at the end of August resulted in Junior's first concussion, and eventually led to him getting out of the car. "There have been times when it's frustrating because you want your brain to clear up, and the fogginess to go away, and all those symptoms to go away," Junior said. "Every concussion is different. They're kind of like snowflakes. Every one is different and you react differently to each one." Earnhardt didn't lead a lap over the final four races of the season after his return, but that didn't damper his excitement one bit. After finishing 10th at Homestead, Junior was ready to keep going. "I wish we were going to race on," Earnhardt said. "I'd just race on through to February and start back over again if it were up to me. I really enjoy being at the track and driving cars. It's been a good year, but this should be par for the course. It's been a good year, but we want to be a lot better than this. I'm not ready to stop trying to be better." And that's a mantra he's carrying over to his private life as well. Junior's New Year's Eve parties were traditionally one of the highlights of the off-season, but he's not hosting one this time around. "I'm too old for that now," Earnhardt said. "I might get together a couple of nights before the new year with some friends, but nothing too crazy this year." Mandel spices up NASCAR interviews Comedian Howie Mandel brought his act to Las Vegas a day early -- and incognito. The host of Friday's Sprint Cup Series awards banquet at the Wynn, Mandel turned up at Thursday's interview sessions after the Myers Brothers Luncheon wearing a wig and holding a microphone, pretending to be a member of the press corps. As Dale Earnhardt Jr. began to answer a serious question, Mandel yelled from the fringe of the scrum, "Can't hear you!" Earnhardt began again. Mandel interrupted. "Can't hear you! Not getting it. Can you talk so we can all get it?" "I can only speak as loud as I can speak," Earnhardt replied. "OK, go ahead," Mandel said. A radio reporter, who didn't recognize the comedian, offered to hold his microphone closer to Earnhardt. "No, I've got it," Mandel said. For the third time, Earnhardt began to answer. "Louder!" Mandel shouted, and Earnhardt smiled as recognition dawned. "I know this guy," Earnhardt chuckled. "I know who this guy is. He's going to keep going." "He's screwing up my sound bite," said the radio reporter. "Louder!" shouted Mandel before exiting the group, leaving Earnhardt and the reporters laughing. Earnhardt wins 10th most popular driver award Dale Earnhardt Jr. tied Bill Elliott's record of 10 consecutive wins as NASCAR's most popular driver, and was just as nervous accepting it Thursday as he was when he received his first honor. ''It's real hard to get up there and express your emotions and express to people how much it means to you,'' Earnhardt said. ''When you win it repeatedly, it gets tougher to show people and tell people how much it means to you because each time you win it, it means a little bit more. Words do an injustice to spelling out what it really means to you.'' Earnhardt won the award Thursday at the Myers Brothers Luncheon at The Encore at Wynn. The award is presented annually by the National Motorsports Press Association, and Earnhardt has won it every year since 2003. He thanked his enormous fan base for sticking with him during his acceptance speech. ''Aside from honesty, one of the qualities I admire most in a person is loyalty,'' he said. ''Loyalty is a word that I use quite often to describe our fans, and as I stand here to accept this award for a 10th time, I think it's a great example of loyalty in its truest form. I thank the fans, all the fans who support this sport, and I am pleased and humbled and honored to accept this.'' Fans vote from February through September on 10 most popular drivers. The field was then reset and fans voted again through the final 10 weeks of the season. More than 934,000 votes were cast and Earnhardt beat Jeff Gordon, Kasey Kahne and Tony Stewart. Rounding out the top 10 were Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth and Bobby Labonte. Elliott and Richard Petty are the only other drivers to win it more than five times. Elliott holds the overall record with 16 most popular awards, but withdrew his name from eligibility following his final win. Earnhardt had his best season in years, snapping a four-year losing streak with his June 17 victory at Michigan. He was a strong title contender for most of the season, then missed two races during the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship with a concussion. Because he missed the two events, he finished 12th in the final Chase standings and will not be a participant in Friday night's season-ending awards ceremony. His acceptance of the most popular driver award was his only official role in the champion's week activities, and Earnhardt admitted there were nerves to getting on stage and speaking in front of the crowd. ''But I take a lot of pride in being able to get an opportunity to tell fans how much I appreciate their support that they have, especially through everything they've been through,'' he said. ''They go through a roller coaster of emotions season after season and they still after all this time have stuck with us, so we must be doing something right. The fans are very loyal.'' Qualifying the Chasers: Phoenix Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Qualified 23rd) -- Feeling better? Good, because all those fans are going to be just as crazy about your Cup chances in 2013. They're already pumped, Junebug. Hannah Storm goes in-depth with 4 NASCAR stars Hannah Storm learned about NASCAR on the job, and on the fly, during one of her earliest broadcasting gigs. Working for the NBC affiliate in NASCAR's backyard, Storm was forced to figure it out pretty quickly in order to contribute to the weekend specials the Charlotte station produced. ''We did a lot of NASCAR specials, and I did a lot of running up to guys when they would wreck their cars and say, 'What happened?''' Storm recalled of her 1988-89 stop in North Carolina. ''So that was not easy. I learned NASCAR from the ground up. I knew zero about it - I'd just come from Texas - and this was NASCAR immersion.'' Storm came full circle last week when she returned to Charlotte to film ''NASCAR Face-to-Face with Hannah Storm,'' a one-hour conversation special with the ESPN SportsCenter anchor that will air Tuesday night. It's the fourth installment of Storm's ''Face-to-Face'' series, but first featuring NASCAR drivers. The episode features Jimmie Johnson and Brad Keselowski, who are currently locked in a two-man race for the Sprint Cup championship, Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Storm's previous ''Face-to-Face'' programs have taken her bowling with Dwight Howard, back to the park where Cam Newton threw footballs with his family as a child, and to lunch with Aaron Rodgers at his favorite restaurant. But with two races to go in NASCAR's title-deciding Chase for the Sprint Cup championship, Storm felt NASCAR was the best topic for the next installment. ''I have such an affinity for the NASCAR community and I really wanted it to be a 'Face-to-Face' special,'' she said. ''It's 1-on-1 with each of the four drivers, an access piece on a personal level that has a 'Barbara Walters Special' type feel. It's just me and them, very little track time, very little voice over, almost entirely conversation. ''It's classic programming that doesn't exist in sports programming. It takes people outside of a press conference or off a sideline, and they like it because they want to get to know the athletes a little bit. The show peels it back a little bit and gives them a glimpse, shows them that these are real people.'' Although Storm knew the late Dale Earnhardt, her sit-down with Earnhardt Jr. is her first extensive time with NASCAR's most popular driver. She toured his property and Whisky River, the western town he created on his land. ''He was and always has been one of those athletes that I've found incredibly interesting,'' Storm said of Earnhardt, who recently sat out two races because of concussions. Storm spends her time with Stewart on a photo shoot with the three-time champion ''that speaks to his own crazy life.'' With Johnson, who goes into Sunday's race at Phoenix in search of his sixth championship, Storm went through a Charlotte art gallery viewing an exhibit of family photos from the self-published book ''On The Road'' that chronicles the 2011 Chase for Johnson and his wife and daughter. ''He and Chandra took us through the art gallery and talked about being parents, having a young child out on the road, telling their story of losing, what's their attitude of having a young family,'' Storm said. ''It was really nice because there are very few interviews of them together.'' Keselowski was the adventurous one for Storm. He pulled up to the interview and did celebratory burnouts in his street car, then took Storm to a shooting range where she fired a gun for the first time in her life. After that it was off to Penske Racing, where Storm said the shop was so clean, ''you could eat off the floor.'' ''Brad is such a delight for an interviewer,'' Storm said. ''He just says it without any regard. He's very thoughtful and he's very smart. He's one of those guys that has to be constantly in motion, and he was unexpected and it was so much fun. I just didn't think I'd be target shooting with Brad Keselowski. ''It's neat being in someone else's world. It's a cool little piece.'' Earnhardt Jr. takes another step forward at Texas Dale Earnhardt Jr. didn't win Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway, but a strong run allowed him to find some closure regarding the two concussions that forced NASCAR's most popular driver to miss a pair of races in the Chase. In Texas, Earnhardt once again looked like the driver who flirted with the top of the points standings for most of the Sprint Cup regular season. Adjustments improved his race car, speedy pit stops helped him pick up positions, and Earnhardt hung on for a seventh-place run that might have been better had he not been pinned on the outside during a series of late restarts. "I feel real good physically," he said. "I felt real sharp in the car all night. I want to run real hard and win a couple of races if we can at the end of this deal, but I also want to finish well for myself and not have any doubts or question marks in the offseason, and I feel like this was a great step in that direction." It was certainly an improvement from Martinsville, Earnhardt's first outing after sitting out two races to shake off effects of a pair on concussions suffered six weeks apart. Although fast in practice on the Virginia short track, Earnhardt finished 21st after being involved in an accident that spawned the final caution of the race. Texas, by contrast, was a vast improvement. "I think it meant a lot," crew chief Steve Letarte said. "Last week, we kind of got our wires crossed. I got real gutsy with the pit strategy. We probably could have been a little more conservative and run in the top five or six. But to come here and have a car that could legitimately restart in the top five there at the end and have a shot at it, that was great." Earnhardt started 19th and struggled to gain ground during the first half of the race in a car that didn't react as the No. 88 team had hoped it would. Adjustments helped the vehicle, but the real boost came on pit road, where Earnhardt gained seven positions during the final two stops, moving him to fifth as the event reached its final stages. For Earnhardt, whose team has had issues on pit road in years past, it was the continuation of what's been a solid season-long effort over the wall. "It's a good feeling. You can depend on those guys every time you come down pit road," he said. "They've done an awesome job all year. We worked on them in the offseason, and they improved a little bit, and they've been solid all year without a doubt." The No. 88 car made up those positions on pit road without using tire strategy, Letarte said. "Our strategy was to put four tires on it faster than the next guy, and we did a good job of it," he said. "We put four on all night. The pit crew, they've been strong all year long, so it was good to see them shine [Sunday night]." The same could be said of the driver, who appeared to be in position to perhaps steal a victory had the race been determined by fuel mileage. Cautions, though, intervened and allowed championship contenders Jimmie Johnson and Brad Keselowski to determine the outcome between them -- though not before banging off each other a few times before Johnson edged Keselowski in the finish. "I was thinking I might have a shot to win if they kept going like that," Earnhardt joked. As it was, he seemed content with seventh. "Just real happy with the way we were able to rebound," he said. "[Would have] liked to have run in the top five, maybe a little closer to the front. But we definitely ran a little bit better, like we should." Qualifying the Chasers: Texas Motor Speedway Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Qualified 19th): You know he's feeling better when he's getting all moody post-race. Well, there's always 2013, Junior. Earnhardt Jr.'s return spoiled by late gamble By all accounts, Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s return to the No. 88 Chevrolet was a successful one, even if the events of the final few laps Sunday at Martinsville Speedway left him incensed and a bit tight-lipped. Earnhardt ran solidly in the top 10 for much of the afternoon, even though in his estimation he "didn't have a really good car and fought some issues all day long." But when Kevin Harvick's engine let go to bring out a caution flag with less than 30 laps remaining, crew chief Steve Letarte rolled the dice and decided to leave Earnhardt on the track, thinking most of the lead-lap cars also would stay out. Instead, Earnhardt and Brad Keselowski were the only two not to take fresh left-side tires. Earnhardt was helpless to hold off the cars that did when the green flew. He tried to hold on to what positions he could, but a chain-reaction crash involving Earnhardt, Carl Edwards and Sam Hornish Jr. with 11 laps remaining wrecked what had been a sterling return for the driver who missed two races after suffering a concussion at Talladega. "It was just a tough deal," Earnhardt said. "Somebody had run over somebody from way back." Earnhardt eventually finished 21st, the last car on the lead lap. It was good to get back in the car, he said, but the way the end of the race transpired took away much of the satisfaction. "I was just really pissed off about how we finished that race," Earnhardt said. "That was really ridiculous. I mean, you've got to use a little common sense. That was not a good move." Qualifying the Chasers: Martinsville Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Qualified 20th): Well, he's back, and right on time. Junior's just happy to be in a car again, but he'll get in one at a Martinsville track that he has done well at. No wins there, but hasn't finished outside the top seven since 2010. He's unlucky to not have won at least once in his early years at the track, when he finished inside the top three four straight trips from 2002-2004. Earnhardt Jr. determined to finish remainder of season on a strong note There were times during the last three weeks when Dale Earnhardt Jr, admitted to feeling "kind of foolish." "Foolish" for pacing around his home when he felt well enough to drive in Chase races at Charlotte and Kansas. But Friday at Martinsville Speedway, Earnhardt was feeling rather smart, knowing that he did the right thing in taking time off to fully recover from his recent concussions. "I don't care how tough you are," Earnhardt said, wearing a black, hooded Mountain Dew sweatshirt to his late morning press conference. "When your mind's not working the way it's supposed to, it scares the crap out of you." "You're not going to be thinking about trophies. You're not going to think about your job. You're going to be thinking: What do I have to do to get my brain working the way it was before?" About an hour later, Earnhardt was circling the .526-mile track at Martinsville turning in the second-fastest lap of the day in the opening practice. He was back, behind the wheel of the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet at a Cup track for the first time since being involved in a 25-car, final lap pileup at Talladega Superspeedway on Oct. 7. It was revealed after that crash that Earnhardt had suffered a previously undiagnosed concussion during a tire test at Kansas on Aug. 29. "I felt like I could have raced at Kansas for sure [Oct. 21] and probably have run at Charlotte [Oct. 13], no problem," Earnhardt said. "I [felt] kind of foolish sitting at home, feeling OK, not being in the car. It [felt] really unnatural." At the same time, Earnhardt knew it was the right thing to do. He now considers it a learning experience. "One thing I can tell you is I'm going to be honest with myself, honest with doctors and do whatever they tell me to do," Earnhardt said. "I feel pretty fortunate to recover from this concussion rather quickly. I feel lucky I made the choices I did to give myself that opportunity. I think, had I tried to push through that second one, I would have really put myself in a lot of danger." Earnhardt admitted to being a bit stir crazy at first. No TV. No video games. He said his recovery took a positive turn when he visited the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. "Those first 48 hours, I didn't do anything," he said. "I slept a lot. No TV. I was walking around the house -- really weird. I told the doctors I couldn't do that anymore. "[In Pittsburgh] they put me on a physical and mental exercise program that I did every day. That really made the biggest difference. I went to Pittsburgh a mess. The doctors up there talked with me the whole day and went through the exercises and stuff. They ran me ragged, but at the end of the day I understood what I was dealing with and felt a whole lot better ... In 12 hours, I felt really good -- completely different. I couldn't believe it. "Once I got to know the guys in Pittsburgh, I was on the phone with Micky [Dr. Micky Collins] twice a day, talking about everything I was doing, everything I was feeling. That was the best therapy for me. I wanted to do it right, not take any chances." In preparation for Martinsville, Earnhardt received medical clearance and ran 123 laps at Gresham Motorsports Park, a half-mile track in Jefferson, Ga. Crew chief Steve Letarte said he was impressed with his lap times and impressed with his feedback about the car. But Friday, Earnhardt was in his element for his first real test. "I'm glad to be back behind the wheel," he said. "I feel like I've been out of the car for a year ... but I feel we can go right to it. I like this race track and I feel like we can do good here." Earnhardt, who has 14 top-fives in 25 career starts at Martinsville, didn't talk about taking his second checkered flag of the season and expressed no regret about leaving his Chase hopes behind. "I just want to do a good job over the next four weeks," he said. "I want to run hard and I want us to go in every weekend, trying to do what we've been doing all year long." He did offer high praise for the work of his replacement driver, Regan Smith, who finished seventh last week at Kansas. "Regan did a really good job for the team," Earnhardt said. "I told him that I was worried about the momentum we had as a team. I felt like we didn't miss a beat and I can get back in the car as if nothing's even changed. "[But] it was really hard to see your car out there running around, turning laps without you in it. It's frustrating, sitting at home, knowing how good a car we had and not enjoying that with the team." Earnhardt Jr. will race at Martinsville Dale Earnhardt Jr. was cleared Tuesday for this weekend's race at Martinsville Speedway after missing the last two weeks to recover from a pair of concussions. NASCAR's most popular driver was examined by neurosurgeon Dr. Jerry Petty one a day after he ran 123 laps at half-mile Gresham Motorsports Park in Jefferson, Ga. Petty monitored Earnhardt during Monday's test at Gresham. "Dale Jr. has done everything asked of him," said Petty, who consults with NASCAR and is Earnhardt's personal physician. "He hasn't had a headache since Oct. 12, and we have not been able to provoke any symptoms since that time. I have informed NASCAR and Hendrick Motorsports that he is medically cleared for all NASCAR-related activity." Petty sidelined Earnhardt after the driver went to see him complaining of a lingering headache following a 25-car accident on the last lap of the Oct. 7 race at Talladega. Petty diagnosed Earnhardt with a concussion, and said Earnhardt also suffered one in an Aug. 29 crash during a tire test at Kansas that went untreated. The injury snapped Earnhardt's streak of 461 consecutive starts, the fifth-longest active streak in the Sprint Cup Series, and ended his shot to win the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. Earnhardt missed races at Charlotte and Kansas, marking the first time a Cup event did not include an Earnhardt in the field since Sept. 3, 1979. Regan Smith drove the No. 88 Chevrolet in Earnhardt's absence. Earnhardt was not at the track the last two weeks. He instead was going through a rehabilitation program directed by Petty, who consulted with Dr. Micky Collins, director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Sports Medicine Concussion Program. Earnhardt was evaluated by Collins last week in Pittsburgh. His official clearance on Tuesday was a relief to team owner Rick Hendrick, who prematurely told reporters Earnhardt would be in the car at Martinsville before Sunday's race at Kansas. Hendrick later said he had misspoke and that Earnhardt still had the scheduled test at Gresham and Tuesday visit with Petty. "Maybe I just heard what I wanted to hear when I talked to Petty because everything in Pittsburg was good," Hendrick said. "I will be shocked if he's not in the car. Everything looks good." Tests remaining before Earnhardt can return Rick Hendrick spoke too soon. The car owner clarified during Sunday's race at Kansas Speedway that Dale Earnhardt Jr. still has two tests remaining before he can return to the race car, a closed on-track shakedown at Gresham Motorsports Park in Georgia on Monday, and an office visit with neurologist Dr. Jerry Petty on Tuesday. Earlier Sunday, Hendrick told reporters that Earnhardt had been cleared to race next weekend at Martinsville Speedway. NASCAR's most popular driver has sat out two Sprint Cup events after suffering two concussions within six weeks, the most recent in a final-lap crash at Talladega on Oct. 7. Regan Smith has been piloting the No. 88 car while the regular driver is out. Hendrick soon realized he had gotten ahead of himself. "I've been out here at the dealerships, and I have talked to the doctors with Dale, and he said everything looked good, everything looked fine," Hendrick said. "However ... there's a closed test Monday that Dr. Petty will attend. Dale will be back in a car, and they'll make the decision with a final test on Tuesday." That final test will be an evaluation in Petty's office in Charlotte, N.C. Should Earnhardt pass both, Petty will notify NASCAR that the driver is clear to return. On Tuesday, Earnhardt visited a concussion specialist in Pittsburgh. He suffered from dizziness immediately after the Talladega crash and headaches in the following days, but Hendrick said Earnhardt's symptoms have abated in the time since. "I will be shocked if he's not in the car," Hendrick said. "Everything looks good, his attitude and the way he feels. He's had no headaches since the Thursday and Friday of Charlotte, and the tests have gone real well. I think Dr. Petty is just being cautious, and I applaud him for that." Hendrick said he was aware that Earnhardt had an on-track test planned, but didn't realize Petty would be attending. "I didn't read my emails this morning, and kind of got ahead of myself," he said. "Maybe I just heard what I wanted to hear." Earnhardt Jr. cleared, will race at Martinsville Dale Earnhardt Jr. is expected back on the track next weekend at Martinsville Speedway. Team owner Rick Hendrick said Sunday that NASCAR's most popular driver has been headache-free for more than a week, and that tests by a specialist in Pittsburgh showed no lingering issues from two concussions that Earnhardt sustained in a six-week span. Earnhardt will get back into a car on Monday and, if everything goes well, could be cleared to drive by neurosurgeon Dr. Jerry Petty during a follow-up visit on Tuesday. "Everything's great," Hendrick said before Sunday's race at Kansas Speedway. "He feels good. He's done everything they told him to do. He didn't have any more headaches after, I guess it was Thursday or Friday of Charlotte week, so everything's good." Earnhardt was first injured in a crash during a tire test Aug. 29 at Kansas, but didn't seek treatment for the mild concussion. He was part of a 25-car pileup on Oct. 7 at Talladega and sought treatment from a doctor who ultimately benched him for two races. Earnhardt's doctor had said he would not be cleared to race until he'd gone at least four days headache-free, then went through various tests and spent some time behind the wheel. That wheel time will occur Monday during a closed test that Hendrick said will probably take place at Gresham Motorsports Park in Georgia. "He's burning up to get in the car. I mean, he wanted to run this weekend," Hendrick said. "He's very anxious. He wants to get back. No way you're going to hold him out unless the doctor wouldn't clear him, but he's good to go." Earnhardt, who has one win and 10 top-5s this season, was seventh in the Chase for the Sprint Cup standings before the crash at Talladega dropped him to 11th in the standings. Regan Smith has been replacing him in the Hendrick Motorsports ride, but Hendrick said he doesn't plan to have Smith in the bullpen if an issue arises with Earnhardt at Martinsville. "We don't think there's any reason to," Hendrick said. "I'd be really surprised if we have to, but we could always go to he or A.J. (Allmendinger), one of the two." Hendrick said he was concerned there might be a long-term problem when Earnhardt's headaches persisted, which is why he consulted with several specialists. The injury snapped his streak of 461 consecutive starts, the fifth-longest active streak in the Sprint Cup series. "It was good news when we went down there and the specialist looked at the MRI and there was no damage, no bleeding, no bruising, so that was great news," Hendrick said. "Junior, his head was hurting him bad enough I thought we might have a problem, but we're just really fortunate." Absent Earnhardt still presence on No. 88 team Dale Earnhardt Jr. may not physically be at Kansas Speedway this weekend, but NASCAR's most popular driver is clearly still a presence on his race team. Substitute wheelman Regan Smith occasionally chats with Earnhardt by telephone about car setup and race strategy, while crew chief Steve Letarte calls just to talk with his friend. And, of course, there's that familiar signature scrawled above the window opening -- even though someone else sits in the vehicle. Earnhardt is missing his second consecutive Sprint Cup race while he recovers from the effects of two concussions suffered six weeks apart, and his team remains hopeful for a potential return next weekend at Martinsville. Meanwhile, Smith and the No. 88 crew maintain the business of trying to produce speed, something they showed last Saturday night before engine failure sidelined the vehicle at Charlotte, and again this week when Smith was the fastest driver in two days of testing on the resurfaced Kansas track. It's a temporary arrangement, but one everyone involved is clearly trying to get the most from. "This car and team is everything you'd expect out of a Hendrick Motorsports team, and the whole organization's been very good to work with," said Smith, whose fastest lap of 186.143 mph topped two days of testing at the 1.5-mile facility. "It's been an educational 10 days, or however [long] it's been." Earnhardt, though, is never far from anyone's thoughts. The regular driver of the No. 88 car suffered his first concussion in a crash during an August tire test on this same Kansas track, but did not disclose the condition publicly -- admittedly competing while he waited for symptoms to clear. Two weeks ago, he sustained another concussion in a big crash on the final lap at Talladega, feeling dizzy when his car spun and suffering from headaches afterward that led him to consult a neurologist. Earlier this week, Earnhardt visited a concussion specialist at a medical center in Pittsburgh that developed the ImPACT test, a popular tool for concussion diagnosis. Before he's cleared to return, he'll have to undergo tests that raise his heart rate without producing concussion symptoms, and then likely take laps on a track by himself. While out of the car, though, Earnhardt still takes an active interest in his race team, staying in contact with both Smith and Letarte. He may not be up to date as far as the specifics of what the crew is trying with the race car, but he's clearly remaining as involved as he can. "I talk to him all the time," Letarte said. "He's still a huge part of this race team, even though he's not in the race car. He's a great friend of mine. We would talk whether we would talk racing or not. We talk a lot about a lot of things. I try not to bug him, so he can rest when he needs to rest and do what the doctor says, but we talk probably more than the doctor wants. We talk a lot." So do Earnhardt and Smith, who stepped out of what was to be a ride with James Finch's Phoenix Racing team for an interim role in the No. 88 car. "We talk a lot about the team," Smith said. "Before the race we talked extensively last week, and just little things here and there that I was going to feel with the cars, and maybe different things over the radio I needed to be aware of. And then, immediately after the race, I talked to him pretty extensively as well. And, at that point, we were already talking about Kansas. Things were done, what happened [had] happened, and we had to focus on getting [to Kansas] and being good here." Last weekend, Smith showed flashes of what he might be capable of in a top-flight vehicle, driving from a low qualifying position into the top 10 before smoke began to billow from the rear of the car. The engine failure at Charlotte was caused by a combination of factors, Letarte said -- the vehicle running too hot, perhaps some communication growing pains between the substitute driver and crew chief, and debris on the front end that nobody could see. "We run a little warmer under yellows anyway, and it didn't cool off fast enough, and then we got debris on the grille," Letarte said. "And I think Regan, not being quite aware of all of our gauges, missed it a little bit, and I could have probably done a little better job of asking him about it. It was clear, though -- it was a clear Ziplock bag, so it was hard to see it. It was unfortunate, kind of stacked-up circumstances." Nothing about that night, though, deterred the No. 88 team's faith in Smith, whom team owner Rick Hendrick thinks enough of that he's considering the driver for a Nationwide ride next season. In Friday's first Cup practice at Kansas, there he was up toward the top of the speed chart once more. Again there's some help from Earnhardt, but this time the direct kind -- in the form of information the regular driver gleaned on the resurfaced race track during the same August tire test where he crashed and suffered the first of his two concussions. "I think Regan's a remarkable talent, without a doubt, and that's why we're excited to put him in the car," Letarte said. "I think it also says a lot about the equipment we have, and how hard we've worked on it to try and get it better. So, it's good. You know, we obviously tested here with Dale in the car, and he did a good job of giving us a head start. I think we've had a pretty good car here the last couple of days." For Smith, the future beyond this week is uncertain. Should Earnhardt return next weekend, the Cato, N.Y., native would be in search of another ride. Released from his Furniture Row Racing team after Talladega, he was set to drive for Finch at Charlotte before Letarte called looking for a substitute in the No. 88. Smith and Finch haven't talked about what happens after Kansas, though they hope to do so sometime this weekend -- with the understanding that for Smith, his interim role remains top priority for the moment. "We'll get together at some point this weekend and try to do that," Smith said. "But definitely that would be something I could hopefully try out before the year is over, and outside of that it's up in the air. I've been so focused on this, as good of an opportunity as it is in the [No. 88] Chevy. It's something to where I wanted to focus 100 percent on what I was doing here, give these guys everything I've got, and go from there." The job at hand, though, is making the No. 88 go fast. Toward that end, Smith planned to speak with Earnhardt throughout the race weekend, picking up whatever advice he could. There's one subject, though, they don't speak about -- what it was like for Earnhardt last weekend to watch someone else drive his race car. "When it comes to what last weekend was like, that's not something I talk to him about," Smith said. "I think, as drivers, we know how it is. So, I don't think that's something we would discuss." The crew chief didn't want to go there, either. "I think you'd have to ask him," Letarte said. "I think he's ready to get back in the race car. We're excited for him to hopefully get back in the race car. Martinsville can't quite come quick enough." SISTER SAYS EARNHARDT MAY BE CLEARED TO RACE NEXT WEEKEND Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s sister said Wednesday that NASCAR's most popular driver could be back racing next week at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia. Earnhardt will miss his second consecutive race Sunday at Kansas because of two concussions suffered in a six-week span. Kelley Earnhardt Miller wrote in a post Wednesday on JRNation.com that Earnhardt is on schedule to test a car early next week. If all goes well, she said he can race again Oct. 28 at Martinsville. "If all goes according to plan, and he continues to improve to 100%, he will test a race car early next week to be cleared for Martinsville," she wrote. "This has definitely been an eye-opening experience and one that I hope we don't revisit in his career." Earnhardt Miller said her brother has been resting per doctor orders, but has been allowed to watch some television and play some video games as long as he doesn't "stress" his brain, she wrote. Earnhardt did not seek treatment for the first concussion, suffered in an Aug. 29 crash at a tire test at Kansas. He sought treatment following a 25-car crash in the Oct. 7 race at Talladega that left him with a lingering headache. The injury snapped his streak of 461 consecutive starts, which was the fifth longest active streak in the Sprint Cup Series. His doctor said Earnhardt cannot be cleared to race until he's gone at least four days headache-free, then goes through various tests and spends some time behind the wheel. Earnhardt Miller was with Earnhardt on Tuesday when he went to Pittsburgh to see a specialist at the UPMC Sports Medicine Concussion Program. Afterward, his entourage toured the Pittsburgh Steelers facility and had lunch in the team cafeteria. Then they returned to North Carolina, where Earnhardt has daily therapies he's been assigned to do at home as part of his recovery, she wrote. Earnhardt Miller runs the day-to-day operations at JR Motorports, the Nationwide Series team that she owns with her brother, cousin Tony Eury Jr., and Rick Hendrick. She wrote in the post they've been grateful for the fan support since Earnhardt announced his concussions last week. "The outpouring of support has been great, and well, the criticism, you can learn from that as well," she wrote. Earnhardt visits concussion specialist in Pa Dale Earnhardt Jr. visited a noted concussion specialist in Pittsburgh on Tuesday as part of the planned rehabilitation program to get NASCAR's most popular driver back in a car. Hendrick Motorsports confirmed that Earnhardt met with Dr. Micky Collins, the clinical and executive director of the UPMC Sports Medicine Concussion Program. Collins is one of the leading experts in the diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of athletes who have suffered concussions. He and Dr. Mark Lovell developed the ImPACT test now used by many professional sports leagues, including the NFL, to assess concussions and determine when an injured athlete can safely return to play. Earnhardt was accompanied by neurosurgeon Dr. Jerry Petty, the doctor who would not clear Earnhardt to race last week because of two concussions suffered over the past six weeks. Earnhardt did not seek treatment for the first one, suffered in an Aug. 29 crash at a tire test at Kansas. He went to see Petty last week because of a lingering headache following a 25-car crash in the Oct. 7 race at Talladega. Earnhardt missed Saturday night's race at Charlotte, and will miss this weekend's race at Kansas, too. The injury snapped his streak of 461 consecutive starts, which was the fifth longest active streak in the Sprint Cup Series. Petty said last week that Earnhardt could not be cleared to race again until he's gone at least four days headache-free, then goes through testing. After that, Earnhardt would get back in a car and ''drive a lap or two and see how that goes, and if that goes well, we'll probably clear him to race,'' Petty said then. After visiting UPMC on Tuesday, Earnhardt, a rabid Washington Redskins fan, had lunch at the Pittsburgh Steelers facility. The Steelers tweeted a picture of Earnhardt meeting coach Mike Tomlin in the lunch room, calling him ''a surprise lunch time guest.'' No Earnhardt's in Charlotte; first time since '78 Dale Earnhardt Jr. grew up one town away from Charlotte Motor Speedway, running wild with his friends through the infield as his daddy thrilled the hometown crowd. He became NASCAR's most popular driver, the only North Carolina native who drives full-time in a series whose origins lie in part in the souped-up cars bootleggers used to outrun police as they moved moonshine around the state. Earnhardt won't be at the track on Saturday night. He will miss two races after a doctor benched him because of two concussions over the past six weeks. It marks the first time an Earnhardt won't race at Charlotte since 1978 -- and the first time an Earnhardt won't run a Cup race since the 1979 Southern 500. The show will go on without him, but it remains to be seen how many people come to watch. A week after Talladega's announced attendance was its smallest since figures have been provided, CMS officials were faced with the task of selling tickets to an Earnhardt-less race. "The good news is we have not had a mass exodus of fans, or cancellations of tickets," track president Marcus Smith said Friday. "We have had a lot of fans saying how much they hate that this has happened to Dale Jr., and now they'll just pull for their second favourite driver on Saturday night." This is a unique situation for NASCAR, which last had a top-tier driver sidelined in 2010 when Brian Vickers, another North Carolina native, was diagnosed with blood clots. But drivers play hurt in almost every other circumstance in NASCAR because the stakes are so high. In the early days, running the race meant collecting a share of the purse at the end of the night and buying groceries that week. As the sport progressed, and drivers became so dependent on sponsorship, missing a start could put a deal in danger. And now, in the age of the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship, missing a race will take a driver out of title contention. That's the dilemma Earnhardt faced on Aug. 29 when he crashed hard into the wall during a tire test at Kansas. He admitted this week that he suffered a concussion in that wreck, but didn't seek treatment because of his championship chances. He was third in points at the time, and the start of the Chase was just three weeks away. If a doctor said he couldn't race, his entire season would go to waste. "With the Chase coming up, I didn't know how difficult -- if I was to volunteer myself to get medical attention and be removed from the car, I didn't know how difficult it would be to get back in," he said. After a 25-car accident on the last lap of Sunday's race at Talladega left him with a lingering headache, he put his fate in the hands of neurosurgeon, who said the risk was too great for Earnhardt to race Saturday night or next week at Kansas. Earnhardt will be replaced in the beloved No. 88 Chevrolet by Regan Smith the next two weeks, and he said he'll stay home Saturday night so he is not a distraction to the team. NASCAR acknowledged it will re-visit its procedures since Earnhardt raced for six weeks following his first concussion. It praised him for stepping up and seeking medical attention this week as he marked his 38th birthday. "I think you saw a driver who is racing for a championship, who is our most popular driver, get up here and ask to go see a doctor and get out of a car. That takes a lot of guts," said senior vice-president Steve O'Donnell. "I think it also shows where our sport has come, and they know that safety is first and foremost. We know it's a dangerous sport, but we've got to be relying on our drivers too to be up front with us." But there's a danger involved with not being up front with NASCAR that differs from other sports. Driving a car injured at nearly 200 mph doesn't carry the same implications as, say, lining up on the football field. There is a distinct danger to others. "The temptation is to persevere though adversity," said points leader Brad Keselowski. "But sometimes you compete through an injury and perpetuate whatever damage there is. Or, even worse, risk those around you. "The difference in our sport is that when you're unable to make great decisions or you lose your focus, the potential is there for others to get hurt. If you can't focus (in football), you miss the play. In racing, if you can't focus, you knock the wall down or you wreck somebody." Earnhardt case shows high price of staying silent As impacts go, it wasn't that big of a wreck -- at least not compared to the hit Dale Earnhardt Jr. had taken six weeks earlier, when a blown tire sent him into the wall during a test. He took a shot in the left-rear quarterpanel in the big melee that ended last Sunday's event at Talladega Superspeedway, and felt disoriented when the car spun around. Over the next few days, he started having headaches. For NASCAR's most popular driver, the next step quickly became obvious. He spoke to his sister Kelley, and that led to a consultation with a neurosurgeon. From there, a chain of events unfolded that led to Earnhardt seated at a table Thursday at Charlotte Motor Speedway, explaining why he wouldn't be competing in at least the next two Sprint Cup events. The aftereffects of two recent concussions will keep Earnhardt out of Charlotte and Kansas, effectively ending what's become a long-shot championship bid. But the reason he walked into a doctor's office goes beyond that. "I needed to go see somebody regardless of whether I wanted to get out of the car or not," Earnhardt said. "Just for my own well-being. If I didn't need to go get in a race car and get hit again, I needed somebody to tell me that, because I was going to have a hard time making that decision for myself. I feel perfectly fine, but I don't want to keep getting hit in the head." There's no getting around the fact that Earnhardt kept the first concussion to himself; that he didn't feel quite right after slamming the wall at Kansas in that tire test Aug. 29; that he knew the all-too-familiar symptoms and decided to push through on his own. By the time the Chase began, he estimated that he was 80 to 90 percent. Last week, he said he was 100. But concussions have a cumulative effect and, after one, an athlete is more susceptible to another. The wreck at Talladega started the whole cycle all over again. Whether he was coaxed to do so by a family member or loved one, the fact is that Earnhardt walked into Dr. Jerry Petty's office of his own volition -- an action he had to know would be tantamount to tossing the keys to his No. 88 car to someone else. "I think a lot of guys would try to play hurt," said Rick Hendrick, Earnhardt's car owner, "But when the doctor tells you if you get hit again, like right away, it could be catastrophic I think this deal has worked out [as] well as it could. ... We've got a lot of years left to race. I always want to be on the side of safety, and I applaud Dale for raising his hand and going in there and getting checked out." Concussions are murky beasts, difficult to diagnose because of their relative lack of outward symptoms, sometimes terrifying to those affected because of how debilitating the effects can be. In recent years, hockey and football have been particularly plagued by what in essence is a mild form of traumatic brain injury. Athletes in those sports have at times hidden their symptoms, fearful of losing positions or even jobs. The consequence, though, is much worse. "A concussion, especially one that occurs in a short period of time to the previous concussion, can be severely disabling, and can occasionally be deadly," said Dr. Vinay Deshmukh, a partner to Petty at the neurosurgery clinic that is treating Earnhardt. And therein lies the crux -- a potentially serious condition that can be difficult to diagnose just by looking at the patient, and hinges on the affected individual being honest about what he's feeling. "Ninety percent of a concussion probably depends on individual information," said Petty, who works with the NFL's Carolina Panthers in addition to NASCAR teams. In the aftermath of Earnhardt's incident, much will be made of what else NASCAR should have done to ensure he was OK, or keep him off the track if he wasn't. In retrospect, perhaps Earnhardt should have been tested more thoroughly after an accident in the Kansas tire test that the car's data recorder measured as 40 Gs. But those ideal scenarios overlook a fundamental point -- for a concussion to be successfully treated, the individual affected has to be a willing participant. That was particularly important in Earnhardt's case given that, even after his admission, an MRI and neurological exam were both normal, Petty said. He never lost consciousness; never suffered any amnesia. But the headaches, the not feeling right -- it all added up to one thing. "I knew having [those] two concussions back to back was not a good thing," Earnhardt said. Now, that's not to say some things couldn't be done better. It can't sit well with anyone that Earnhardt drove for weeks with a concussion he kept to himself, that he admittedly wasn't 100 percent when the Chase began. Hits like the one he took at Kansas might garner more attention going forward. "Looking back, there are always things you can second-guess and look at," said Steve O'Donnell, NASCAR's vice president for racing operations. "I think that's one of the things we'll evaluate as we go forward. But I think, again, I'd put it back on [the fact that] everybody's got a responsibility as part of this. That's something we can learn from, as well. I'm sure in talking to Dale Jr. as we have, knowing where we stand now, that will absolutely be part of the procedures that we look at moving forward." But this situation crystallizes the entire concussion issue, one which other contact sports have been battling to get their arms around for years, with varying degrees of success. There are zero easy answers and zero guarantees. Earnhardt is being held out for two weeks, and will have to undergo tests before he's allowed back in the car. Doctors will get his heart rate up, and see if the headaches return. If they don't, he'll be cleared to race again. But, as everyone learned earlier this season with Eric McClure who missed six weeks with a concussion suffered in a Nationwide race at Talladega in the spring, no one can say with true exactitude when that will be. The entire condition is opaque. Cup points leader Brad Keselowski said he's never had a concussion that's been proven medically, which further emphasizes how much responsibility the affected individual carries. That can be a tricky thing in NASCAR, where one missed race can jeopardize championship chances or even career status. Not every driver has the security that Dale Earnhardt Jr. does at Hendrick Motorsports. But, in a sport that considers itself a community, every driver plays a role in helping to maintain the safety of others on the race track. "Everyone's got their own code," Keselowski said. "That's the tricky thing about concussions -- you can't just look at somebody like a broken arm. You can see a broken arm. You can't just look at someone and say, he's got one, he doesn't. So it's very much self-policed. There's no answer to it for the racing community, as there's no answer to it for the rest of the sports community, whether it's high school football or college or pro football or hockey or whatnot. The difference in out sports versus those is, when you're unable to make great decisions when you lose your focus, the potential is there for others to get hurt." Which is why in NASCAR, admissions like the one Earnhardt made Thursday are so notable. No question, he probably should have done this six weeks ago, but it's easy to understand the pressures of the Chase and wanting to maintain one of the best seasons of his career. Barring some major change in NASCAR policy, those realities will always be there. But some hope Earnhardt's revelation will prompt other affected athletes to come forward -- just as the driver himself did this week, when he realized staying silent did more harm than good. "I think what happened today will probably go a long way," Deshmukh said. "There will probably be more awareness. And I'm not talking just on the pro level or the mega-superstar level. We're talking day-to-day weekend athletes, high school sports, even younger than that will hopefully see the example of what we've been showing today and understand just how important brain health is. It really should take precedence over everything else." Earnhardt Jr. will miss 2 races to concussion Dale Earnhardt Jr. will miss the next two races with his second concussion in the past six weeks, ending the championship chances of NASCAR's most popular driver. The first concussion, suffered in a crash during an Aug. 29 tire test at Kansas, went undiagnosed until Wednesday, when Earnhardt was examined in Charlotte for lingering effects from Sunday's crash at Talladega. Hendrick Motorsports announced Thursday that Earnhardt will sit out races Charlotte and Kansas, and Regan Smith will replace him in the No. 88 Chevrolet. Earnhardt, team owner Rick Hendrick and crew chief Steve Letarte were scheduled to discuss his injury later Thursday at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Earnhardt, who celebrated his 38th birthday on Wednesday, was injured in a 25-car, last-lap accident Sunday at Talladega. Because he was able to drive his car away from the accident -- teammate Jimmie Johnson even caught a lift on the window back to the garage -- Earnhardt was not required to go to the care centre for an examination at the time. Immediately after the race, he called restrictor-plate racing "bloodthirsty" and said he no longer had any desire to compete at Daytona and Talladega. The wreck was at least the second hard hit Earnhardt has had this season. He struck the wall extremely hard during the Goodyear test at Kansas when his right front tire failed, an accident driver Brad Keselowski tweeted about moments afterward. It's not clear if Earnhardt sought a medical evaluation after that accident and he attended a Washington Redskins exhibition game later that evening. Earnhardt earlier this season snapped a 143-race winless streak dating to 2008, and many believed he was in the best position in years to finally win his first Sprint Cup Series championship. But he had a mediocre start to the Chase for the Sprint Cup and left Talladega ranked 11th in the field. By sitting out the next two races, he'll most certainly finish last in the 12-driver Chase race. Earnhardt will also end his streak of 461 consecutive starts, which is the fifth longest active streak in the Sprint Cup Series. NASCAR strengthened its commitment to keeping drivers with concussions off the track in 2002, in part because Earnhardt admitted he was unable to fully concentrate or communicate with his crew chief after an accident at California. He self-diagnosed himself with a concussion, which he revealed weeks later. NASCAR then said doctors at infield care centres could require drivers to undergo CT scans or MRIs if they suspected a concussion. Clearance to race after suffering a concussion is not given until after a driver obtains a medical release. Nationwide Series driver Eric McClure missed six weeks this season with lingering effects of a concussion suffered at Talladega. McClure said the concussion he sustained in the May 5 race was the third of his career, one of the main reasons his doctors and NASCAR officials made him sit out for an extended period of time. "There's not really a set timetable for those things and that's been the challenging thing," McClure said after his June return. "That's what kept me from coming back was the lingering symptoms. I really felt a couple of weeks ago, after the first two weeks of being away from the track, and having total brain rest, that I was ready. But (my doctor) felt like we needed to wait, and I respect that opinion." Qualifying the Chasers: Talladega Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Qualified 12th): Dale Jr. has had a great season in terms of getting consistency back into his game. He's been around all season, breaking his winless streak and even taking the points lead at one juncture. But here is a stat that tells the story about his actual Chase chances. Junior has the best average finish of all Cup drivers in 2012. And that's the problem -- that is the crowning jewel of stats which all point to his amazing averageness in 2012. Talladega, a track he likes and has won at, might be his last shot to grab a win and get back in this thing. After all, you can't be a champion by being the best at being average. Dale Earnhardt Jr. racing for win at Talladega Dale Earnhardt Jr. knows exactly what strategy he needs at Talladega Superspeedway. He needs to go for broke and get a win. His championship hopes fading, Earnhardt is among a handful of drivers who believe Sunday's race could be the one that lifts them back into title contention. There's some separation in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship field, and three drivers at the front are pulling away after three races. Earnhardt, who sits seventh in points, knows chipping away probably won't get the job done. He's 39 points behind leader Brad Keselowski, with Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin keeping pace at the front. ''We're in a position where it really doesn't matter . we can't be conservative at all,'' Earnhardt said. ''We really got to, you know, take a lot of risks. With just a few races left, as good as everybody's running, as good as Brad and Jimmie and the 11 car (Hamlin) have been running, we have to get pretty aggressive and that should play right into this race track's hands.'' It's the same attitude Clint Bowyer, the two-time defending race winner, will take into Sunday. He's fourth in the points but thinks Talladega could shake up the standings and change the complexion of the Chase. ''We have to use this weekend to put ourselves back in the hunt,'' Bowyer said. ''There's three cars that have been breaking away here and this is the one track, the one opportunity that can change things. I'm looking forward to going there and seeing how it all shakes out. We all know what we're getting into going into this race. ''This is a track that can really swing the points 20-30 points one way or another. So in my situation I have to use this as an opportunity. This is a race that can win the championship for somebody.'' Earnhardt hopes he's that somebody. He used to be an odds-on favorite at Talladega, where he's got five career victories. But the racing has changed, the strategy is different, and Earnhardt hasn't won at Talladega since 2004. He admitted Friday he doesn't like riding around in the back waiting to make a late charge to the front, and the unpredictability of the race makes it difficult to plot a plan. ''You really don't know what things are going to go down or what's going to happen,'' he said. ''Sometimes it happens with the usual suspects and sometimes it's a surprise of even who would be involved in it. I've been on the receiving end of some wrecks here and I've started a few myself. ''So you just go out there and try to run as hard as you can and try to put yourself around people you like to work with and benefit from having people around you that you trust and that usually pays off.'' It hasn't paid off for his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Johnson, who has yet to finish a plate race this season. Johnson has two wins at Talladega, and Earnhardt pushed him to a victory here last year, but it's his eight DNFs that stand out on his resume. Part of the problem may be Johnson's strategy of riding around in the back for much of the race - something Earnhardt said can cause problems. ''Any time you're cautious, you tend to get yourself into trouble,'' Earnhardt said. ''And the guys that are a lot more aggressive seem to find themselves towards front of the mess when it all goes down and end up being the ones that cross the finish line with some type of reasonable finish.'' Earnhardt better prepared to battle back in Chase They started with the same setup they had used at the same track in July, added a few new ideas to it, and the result was a disaster. The car was slow in opening practice, and they spent so much time trying to make it better, they barely got in one mock qualifying run. The problems from Friday bled into Saturday, and when the race started Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Dale Earnhardt Jr. did not have a very good feeling about how competitive he was going to be. "It was inevitable to me that the car wasn't going to be what we needed," he said, "and it wasn't." That much quickly became evident when almost all the other drivers in the Chase field stormed toward the front while Earnhardt lingered mid-pack, struggling to make up ground. The result was a 13th-place finish that left him seventh in the standings and 26 points behind current championship leader Jimmie Johnson. He seemed relieved to have salvaged that much. "It should have been worse," Earnhardt said. And just like that, only two races in, Earnhardt's best chance in years to capture an elusive Cup Series title is at something of a crossroads. Given the strength Johnson traditionally has shown in the tracks in the playoff, given the run Denny Hamlin is on, given the potential Brad Keselowski is showing, NASCAR's most popular driver needs a turnaround, and quickly. He's not out of it, not by any means, not with eight weeks remaining. But to get back in the championship mix Earnhardt needs to face down adversity -- something he's perhaps better equipped to do now than at any other point in his career. It hasn't always been that way. In the past Earnhardt has allowed frustration and disappointment to seep inside him, to color the feedback he provides to his team, to derail his focus and detonate his attitude. There were times when car owner Rick Hendrick needed to intervene over the radio. It all came from the right place, of course, a desire to get better and contend for race wins, but the process could be painful to watch. Contrast all that with Sunday at New Hampshire, when an aggravated driver ran around 20th most of the day in a balky car, and somehow managed a 13th-place result that prevented his Chase deficit from being much deeper than it is. Now, that doesn't mean the No. 88 team can afford to miss the setup again or bungle through another practice session, particularly not now with its margin for error so thin. But Sunday at New Hampshire used to be the kind of day that took Earnhardt completely out of it, where problem mounted upon problem mounted upon problem, where radio communication grew terse and defeat hung in the air like a dangling pit-stall sign. So much of the Chase is about crisis management, of not letting small issues turn into big ones or big ones turn into crippling ones. Sooner or later, every team involved will face a circumstance where the response is capable of determining its fate. On that front, at the very least, Earnhardt and crew chief Steve Letarte left themselves a chance. "It's something I've been trying to work on, trying to tone down my attitude a little bit more when things aren't going right, and trying to be more a part of the solution than part of the problem," Earnhardt said Tuesday in a question-and-answer session with fans at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. "I know that Steve is going to work the best, and have the best chance at fixing the car, if I keep a calm attitude when I'm giving him information. If I'm shouting and yelling, or I'm just cussing the race car and not really telling him what I think is wrong with it, he can't fix it. He can't fix it with information like that. So I've been working on that." That doesn't mean Sunday was pretty. Speaking with reporters after his Q&A with fans, Earnhardt detailed how his New Hampshire effort went off-course in Friday practice, and how the mismanagement of that single session affected the team's entire weekend. "We feel like we can definitely do better than that, and we should and will," he said. "Whether we can do good enough to overcome the deficit we've put in front of us, I don't know. But we're going to work for it and see what happens." Rebounding from adversity is often a hallmark of a championship effort. Johnson did it, in 2006 when he was crashed at Talladega and fell to eighth in points, and to a lesser degree in 2009 when he was wrecked by Sam Hornish Jr. in the third-to-last event of the season. Kurt Busch did it in 2004, rallying when a wheel fell off his race car. Tony Stewart did it last season, firing his crew chief in mid-Chase and then overcoming a piece of debris that punctured his radiator early in a race he had to win. Denny Hamlin couldn't do it in 2010, letting poor pit strategy in the penultimate event so affect him that was almost beaten by the time he showed up for the finale. It's not going to be easy, not the whole way through, not for anybody. Hamlin may have looked invincible last weekend at New Hampshire, when he won for the third time in the past five weeks. Now he heads to Dover, one of his worst tracks, and is trading text messages with noted sports psychologist Dr. Bob Rotella to try and stay in the right frame of mind. Hamlin also was at the Hall on Tuesday, and he pulled out his iPhone to read reporters a message from Rotella: "Let your challenge for this week be to fall in love with this track," the psychologist wrote him. "From the moment you arrive, look for things to love about it and reasons to love it." Of course, that's easier said than done. But Hamlin is another driver who once allowed adversity to stick with him too long, as his 2010 championship loss to Johnson -- and the year-long funk that followed it -- would attest. Now he's better at handling such things, partly because of his work with Rotella, and partly because of the security that came with the contract extension he signed earlier this year with Joe Gibbs Racing. "There's so much uncertainty in our sport nowadays with like who's going to go where, and sponsors staying or going and everything," Hamlin said. "For me, it's comforting knowing that I'm in a stable situation." Earnhardt's situation is stable, as well, but that doesn't make his challenge in the final eight races of this Chase any less daunting. The way he's dealing with problems on the race track, though, just might. Now, Earnhardt is self-aware enough to realize he probably sent the wrong message with his body language after getting out of the car Sunday. He also knows that a few years ago, difficulties like those he battled at New Hampshire might have mushroomed into something much worse. "I have an easier time of biting my tongue than I used to," he said. "I think I hold it together during the race better. I basically try to stay calm all day Sunday and give Steve an opportunity to fix the car. I think in the past, we'd have probably had a meltdown that would be quite popular in situations like that in the past. So I think I do a better job of handling those kinds of things. But for some reason after the race, I really can't shake it off. I just get out of the car and don't say anything, and I know that's probably not the best reaction out of the choices I have. It's just real hard for me to get over it. It takes me a couple of days." Tuesday, it seemed that Earnhardt's fans already had left it behind. In the 30-minute Q&A, they were more concerned with topics like hunting, his love for the Washington Redskins, his television commercials with Danica Patrick, and what he cooks for himself. Turns out Earnhardt is a big griller, with "racks and racks of seasonings," though he's been eating a lot of salads lately to stay in shape for the Chase -- which was one thing nobody asked about. "I'm sure," Earnhardt said later with a smile, "they'd have gotten around to that." Qualifying the Chasers: New Hampshire Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Qualified 14th): After more of the steady-and-slow-does-not-win-the-race activity we have seen all season from Dale Jr., he'll arrive at yet another track where he has moderately performed. Although he finished fourth there earlier in the season, Loudon is a place where Mr. Diet Mountain Dew spills out a few finishes in the teens and twenties for every decent one he chugs down. Ok, Ok -- Denny, Clint, move over. Here's your "already blew your chance" man for Loudon on this weekend. Dale Jr. says crew shakeup won't affect his drive Dale Earnhardt Jr. says he's been able to concentrate on racing even after a shakeup in the Nationwide team he founded. The co-owner of JR Motorsports says it has been difficult to deal with the changes since his uncle, Tony Eury Sr., was fired as competition director. Earnhardt's cousin, Tony Eury Jr., let go this week as part of the shakeup. He had been the crew chief for Danica Patrick in the Nationwide Series. Earnhardt said before Friday's practice at New Hampshire that the team's turmoil has weighed on him. But he says it hasn't been a distraction ''when I go to work.'' Earnhardt owns JR Motorsports team with his sister, Kelley Earnhardt-Miller, Rick Hendrick and Eury Jr. Earnhardt Jr. displays toughness in letting Eurys go First as cousins and then as co-workers, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Tony Eury Jr. have been bickering for the better part of nearly 40 years. It's a combustible and contentious partnership that has produced two Nationwide Series championships and 17 victories in Sprint Cup but also three high-profile splits -- and much is at stake for Earnhardt in the wake of their latest. Despite being a co-owner of JR Motorsports with Earnhardt, his sister, Kelley Earnhardt Miller, and Rick Hendrick, Eury left the Nationwide Series team Monday, 10 days after his father was released as competition director. Because Eury is the crew chief for Danica Patrick, the move will be scrutinized mostly on what it means for auto racing's most transcendent driver. But it's likely to have minimal impact on her results or long-term future. Patrick, who is 11th in points with two top 10s in 26 starts, has only seven races left this season before heading to Sprint Cup in 2013 with Stewart-Haas Racing. If she returns to JRM next year, it'd be in a limited role, and she has no rapport with Ryan Pemberton, who is listed as her crew chief for Saturday's race at Kentucky Speedway after joining the team last Monday as the de-facto replacement for Tony Eury Sr. "I'm sure I'll get to know (Pemberton) as the year goes on, but there's not too much left," she said Friday. "With any organization it's tough to turn the ship instantly." There is an urgency at JRM to produce results, though. Despite having a nine-time most popular driver in Earnhardt to woo sponsors, the organization has struggled to amass steady financing like any NASCAR team since the 2008 economic downturn. The lack of dollars has dovetailed with a precipitous decline in results -- one victory in 2010 and two winless seasons since Brad Keselowski scored four wins for JRM in 2009. Though his sister runs the team's day-to-day operations, Earnhardt has gotten more heavily involved in its business side since last year. After losing money in 2009-10, JRM barely turned a profit last year and probably has assembled enough piecemeal sponsorships this season to break into the black again. To cover past gaps, Earnhardt said the team had sliced its weekly race budget by about 20% and bridged shortfalls with past profits but didn't cut staff. "Every dime I made I put back into the team," he told USA TODAY Sports in May. "It would have been nice to put the profit back into your pocket, but we put it back in the team. "But I never will put my own money into it. That's a line that I don't need to cross. I don't need to break that promise on principle. If I do, I'm setting myself up to make it a financial failure. We're far more comfortable and further away from that prospect a year ago." But Patrick is taking the bulk of her GoDaddy.com money to Cup next year, leaving a sponsorship void that would be easier to fill if JRM could return to its halcyon days with Keselowski, who finished third in Nationwide points for JRM in 2008-09. Though Aric Almirola finished fourth in the 2011 standings, he didn't win and posted seven top fives. This season, Cole Whitt, Patrick's teammate, is ranked seventh with three top fives. Rather than change drivers (as it did with a quick hook on Kelly Bires after only five races in 2010), JRM has been shuffling personnel this year in hopes of improving its Chevrolets. JRM receives its chassis, engines and technical support from Hendrick Motorsports, but it consistently has been outperformed by Turner Motorsports, which also is supplied by Hendrick. Earnhardt believes JRM should be a top-three contender that challenges regularly for victories, and he said Eury Sr.'s departure was about "trying to change the culture" in his team -- a thinly veiled admission that Eury's old-school ways weren't meshing with Hendrick's engineering-driven approach. "As a company, we need to get better," Earnhardt told USA TODAY Sports in May. "We're turning over every stone, making changes. There's a company up the road at Hendrick Motorsports that has all the resources in the world. They want to help us. They want to give us all the knowledge that we can stomach. It's our job to access that better and use those resources better. "I don't think we have been. We can do more of that. It's just hard to go ask. There's a lot of pride and things in the way." The hang-up likely wasn't engineering for Eury Jr., who worked at Hendrick as Earnhardt's No. 88 crew chief from 2008-09, but it might have been Sprint Cup related. While addressing his father's release at Richmond International Raceway last week, Eury lamented the key to a rebound by JRM would be putting experienced Cup drivers in its cars to guarantee success. But that isn't the philosophy of Earnhardt, who always envisioned JRM (which was known as "Chance 2" in a former incarnation) as a developmental team to groom rising stars such as Keselowski. After cutting loose Bires two years ago, the team hired Jamie McMurray as a stopgap. Even though the veteran reeled off a win and four top fives in eight starts, it didn't feel right to the team's owner. "It was a tough decision to go ask McMurray to help me," Earnhardt told USA TODAY Sports in May. "Because I just hated having to go to my peers and say, 'You mind pitching in here and doing this a couple of races?' I know they didn't mind, and Jamie won us a race at Atlanta, but I don't know how to repay somebody for something like that. That was a hell of (a) thing. They're not getting paid Cup money like they're used to, they're doing it as a favor, and I don't know how in the hell I'm ever going to repay it." His feelings probably are just as conflicted over the latest divorce with Eury, a childhood friend whose father (also Earnhardt's uncle) worked on the NASCAR teams owned by Earnhardt's late seven-time champion father. "I had hoped he would be here for a long time, but as we've discussed the direction of JR Motorsports moving forward, it was clear our differences in ideas were too vast to overcome," Earnhardt said in a statement Monday. "I love him like a brother, and you'll never hear me say a bad thing about him. I know he'll have much success in anything he does going forward." It sounded a lot like Earnhardt's sentiment when he faced the news media after the Eurys were removed from his Sprint Cup team in 2004. "[I told Tony Eury Jr.], 'I don't want to lose you as a friend,' " Earnhardt said then. "I don't care if we never talk about race cars ever again, just as long as you come over to the house and visit all the time. That's the thing I didn't want to screw up. "It's tough working with family." Earnhardt Jr., Stewart rally for top-10 finishes Dale Earnhardt Jr. turned a potentially Chase-damaging situation into a positive Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway, finishing in the top 10 after having to start at the back of the field following an engine change. Earnhardt cracked the top 20 within 35 laps and remained in contention for the rest of the day, finishing eighth. That leaves him seventh in the standings, 17 points behind Brad Keselowski, after the first of 10 Chase races. "That's how we've been running all year," Earnhardt said. "I'm not getting real excited. To win the championship, we're going to have to turn days like that, those kind of mistakes, around into wins and top-threes. "Eighth is all right, but I know Brad is going to run well and [Jimmie Johnson] is obviously going to be tough. You can't run eighth every week and win the championship." Earnhardt qualified fourth Saturday. As he crossed the start/finish line after his run, he reached to take the car out of gear. Instead of neutral, the shifter jumped into third gear. It might have engaged for only a split second, but it was enough to cause a valve to bend after hitting the piston head. "Yeah, I was just disappointed in myself for making that mistake with the engine and getting us that far back at the start of the race," Earnhardt said. The No. 88 Chevrolet team changed out the damaged engine Saturday afternoon, but that meant Earnhardt had to start at the tail end of the grid, a position that he felt might have cost him a top-five finish on Sunday. "We really couldn't overcome the track position," he said. "We had a great car at the first half of the race -- the first 100 or 130 laps we had a really fast car. "We made a couple of adjustments that just didn't really help us out. We needed help, and we sort of made the car ordinary and just kind of had to maintain track position." Earnhardt wasn't the only Chase contender breathing a sigh of relief after making the best out of what might have been a bad situation, as Tony Stewart could attest. Stewart started 29th after a disappointing qualifying effort and finished sixth. "We probably passed more cars than anybody [Sunday], so not exactly what we were looking for, but we were just a little bit off and we will keep working on it," Stewart said. "But if we can be a little bit off and end up with a top-10, then we are in good shape." Kevin Harvick and Greg Biffle also gained ground throughout the 400 miles. Harvick started 35th and finished 12th, while Biffle went from 22nd to 13th. Biffle felt like he gave away some spots during the final few laps. "We were really going good there at the end, and we did our last stop and the car just went bad," Biffle said. "It just got way too loose. ... I don't even really know what happened. "We were driving up through there and the car was getting better and better and it never fails: the last stop of the day we put our [best] tires on and it went bad." Biffle's teammate, Matt Kenseth, finished 18th but might have dodged a major bullet after having a shock break and fall off his No. 17 Ford with 100 laps to go. The car was never as good the rest of the way, but Kenseth was able to remain on the lead lap. "I was in the back and couldn't go anywhere," he said. "My car just wasn't fast enough." Eury Jr. out as crew chief at JR Motorsports JR Motorsports has parted ways with crew chief Tony Eury Jr., two weeks after his father was ousted as competition director. Eury Jr. was crew chief for Danica Patrick and is a partial owner of the Nationwide Series team. Dale Earnhardt Jr. said in a statement Monday that a difference in ideas for the direction of the company led to Eury's departure. He and Eury Jr. are cousins, and Eury Jr. was his crew chief for many years. Earnhardt says no decision has been made as to who will crew chief Patrick this weekend at Kentucky Speedway. The team last week hired Ryan Pemberton as competition director. He replaced Tony Eury Sr., who was released two weeks ago. Qualifying the Chasers: Chicagoland Denny Hamlin (Qualified 8th): Well, here we are again my friends. Is Denny Da Man? An early Chase lead in 2010 proved fleeting, as Five-Time swooped in for the last of a historic run of titles. Hamlin won't get a great head start, as he has not only never won in the Windy City but also has just a single top-five and one top-10 to his name in six career races there. Heck, he has as many finishes outside the top 30 as he does in the top 10 (31st last season and 40th in 2008). Jimmie Johnson (Qualified 1st): Remember this dude? Vaguely, huh? There was a whole season there in between now and when he was holding a ridiculous five straight Cup title trophies. He gets the chance to Chase another one starting Sunday in Chicago. But this is one of those tracks that JJ has never been in love with and looked downright mortal at considering some of his booming stats in other domains. Johnson has nary a win, a couple seconds, a pair of thirds and a single fourth-place. He's also coming off a 10th there last year and a 25th in the last season of his championship run. Very, well, normal for him at least. Tony Stewart (Qualified 29th): Tony, Tony, Tony. A lot has been said about the man -- and by him, quite honestly -- but here he is; in the Chase; ranked third in the points standings. It won't be quite a year yet since Smoke revved up his championship run by fighting off Matt and Martin (who will be fiery Chasers again in Chicago) down the stretch for his third career Chicagoland win -- the most by any Cup driver in the track's short history. Not a bad place for a little déjà vu, maybe. Brad Keselowski (Qualified 13th): Bad-Fast Brad is definitely the next big thing in Cup, and next is happening right now. He just made his first Chase last year and now, for his second go-round, he's put himself in the top four to start out this season's Chase race. It's no fluke either, as the driver of the Blue Deuce answered his last major criticism of lacking consistency by finishing the "regular season" by finishing in the top10 in nine of the last 10 races, five of those in the top five and even notching a win. He's only raced thrice at Chicagoland, but has made marked improvement each time through -- going from 32nd to 18th to fifth. Is a win next? Greg Biffle (Qualified 22nd): The planets are back in alignment in the Galaxy of Greg with a 2012 Chase berth that may help him forget missing last season's "postseason" -- his first Chase-less year since 2007. Biffle, aided by starting this season with a trio of third-place finishes and winning in the seventh race, sat atop or very near the top of the points standings all season. He bolstered that with a late win at Michigan, cementing his Chase-ification. But he's not going to love starting in Chicago. He's only finished in the top 10 once (2008), and his 2011 finish was his best in three years ... a 26th-place. Yeah, not good. Clint Bowyer (Qualified 9th): The leader of the Michael Waltrip Racing upstarts and owner of all of its wins, Bowyer spun a so-so season into a fine (wine) one with a Sonoma win. That big win came amidst nine top-10s in 13 races -- and that's before he closed the book on the regular season with a win. He hasn't gotten higher up in the standings than 10th in a season since 2008, but he has already tied his season-high Cup win tally with two. But Chicago as a starting point for his Chase chances? He's sneaky-good there, with top-10s in each of his last three races. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Qualified 4th): Junebug!!! He's back battling for the Cup championship!!! Or is he, really? Yes, technically, he's in the Chase field of course, but he certainly hasn't looked too tough on the race track since his big slump-busting win at Michigan. Where you could feel him almost honing in on that win in June, you could almost feel the mojo slipping away a bit since. He's basically showing up in every other race since that win and these are his last six finishes of the season: 32nd-28th-4th-12th-7th-14th. Meh. That expression also applies to his Chicagoland output, where he has won once, and finished third there last season, but has finished between 15th and 38th in one-third of his races there. Matt Kenseth (Qualified 3rd): The law of averages is the calling card of Kenseth. He just plugs along, matches his highs and lows with one another, balancing ups and downs. His regular season finished with three top-10s in his last eight races ... he also has as many finishes at 23rd or higher in that same span. He nailed that season-opening Daytona 500win ... then promptly finished 13th and 22nd in his next two races. And, guess what? Same thing at Chi-town. After pulling down a runner-up in 2007 and a seventh in 2008, his next three finishes there were 23rd-13th-21st. Not too bad, not too good. Kevin Harvick (Qualified 35th): Kevin is definitely the guy this year that you can look at and say, "How'd he get into the Chase?" Zero wins. Not a lot of top-fives or, really, top-10s comparatively to other Chase drivers. He just plain didn't have a bad race. His worst run of the entire season was finishing a not-too-awful 25th after crashing in Talladega. Chicagoland could easily be where he makes the big move for the season, though. Although he's just one season removed from a career-worst 34th at the track, he has finished outside the top four just twice in the last six years. And that's not even counting wins in his first two starts at the track. Martin Truex Jr. (Qualified 18th): The other Junior ... well, he's in the Chase, too. He hasn't snapped his winless streak like his fellow second-coming-of-a-racing-namesake did in 2012 (Martin's has been going on since 2007), but at least he's playing the game for the first time in a long time. Truex, he of that solitary career win in '07, has only sniffed the top 10 in points once in his Cup career before this season. He's not as bad as you might expect at Chicago, but hanging out in the teens at this race for a career won't get him closer to a win. Kasey Kahne (Qualified 6th): Kasey is a bit like the flip side of Kevin's story. Unlike the "how-did-he-get-here-winless-Harvick" situation, Kahn's motto might as well be "two-wins-and-somehow-just-in" version of a season tale so far. He's got as many or more wins than seven Chasers, and has been nasty fast lately. The problem? Early struggles. In fact, with ugly finishes in his first six races to the tune of 29th-34th-19th-37th-14th-38th it's a small miracle that he's even in the postseason. He's a wild card, literally and figuratively of course, at Chicagoland -- he has been around the top five in the last three races there after an awful first four shots at the track. Jeff Gordon (Qualified 19th): There's only one thing anyone worth their salt wants to talk about regarding The Rainbow Warrior. That he got in amazingly on a last-ditch wild-card effort at Richmond, right? Nope. It's what that wild card berth has brought about a re-birth of ... The 'Stache. That's right, the amazingly misguided, creepy evildoer pencil moustache that Jeff broke onto the scene with in the early '90s is back in a bigger, grayer way. So, stats-shmats ... let's see The 'Stache in action please. Right now. The 'Stache could shine right away in Chicagoland, where JG has six top-fives in 11 races there, including a win. That's amazing ... just not as much so as, yup, The 'Stache! Earnhardt Jr. reveals confessional letter To a 16 yr old Dale Jr, Now writing this letter to you is going to force me to think pretty deeply about my life and you know thinking deeply was never one of your favorite activities. You always did and always will shoot for the C on your report card, anything more than that is always going to be a surprise to you right? You just got your driver's license ... your heart belongs to no one ... and you're going to spend a lot of nights in the bed of your S10 pickup truck out in the field staring up at the stars worrying about your future. Your father's accomplishments on the race track already cast a pretty heavy shadow over your existence. He's going to accomplish more in the years to come and your fear of living anonymously and forgotten -- that's going to grow. You don't have much of a connection to your mother, your efforts in that regard are disappointing. In the future she is going to become a consistent and prominent figure in your life ... but you shouldn't waste the years in between. Because her love is the truly unconditional kind. You shouldn't take it for granted. Living under your father's roof doesn't bridge the incredible gap between you guys. In due time, you will enjoy the most incredible relationship with him. One afternoon after an accident, you're going to go home thinking your career is over. And then bustin' in through the door comes your dad and he's wondering what you're doing sitting on your butt feeling sorry for yourself. And you are going to go out on the back porch and sit down and have a two hour conversation that is the most influential conversation you'll ever have with him. He is going to finally assure you of what lies ahead. It's not the end of your career like you thought, it's just the beginning of a very, very long incredible journey. You'll share laughs and triumphs at his side. It'll be in your best interest that when these times come, you get everything out of them that you possibly can. I mean when it's you and him, in that moment, you live it to the fullest. Now you want to be a race car driver, so let's talk about the racing. As I look back on it as a whole, starting out from Go Karts all the way to Cup today, it's going to feel clunky, and impromptu, and is going to be lacking in successes. But fortunately for you ... every weekend there will be another race. Now with that said, you're going to be so deathly frightened of potential failure that you're not going to realize just how much fun you're having. You're going to win a lot of races, and as painfully shy as you are you'll overcome and accomplish in arenas not just limited to driving cars.You're going to meet Presidents. You're going to guest on late night shows, I mean it's incredible -- but it's true. That's not too bad for an oil mechanic. Yes you are going to change oil change for a few years -- and it's not as bad as it sounds. And I knew you'd want to know about your Redskins. Now your Redskins are goin' to win another Super Bowl in '91. But after that it's a pretty rough road. But your support for them Redskins doesn't waver one bit. Overall, you need to just be more sure of yourself. You're going to do great things man. You're going to have an awesome life. You have a great heart and it's going to stay with you throughout. So don't be so timid and worrisome about the future so much so that you can't enjoy the present. You're there, worried about me here. You just need to have some fun man. Jump in that S10, go down to Concord and cruise the strip. Because you're going to be here ... soon enough. Earnhardt: Diet Mountain Dew scaling back Dale Earnhardt Jr. says sponsor Diet Mountain Dew is going to "back off a little bit" next year, leaving a small gap to fill on Hendrick Motorsports' No. 88 Chevrolet. Earnhardt said Friday the majority of the season is set with the National Guard, but that there's a "balancing act" with multiple sponsors because everyone wants to be the top sponsor. He says the void he has to fill in place of Diet Mountain Dew is tricky because it's so small, and that "if it were a bit larger gap it would be easier to fill." Earnhardt also was in the news this week when he said Ryan Pemberton has joined JR Motorsports to help general manager Kelley Earnhardt-Miller, the driver's sister. JR Motorsports recently parted ways with competition director Tony Eury Sr., Earnhardt's uncle. Hendrick's 'Fantastic Four' up for challenge The No. 24 team of driver Jeff Gordon and crew chief Alan Gustafson is so fired up about making the Chase for the Sprint Cup, Gordon is "bringing back the 'stache" and Gustafson has shaved his head. So what should team owner Rick Hendrick do? He has placed all four of his Hendrick Motorsports teams in the Chase, making up one-third of the 12-driver field that will determine this year's Cup champion. Joining Gordon in the Chase are teammates Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kasey Kahne. Together, they combined to win six races -- all coming during a stretch of 11 events from the end of May to the beginning of August. To a man, the "Fantastic Four" drivers all said it was a common goal shared between them to make the Chase. Gordon was the last one in, grabbing the second and final wild-card spot in dramatic fashion. He made it thanks to his unlikely charge from 27th with an ill-handling race car in the middle of the final regular-season race at Richmond all the way to second place by its end. "Rick Hendrick sets out at the beginning of the year with a goal of getting all four teams in the Chase," Gordon said. "I know we're all competitive teams. I didn't feel like we were going to be the one on the outside looking in, fighting and scrapping to get in on the very last race. I just didn't think that. "I really didn't want to get that phone call from Rick with him saying, 'Gee, I'm really sorry it didn't work out, buddy. We need to fix this and we need to fix that.' Instead, it was, 'That's awesome; that's great; you're the man!' " As the drivers practiced Friday at Chicagoland Speedway to prepare for this Sunday's Chase opener in the GEICO 400, each assessed his own chances of taking the next step to claim the 2012 championship and how working together -- or not -- might affect said chances. Five-time looks for sixth Johnson, seeded second behind only Denny Hamlin, owns the most victories of the Hendrick drivers with three and is seeking his sixth title after having his string of five consecutive championship runs snapped by Tony Stewart last season. He said if he can't win it, he certainly will help one of his teammates accomplish the task. He also said he expects all four teams to continue working together, at least to a point, leading up to the actual races -- when it's more likely to be every man for himself. "We've raced for championships before in the past with teammates," Johnson said. "I think we've really raised the bar on one another and drawn the best out of one another. "If I can't win it, I want one of my teammates to. Our company works so hard to put awesome race cars on the track for us. I want the championship to be there." He also said that he believes his teammates will continue to work together. He said after every practice and every race, crew chiefs and engineers dump all information in a database that all teams can draw from. "Maybe those guys feel differently; maybe I just instinctively did something different over the five years of racing with my teammates for championships. But I don't see it being a lot different and so much of that is due to the fact that the database is there with everything," Johnson said. "I push the button in the car and what I say gets entered in. Every adjustment we make is entered in. That has always been there. It is about the crew chiefs and the engineers to dig through that and find what might work for their race car." Junior! Dale Earnhardt Jr. enters the Chase as the seventh seed, but with what he and others insist is his best chance to race for a championship in years. He was consistent enough over the first 26 races to be second in the point standings prior to them being re-set for the Chase. "I'm pretty confident," he said. "I think we've worked on building our confidence up and we've got good reason to be confident. I've enjoyed the season and I've enjoyed what we've done so far, and hopefully when we get to [the season's last race at] Homestead I'll still be happy." "So I feel pretty good about it, but I don't want to overstate it. There's some good competition in the Chase, and those guys are all going to do their best to win it as well. No matter who wins it this year, they're going to have earned it. ... One guy doesn't stand out above the rest -- and if you had to make odds, I'd say everybody's odds are pretty even." That includes all his teammates. But the difference this year is that Earnhardt includes himself in the group that could win it all. Last year, even though he made the Chase, he didn't necessarily feel that way. "I don't know if we felt we were in the conversation last year," he said. "We hadn't done much throughout the season to put ourselves in the conversation last year. We were just kind of a steady team that put enough points together to get in. But this year, we've run well enough -- I mean, we were second in points going into Richmond and I think that sort of speaks for itself." And what would a Cup championship mean for Earnhardt, who has two Nationwide Series titles and has won 19 Cup races in his career, including one this year at Michigan? "It would just cap off a career that's had good success but is missing that one piece to the puzzle," Earnhardt said. The new kid Kasey Kahne enters the Chase as the 11th seed, the first of the pair of wild cards to earn a berth by virtue of his two race victories this season. He will not be able to carry over any bonus points from those wins into the Chase because early-season struggles prevented him from finishing inside the top 10 in points after the first 26 races. But he does enter with just as much confidence about winning it all as any of his teammates -- or anyone else, for that matter. "I think we've come a long way from where we're at, and we're going into these final 10 races with our cars really fast and our team as strong as it's been all season long," Kahne said. "We've definitely come a long ways together." This is Kahne's first season with Hendrick, and after the slow start it has unfolded almost exactly as he believed it would. He also noted that his last three race wins, dating back to late last season, have come at three Chase tracks in New Hampshire, Charlotte and Phoenix, which he said could be an advantage. "One of the reasons I wanted to go to Hendrick Motorsports was because I wanted to work closely with Jeff, and work closely with Jimmie, and listening to Dale and seeing what they say about their cars, and what adjustments they like," Kahne said. "Next to them on the race track, I haven't felt like I've raced them any different or they've raced me any different than in the past when we weren't teammates. So I feel like things have really been going good. I don't see what it would change, because when you're on the race track, it's an individual deal. You're doing what's best for yourself." "I feel like it'll be the same thing in the Chase. We'll try to get better together. And once we're on the track, we're going to try to beat each other. You want to outdo the other guy. But getting to that point, we first as a group want to make sure we're all doing what we can to outdo the rest of the field." Four-time going old-time That leaves Gordon, perhaps the happiest 12th seed to ever make the Chase. He owns four championships but hasn't won one since 2001, so he's growing the mustache in an attempt to have some fun, keep it loose -- and hopefully reach back in time for a little old magic. "It's good to be in the Chase and sportin' the 'stache, so here we go," he joked. Asked if he thought the 1990s-era mustache was "cool or something," Gordon laughed heartily. "Oh no. Trust me, it has nothing to do with being cool," Gordon said. "I don't remember the exact conversation, but we were in the lounge talking about a race and maybe we were on Twitter or something, but someone brought up something about the old mustache. And I threw it out there. I said, 'Listen, if we make this Chase, I'm bringing back the 'stache.' And [members of the 24 team] were all like, 'Yeah, yeah! Do it!' "I have fans all the time -- on Twitter, off Twitter -- and fellow competitors messing with me and saying, 'Where's that 'stache? Bring back that 'stache.' And I guarantee you it's not because it was cool. But I made the statement and I'm a man of my word, so that's where it's coming from. And Alan said he'd shave his head, so he shaved his head as well. So we're committed." They also expect to be a factor, based on the way they finished the regular season. He's finished in the top six in nine of the last 12 races, including one win at Pocono as well as a third and two seconds in his last three. "You can never count out Jimmie. Those guys have had a good year and have won five championships. So you know he's going to be tough, he and [crew chief] Chad [Knaus] and that whole team," Gordon said. "Junior's team has had a really solid year. They've stepped it up to a level that people didn't expect, and it's great. Kasey, he's kind of the unknown because they've been hit-or-miss this year. But Kasey's a great driver and Kenny [Francis] is a great crew chief. "We've shown, sporadically, at times this year that we can be a fast race car. We've shown it more consistently over these last three weeks, that we can run out front. So I would say all four of us have legitimate shots." Gordon did warn that if it gets down to the final few races and he's in a head-to-head battle with his teammates in the Chase, his team "might not be as much of an open book" in team meetings as they've been to this point in the season. There is a limit to this teammate stuff, after all. "We're going to continue to share the information going through this Chase," Gordon said. "The downside is that we're probably going to be battling each other for wins and for the championship before this thing is over. When that happens, you can't help the competitive nature from coming out -- and that information-sharing stream is going to get challenged." Earnhardt Jr. reflects in letter to 16-year-old self Dale Earnhardt Jr. revealed Friday at Chicagoland Speedway his motive for participating in a recent video aired by CBS News. In it, Earnhardt wrote a letter to his 16-year-old self and pulled back the curtain on his past, including his relationship with his father, the late Dale Earnhardt. It was, he said Friday, something he had to be talked into doing -- but that he's now happy he did. "I got a lot of positive reaction," Earnhardt Jr. said. "I'm glad I did it, but I probably wouldn't have done it on my own. I got a lot of influence and help to make the decision from [public relations representative] Laura [Scott] and the PR team that I've got. It's probably nothing I would have volunteered to do. "I thought it was a good challenge and a little bit outside the typical things we do. It was just outside the norm. I kind of like to try to do those things." A transcript of the letter Earnhardt wrote to his 16-year-old self for the CBS News special follows. "Now writing this letter to you is going to force me to think pretty deeply about my life, and you know thinking deeply was never one of your favorite activities. You always did and always will shoot for the C on your report card. Anything more than that is always going to be a surprise to you, right? "You just got your driver's license . . . your heart belongs to no one . . . and you're going to spend a lot of nights in the bed of your S10 pickup truck out in the field staring up at the stars worrying about your future. Your father's accomplishments on the race track already cast a pretty heavy shadow over your existence. He's going to accomplish more in the years to come and your fear of living anonymously and forgotten -- that's going to grow. "You don't have much of a connection to your mother ... your efforts in that regard are disappointing. In the future, she is going to become a consistent and prominent figure in your life . . . but you shouldn't waste the years in between, because her love is the truly unconditional kind. You shouldn't take it for granted. "Living under your father's roof doesn't bridge the incredible gap between you guys. In due time, you will enjoy the most incredible relationship with him. "One afternoon after an accident, you're going to go home thinking your career is over. And then bustin' in through the door comes your dad and he's wondering what you're doing sitting on your butt feeling sorry for yourself. And you are going to go out on the back porch and sit down and have a two-hour conversation that is the most influential conversation you'll ever have with him. He is going to finally assure you of what lies ahead. It's not the end of your career like you thought, it's the just the beginning of a very, very long incredible journey. "You'll share laughs and triumphs at his side. It'll be in your best interest that when these times come, you get everything out of them that you possibly can. I mean, when it is you and him, in that moment, you live it to the fullest. "Now you want to be a race car driver, so let's talk about the racing. As I look back on it as a whole, starting out from go-karts all the way to Cup today, it's going to feel clunky and impromptu, and is going to be lacking in successes. But fortunately for you every weekend there will be another race. "Now with that said, you're going to be so deathly frightened of potential failure that you're not going to realize just how much fun you're having. You're going to win a lot of races, and as painfully shy as you are you'll overcome and accomplish in arenas not just limited to driving cars. You're going to meet Presidents. You're going to guest on late night shows. I mean, it's incredible, but it's true. "That's not too bad for an oil mechanic. Yes, you are going to change oil change for a few years -- and it's not as bad as it sounds. "And I knew you'd want to know about your Redskins. Now your Redskins are goin' to win another Super Bowl in '91. But after that it's a pretty rough road. But your support for them Redskins doesn't waver one bit. "Overall, you need to just be more sure of yourself. You're going to do great things, man. You're going to have an awesome life. You have a great heart and it's going to stay with you throughout. So don't be so timid and worrisome about the future so much so that you can't enjoy the present. You're there, worried about me here. You just need to have some fun, man. Jump in that S10, go down to Concord and cruise the strip. Because you're going to be here ... soon enough." Earnhardt said Friday that he was pleased with how the project turned out, comparing it to a Rolling Stone magazine interview he once did. "When we had the opportunity to do the Rolling Stone magazine [piece] years ago -- even though I knew it was going to be in front of a lot of people who didn't know who I was and that's very uncomfortable for me because I don't really venture into those kind of areas -- I just knew it was something that I need to challenge myself to do," he said. "I thought this was the same kind of thing. It was not easy to do and I really don't like talking about myself, but I felt like, if anything, I could make my mother happy. I thought she really enjoyed it. "I got a lot of good feedback on it. I'm glad that I did it. When you write something like that and say the things that you say, you don't know how they're going to get received. I looked at some of the other ones that they did, and they are incredible. Some of them were inspiring as hell. I guess, too, I hoped to be able to accomplish that. If I did it or not, I don't know, but I was hoping to put myself in the category with the people who had done it before me." Letarte, Junior create winning chemistry Death does not scare Steve Letarte as much as life unfulfilled. Letarte doesn't seek an epitaph that proclaims he was a great crew chief or even NASCAR's greatest. Rather, he wants it to reflect him as a person. A father of two, Letarte searches for the balance between work and family. Whether a business owner, blue-collar worker or single parent, it's a struggle many know. The difference is that Letarte is the crew chief for NASCAR's most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr., a job that invites intense public scrutiny. A fan base starving for success will judge Letarte by how many wins and championships Earnhardt collects. Buoyed by Earnhardt's strong season, including his first Sprint Cup victory in four years, Junior Nation salivates at Earnhardt's best title shot since 2004. It would be easy to cast family aside and submit to such expectations, but Letarte knows that won't win a crown. He wonders if he'd had his family at more races at the end of the 2007 season how it might have helped him lead Jeff Gordon to what would have been Gordon's fifth championship. Instead, they lost the title to teammate Jimmie Johnson, a punishing defeat that lingers and set Letarte on a journey of personal discovery. After Gordon went winless for the first time in 15 years in 2008, he won just once in 2009. By then, Letarte was more focused on work than family or himself, and his weight ballooned. A routine physical woke him up. He was at risk for heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and more. The doctor was blunt. Letarte, then 30, wasn't likely to live long enough to see his children grow up. Letarte started to work out and take better care of himself, losing more than 50 pounds. Now, for as much as Letarte studies setup sheets, ponders practice plans and ruminates about race tactics, he has other duties with wife Tricia, son Tyler, 8, and daughter Ashlyn, 6. There are dinners to share, games to play and bedtime stories to read. Family time Thursday afternoons two years ago were the worst for Tyler and Ashlyn. That was when their dad usually left to go to that weekend's race. With 38 total races a year, they spent many weekends without him. Tyler cried when he left. "Our children, they see their dad on TV and that's not really a big deal to them," Tricia said. "They'd rather have their dad be home coaching their softball or baseball game." The past two offseasons, Letarte has helped coach his son's basketball team. The family also began traveling to more races. "No matter how much time you need to work, if you get out (of the garage) at 3 o'clock on a Saturday and you can't find 30 minutes to read your son a bedtime story, should you really be a crew chief?" Letarte said. It's not always that easy. The family was with him at Michigan International Speedway in June. The day before the race, Motor Racing Outreach, a ministry organization that serves in NASCAR, held its Father's Day Olympics. When Letarte couldn't make it to the event after NASCAR added a practice, team spotter T.J. Majors volunteered so Letarte's children could participate. Earnhardt won the race that Sunday, snapping a 143-race winless drought and giving Letarte's children another bonus: a trip to victory lane. "For that moment in time everybody I cared so much about were all there," Letarte said. "I had my family there. I had all my guys who deserved to win. Dale was there. Everybody short of my parents. It was like a storybook day." Title threat Storybook endings have been a long time coming. Three years ago, a hangdog Earnhardt admitted he was "about to the end of my rope." He was in the midst of his worst season in Cup, sitting 25th in points. His shattered confidence didn't recover in 2010 when he was only marginally better. Things didn't improve until car owner Rick Hendrick swapped crew chiefs, pairing Letarte with Earnhardt. Letarte had never worked for any driver except Gordon since joining Hendrick in 1995 at 16. Now, he was with the sport's most puzzling figure. Earnhardt scored at least one victory seven consecutive years and finished in the top five in points three times between 2003 and 2006. He then made the Chase for the Sprint Cup only once in the next four years. What he needed as much as fast cars was a good friend. "He likes to talk, and that is good because it loosens things up," Gordon said of his former crew chief. "With Junior, he took it on real seriously as a project, and they connected." Although winless in 2011, Earnhardt's performance improved and he made the Chase for the first time in three years. He opened this season with eight top-10 finishes in the first 10 races and surprised many in April when he said he felt he was a better driver than Johnson. Letarte had reinvigorated Earnhardt. "(Letarte) is just unbelievable in helping Dale with confidence," Hendrick said. While fans hear Letarte soothe Earnhardt during a race when he's frustrated, Earnhardt calms Letarte between practices, especially when they're not running well. "I think maybe he's learned to relax a little bit," Earnhardt said. "When I first started working with him, he was pretty uptight, and I think that I tend to tone it down. "When we are deciding on what we are going to do Saturday night before the race, if we are going to make any changes, that process has gotten a lot more calm and constructive." Letarte knows the season's final 10 weeks will be intense. He'll likely spend extra time at the race shop making sure every detail is addressed to enhance Earnhardt's title hopes. "Mr. Hendrick has taught me while we race for a living," Letarte said, "when you wake up on Monday morning, it is just a sport, it's not life." And there are more important things for Letarte. "One day I won't be a crew chief. One day I won't work at Hendrick Motorsports. Life changes, but I'll always be a dad." Earnhardt Jr. on mission to seal deal Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s team scheduled a sit-down at crew chief Steve Letarte's house the day after NASCAR's regular-season finale. The goals? Reflect on a breakthrough season for Earnhardt, who ended a four-year winless skid in June. Reassess the No. 88 team's outlook and strategy heading into the Chase for the Sprint Cup opener at Chicagoland Speedway. Perhaps most important for a late summer Sunday afternoon: relax. "I'm pretty sure by the time the race is about to start, the energy level is going to be about as high as it needs to be," Earnhardt said. "Probably higher than it should be. You'll probably have to calm yourself down a little bit just to realize that it is 10 individual races." He had plenty of time to reflect on those championship aspirations this week as he prepares for his best run at a title since finishing fifth in the 2004 standings. He was ferried Tuesday to Bristol, Conn., for a whirlwind, wall-to-wall tour of ESPN's various networks and programming. He was scheduled to spend Wednesday in Chicago on a full news media tour answering more of the same questions he has faced for much of the season. In his fifth season with Hendrick Motorsports, is NASCAR's most popular driver ready to deliver his first title? "We'll be thinking about that all week," he said. "The season we've had, the opportunity that I feel like I have as a driver to win the championship." That championship consistency has returned for Earnhardt, who already has more top-10s this season than in any other season since 2004 (when he had a career-high six wins and tied a career high with 21 top-10s). He has credited much of the No. 88 Chevrolet's improvement to Letarte, who melds a fastidious approach (he kept Earnhardt on the most structured schedule of his racing career) with a compassionate practicality in team-building. When Earnhardt qualified for the Chase two races before the end of the season, Letarte tried to rest his team as much as possible during the week, granting extra days off to some of the road crew. "This gives everybody a couple of weeks of lower-pressure racing, so when you get to Chicago, you're hitting on all eight cylinders," Letarte said. The mini-break also helped put Earnhardt in a better frame of mind after he endured the stress of making the Chase in the regular-season finale last year and failed to qualify for the 10-race playoff in 2009 and 2010. "Being in the Chase signifies that you are one of the upper-tier teams," he said. "It's a big disappointment when you aren't in that group. "The best-case scenario is to be locked in a week or two early and be able to take a little bit of a breather from the pressure you put on yourself to get as many points every week. It definitely is a lot less â?¦ a ton less stressful." The pressure, though, will ratchet up again for Chicagoland, and the objective for Earnhardt will be tamping down the accompanying anxiety as he did at Martinsville Speedway in April. Earnhardt finished third after he "had done 500 miles of damage in (the first) 100 laps" of the race. "I told Steve man, I need to calm down or we're not going to have a car to finish because it was just destroyed down both sides of it," he said. "You get excited over certain things, and you can get over-zealous in driving the car and making mistakes. "The Chase isn't won at Chicago. But it can be lost there if you screw up. We'll all be excited going into Chicago. You just have to make sure you use your head and think smart." Junior was 'cooking tacos, being lazy' NASCAR's most popular driver could always use a little practice behind the wheel. Even if it's in a golf cart. Dale Earnhardt Jr. visited ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Conn., to promote the Chase for the Sprint Cup in what NASCAR is billing as "Chase Across America." As the 12 drivers who qualified for the 10-race championship run on NASCAR's top circuit prepare for the opening race at Chicagoland Speedway on Sunday, the media blitz kicked off in full Tuesday. The network that will air the Chase races nabbed Earnhardt, of course, and had him in what ESPN touted as the first Golf Cart 500. Earnhardt wasted no time showing why he is in contention for his first Sprint Cup title. He took an early jump off the line, saying, ''I gotta get my motor running.'' Being reminded he was running on battery power only seemed to add life to his dash to the finish. Junior Nation, take heart: he won the sprint going away after a quick check of his equipment. ''I just made sure the tires had air in them, that's all,'' he said. Earnhardt also talked about his favorite NFL team -- the Washington Redskins -- and touted the strong start rookie quarterback Robert Griffin III had in his debut in a win against the New Orleans Saints on Sunday. When asked if he had his new favorite player on his fantasy team, Earnhardt replied, ''I didn't have the opportunity. ... By the time I got my quarterbacks in the seventh and eighth round, RG3 was gone.'' Later Tuesday, he made an appearance on NFL Live, where he picked his all-time top five Redskins: 5. Dexter Manley; 4. Joe Theismann (he cited a chance to wear his Super Bowl ring); 3. John Riggins; 2. Darrell Green; 1. Art Monk ('My role model growing up.''). And he stopped by PTI, when he reiterated this season is his best opportunity to win a title. ''We've been fast every week and feel we will be the most consistent in the Chase,'' he said. Earnhardt, who finished third in 2003 and fifth in 2004 and 2006, said he's amped up his involvement with the team during car preparations before the race, whereas before he was ''cooking tacos or playing video games. ... I was just being lazy. It never dawned on me that I could find another level ... or be more accountable.'' The driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet is one of four Hendrick Motorsports drivers to make the Chase, marking the first time a team has had four cars in the Chase since Roush Fenway Racing placed five in 2005 (teams since have been capped at four cars). Jimmie Johnson kicked off the week's media tour with a stop in New York City on Monday. Other drivers making the rounds Tuesday included: Brad Keselowski in Chicago; Denny Hamlin in New Hampshire; Kasey Kahne in Dover; Kevin Harvick in Talladega; Martin Truex Jr. in Kansas; Greg Biffle in Martinsville; Clint Bowyer in Texas; Jeff Gordon in Phoenix; and Matt Kenseth at the track where the champion will be crowned Nov. 18, Homestead-Miami. Defending Cup champion Tony Stewart got a respite; he'll be in Charlotte on Sept. 18. NASCAR sends championship contenders on Chase tour Kasey Kahne took some imaginary swings before he was handed his Philadelphia Phillies jersey and cap. ''I'd love to take some batting practice,'' he said, smiling. Kahne's hacks at the plate have to wait. He's focused on going deep in NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup championship as a contender for the sport's biggest prize. Even standing alone in a Philadelphia sports bar, Kahne kept an eye on the competition. He watched a Dale Earnhardt Jr. interview shown on the giant big screen TV before he answered questions from a pack of NASCAR fans. Yes, even with Phillies fans sipping pregame beers before heading across the street to the ballpark, there were dozens of fans dressed in Kahne gear waiting for autographs and to wish their favorite driver luck in the Chase. Kahne wasn't alone in touring venues near the Chase tracks. Some of NASCAR's elite drivers in the Chase crisscrossed their way across the country Tuesday to promote the 10-race playoff that will crown a champ. Kahne visited Philadelphia. Earnhardt did a media tour in Connecticut. The ''Chase Across America'' tour sent drivers to various events where they met breast cancer survivors, Coast Guard personnel and firefighters. The Chase kicks off Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway. Denny Hamlin holds the points lead over five-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson. Defending champion Tony Stewart is third. Kahne said Johnson, his Hendrick Motorsports teammate, had to be considered the favorite to win a sixth championship. ''Denny's been as strong as anyone lately. Brad Keselowski has been as consistent as anyone in the sport,'' Kahne said. ''I think those three are the three you really have to look at.'' Kahne wasn't recognized or acknowledged by Phillies fans as he walked in Xfinity Live in a city not exactly known as a NASCAR hot spot. The ones who did come peppered Kahne with softball questions and Kahne was happy to visit a city that doesn't have a deep fandom in the sport. After missing the Chase last season, Kahne didn't care where he was sent. He headed over to Citizens Bank Park to watch the Phillies play the Miami Marlins. ''I was thinking, last year I was home not doing a whole lot,'' he said. ''So it's a good thing. I'm glad that I'm here. I've never been to a Phillies game before. I'm going to enjoy the next couple of days.'' It's a whirlwind week for the drivers who qualified for the Chase. Johnson spent Monday in New York and Stewart will attend an event next week at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Earnhardt spent Tuesday on ESPN's campus and Keselowski visited a fire department near Chicago. Hamlin attended a surprise meet-and-greet with members of a local National Guard unit in Concord, N.H. Kevin Harvick met breast cancer survivors at Talladega Superspeedway; Martin Truex Jr., was at the Sprint campus in Kansas; Clint Bowyer shared his life story at a high school assembly in Texas; Jeff Gordon met fans in Phoenix; and Matt Kenseth has lunch with the Coast Guard in Miami. Greg Biffle was honored at a Martinsville High School pep rally that included cheerleaders, a marching band, race cars, football players, and a stadium full of cheering students. Biffle landed in a helicopter on the 50-yard line of the school's football field. Students showed their enthusiasm for Biffle throughout the rally, holding up signs that read, ''Barking for Biffle,'' ''Bulldogs Love Biffle,'' ''Greg Goes Vroom Vroom,'' and ''Every Senior Picks No. 16.'' Martinsville Mayor Kim Adkins declared Sept. 11, 2012 as ''Greg Biffle Day'' in Martinsville. ''To be able to land the helicopter at the high school on the 50-yard-line, I was like, 'Oh yeah, that's going to be fun,''' he said. ''Then to come in and see all the students and the cheerleaders, it was really neat and a very fun experience. With the mascot, the bulldog, and all of that, yeah, it was a lot of fun.'' Keselowski took a tour of Engine Co. 70 in Edison Park and was presented with the shield the firefighters affix to their helmets. Keselowski said he would put the shield in his car for good luck Sunday. At a local pub about 15 miles from New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Hamlin predicted he'd be in the hunt to win the title he was denied as runner-up to Johnson in 2010. ''We lost the championship by not having good fuel mileage and having to pit when no one else did and losing tons of points. For me, I think we've got all that figured out,'' he said. ''The only thing that's going to keep us from a championship this year is circumstances out of our control.'' The drivers made their promotional pit stops then hit the road to Chicago. Kahne was leaving when the Phillies game ended. ''I like coming to places like this,'' he said. ''I enjoy the atmosphere. I need to figure out how to come back here at some point and go to an Eagles game.'' Earnhardt Jr. wins ESPN golf-cart race NASCAR's most popular driver could always use a little practice behind the wheel. Even if it's in a golf cart. Dale Earnhardt Jr. visited ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Conn., to promote the Chase for the Sprint Cup in what NASCAR is billing as "Chase Across America." As the 12 drivers who qualified for the 10-race championship run on NASCAR's top circuit prepare for the opening race at Chicagoland Speedway on Sunday, the media blitz kicked off in full Tuesday. The network that will air the Chase races nabbed Earnhardt Jr., of course, and had him in what ESPN touted as the first Golf Cart 500. Earnhardt Jr. wasted no time showing why he is in contention for his first Sprint Cup title. He took an early jump off the line, saying, ''I gotta get my motor running.'' Being reminded he was running on battery power only seemed to add life to his dash to the finish. Junior Nation, take heart: he won the sprint going away after a quick check of his equipment. ''I just made sure the tires had air in them, that's all,'' he said. Earnhardt also talked about his favorite NFL team -- the Washington Redskins -- and touted the strong start rookie quarterback Robert Griffin III had in his debut in a win against the New Orleans Saints on Sunday. When asked if he had his new favorite player on his fantasy team, Earnhardt replied, ''I didn't have the opportunity ... by the time I got my quarterbacks in the seventh and eighth round, RG3 was gone.'' The driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet is one of four Hendrick Motorsports drivers to make the Chase, marking the first time a team has had four cars in the Chase since Roush Fenway Racing placed five in 2005 (teams since have been capped at four cars). Jimmie Johnson kicked off the week's media tour with a stop in New York City on Monday. Other drivers making the rounds Tuesday included: Brad Keselowski in Chicago; Denny Hamlin in New Hampshire; Kasey Kahne in Dover; Kevin Harvick in Talladega; Martin Truex Jr. in Kansas; Greg Biffle in Martinsville; Clint Bowyer in Texas; Jeff Gordon in Phoenix; Matt Kenseth at the track where the champion will be crowned Nov. 18, Homestead-Miami. Defending Cup champion Tony Stewart got a respite -- he'll be in Charlotte on Sept. 18. Chase drivers reflect on what lies ahead For Dale Earnhardt Jr., can you talk about what crew chief Steve Letarte has meant to you this season? Earnhardt: I just think Steve deserves a lot of credit for our performance. Steve puts a lot into our program. He's helped me become a better driver. He's shown me how I can be a better asset to the team inside of the car and outside of the car. I think he's improved me in a lot of areas. So, you know, that feels good. We work real hard to improve certain areas of the deal, and he tells me what he thinks I need to be doing, how I can help. I do those things, we see the results, it's pretty neat. I never really had anybody ask much of me other than bring the helmet, get in, and [be like], "How does it drive?" He's a lot more detailed and wants a lot more information. It's just a totally different atmosphere, a totally different culture, than I'm used to being around. He deserves most of the credit for the performance of the team and me as a driver, the last couple of years, how we've run. Seeded lower, Junior's confidence remains high Turns out Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s runner-up finish in the season-opening Daytona 500 wasn't some fluke of superspeedway good fortune, but a bona fide foundation for a NASCAR championship run and, at the very least, a signal of good things to come. Earnhardt, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and team newcomer Kasey Kahne came through for owner Rick Hendrick, who confidently declared this preseason he expected all four Hendrick Motorsports drivers to make NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup. Few, however, would have predicted that the resurgent but often inconsistent Earnhardt would lead the charge over teammates such as Johnson and Gordon, who have nine Cup championships between them. But Earnhardt has led the way. And he has led convincingly -- the top-ranked Hendrick driver for all but two weeks in the 26-week regular season. In past years, just qualifying for the Chase was a relief for Earnhardt, who always has had such heavy expectations to bear. But this past weekend at Richmond International Raceway, the sport's longstanding most popular driver did not appear merely relieved to qualify for the postseason. He is focused and feeling it -- pretty certain this may his best shot yet at his first Cup title. "I think our chances are as good as they have ever been for me,'' said Earnhardt, who will be the seventh seed in the 12-driver Chase field. "I've had some pretty good shots at it back in 2004 and 2003, but I think this is a better opportunity. We've got the team and everything really poised to make a run at it. "You've got to put the guys that have won the championship at the top of the list for the people that are favorites. But we are in the conversation. And we're going to work hard to still be in that conversation at [the season finale in] Homestead.'' Although Earnhardt snapped a four-year winless streak this summer at Michigan, his title run hasn't been flash and dash, but cool and consistent. He had only two finishes outside the top-10 the first four months of the season. And he had only three sub-20th-place finishes through the 26-week regular season that concluded early Sunday morning in Richmond. Ironically, his seventh seeding for the 10-race Chase that begins Sunday in Chicago is the lowest he's been ranked all year. He has been among the top three in standings for 19 of 26 weeks, including two weeks atop the points in August. The difference this year, according to Earnhardt, is turning a top-10 car into a top-five car. It's in finishing off races, and in a trusting, close relationship between Earnhardt and crew chief Steve Letarte. "When he's [Letarte] got a fast car, they finish where they should,'' Earnhardt explained. "And when he doesn't have a good car, he squeezes a few more positions out of that potentially bad finish. That's kind of his thing, his MO. So I'm reaping the benefits of being with him. "At this point with the way my team is and the chemistry we have got going on, we're able to turn things around in some races and finish better for at least better points -- more points and [a] better season.'' Earnhardt said this weekend he is so excited and optimistic about his chances at a title that he actually is having to consciously keep his emotions in check. And it sure beats the alternative. "We're all going over to Steve's house on Sunday and the team is going to get around each other and we'll talk about the season we've had, what expectations we've had,'' Earnhardt said. "We'll be thinking about that all week. The opportunity we have, that I feel like I have as a driver to win the championship. That I feel like our team has to compete every week. "I'm pretty sure by the time the race is about to start in Chicago, the energy level is going to be about as high as it needs to be, probably higher than it should be. You'll probably have to calm yourself down a little bit just to realize it's 10 individual races and you have to do your best in every single one." Chase preview: Junior, Gordon, Johnson, Kahne face off The odds grew greater early Sunday morning that Dale Earnhardt Jr. or one of his three teammates would win the Sprint Cup championship this season. NASCAR's most popular driver joked that Hendrick Motorsports' intrasquad rivalries could be ratcheted up as well. "I think the debriefs get a lot shorter on Saturday night," Earnhardt said with a smile, referring to the weekly prerace meetings among the team's four drivers and four crew chiefs. "Everybody won't be such an open book, I imagine." Potential reticence about the secrets of speed might be the only downside of Hendrick putting all four of its cars in the Chase for the Sprint Cup for the first time in nine seasons of the 10-race title run. With Jeff Gordon's dramatic rebound for a runner-up finish at Richmond International Raceway coupled with a strategy gaffe by Kyle Busch's team, Hendrick qualified the most drivers in the Chase by an organization since Roush Fenway Racing had five in 2005 (teams since have been capped at four cars). With Gordon and Kasey Kahne claiming the two wild-card spots to join Earnhardt and Jimmie Johnson, team owner Rick Hendrick has a 1-in-3 chance of winning his 11th title in NASCAR's premier series. Hendrick, who isn't known for his bluster, confidently forecast in January that his team would enjoy its best season and said he'd be bitterly disappointed if one of his drivers missed the Chase. Earnhardt said it was a boon to fulfill that vow by rounding out a title-contending lineup with Gordon and his four championships. "Part of me knows that a really formidable opponent has an opportunity to beat us out," he said. "Jeff's really clever and savvy with how he races. Aside from just outright speed, you got to outsmart him a lot of times to beat him, which is tough.,P>"I think it just makes the group of (Hendrick drivers) all that much tougher. ... It's hard not to talk about the morale, how it helps the company, how the company is proud, how everybody works hard during the offseason to find some speed. We're a much better company this year, and we're able to reap the benefits of that with all four of us being in the Chase. It will be fun." It will be lonely for Denny Hamlin, who will enter the Chase as the top seed with a three-point lead by virtue of having four victories but without a Joe Gibbs Racing teammate. Despite entering his best track statistically with a 12-point lead on Gordon, Busch stumbled to a 16th in the Federated Auto Parts 400 after crew chief Dave Rogers made an ill-fated gamble on not pitting in hopes the race would be shortened by rain (after already enduring delays lasting nearly three hours). When the checkered flag fell at 1:22 a.m., Busch was three points behind Gordon for the final wild card and outside the Chase for the second time in five seasons for JGR. The team should enjoy Hendrick-esque expectations next year with the addition of 2003 champion Matt Kenseth, but Busch's failure still might be a blow for owners Joe and J.D. Gibbs' quest to add a fourth car because funding is predicated on success driving sponsorship. "That's Joe's and J.D.'s livelihood," Hamlin said. "They don't have any real businesses outside of (NASCAR). They need cars in the Chase to make a living. That part of it's tough." Though Richmond might leave Busch and Rogers reeling, the impact on Hamlin could be minimal. As the only JGR driver in the 2009 Chase, he won twice during the final 10 races and finished fifth in points. The team likely will make his No. 11 Toyota a priority, while Busch and Joey Logano might be able to help as de-facto research and development cars. "When the fab shop builds an awesome car or something, it will go to you," Hamlin said. "But other than that, I don't think it will change a whole lot. Maybe those guys start working in a different direction for next year, and they hit on something and we can use it towards the end of the Chase." Busch's absence also means one fewer Chase driver for Toyota, which has fostered a stronger technical alliance this season between JGR and Michael Waltrip Racing. Richmond race winner Clint Bowyer, who already had made the Chase with Waltrip teammate Martin Truex Jr., said Hamlin and Busch had pushed his team to be better but having one less title contender in a Camry wouldn't hurt. "I truly believe if Mark Martin was driving for the championship, we'd have all three cars in the Chase," Bowyer said, referring to his part-time teammate who took third at Richmond. "We've been solid as an organization. Everybody is really, really jelling well and working together. We're an organization on our own." Earnhardt on RIR pole; Gordon to start second Dale Earnhardt Jr. did exactly what was necessary to win the pole for Saturday's Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond International Raceway -- and teammate Jeff Gordon did more than enough to make Kyle Busch very nervous. The 44th of 45 drivers to make a qualifying attempt in Friday's time trials, Earnhardt toured the three-quarters-mile speedway in 21.526 seconds (127.023 mph) to claim his first Coors Light Pole Award of the season, his first at Richmond and the 11th of his career. But it was Gordon who put himself in position for a last-ditch attempt to qualify for the Chase for the Sprint Cup with a second-place run at 126.981 mph. Gordon can dislodge Busch from the second provisional wild-card position by winning the race (if Tony Stewart remains in the top 10 in the standings) or by beating Busch by more than 12 points, if no wild-card contender with one victory wins on Saturday night. Busch posted the 15th-fastest time on Friday and will start the race 13 positions -- the equivalent of 13 points -- behind Gordon, setting up a dramatic shootout for the final wild-card spot. "I think [Friday] was a big mission accomplished for us," Gordon said. "We were very solid in practice all day. I know exactly where I left a little bit out there in [Turns] 1 and 2. I got everything out of it in 3 and 4. But in 1 and 2, I knew I got down to the yellow line too early and just couldn't get back to the gas as hard as I needed to. "When you do that, you know that there's somebody out there that has a shot of getting you. Second is still a fantastic effort. We had a great practice [Friday], and our car was solid, so [I'm] pretty excited about this race [Saturday]." Earnhardt, who already has qualified for the Chase, saw the efforts of his No. 88 team to improve the qualifying performance pay off. "We've been working the last two years to improve ... and this year we made some gains," Earnhardt said. "It feels good to get a pole position and know that we're doing something right there. "It gives us a good starting spot for [Saturday]. We feel pretty confident about the car after practice [Friday], and starting up front is an advantage. I'm happy that we're performing well and look forward to the race." Regan Smith (126.910 mph) qualified third, followed by Clint Bowyer (126.808 mph) and Jimmie Johnson (126.790 mph). Mark Martin, Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano, Martin Truex Jr. and Brad Keselowski will start from positions 6 through 10, respectively. In addition to Logano, drivers who could grab a wild-card spot with a win will take the green flag as follows: Ryan Newman 14th and Marcos Ambrose 22nd. Two other drivers who are winless this season but still have a remote chance to make the Chase are Carl Edwards (16th) and Paul Menard (27th). Notes-n-Nuggets • Dale Earnhardt Jr. won his 11th career pole in his 461st race. • It is Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s first Richmond pole. • This is the first pole of 2012 for Dale Earnhardt Jr., whose last pole was in the 2011 Daytona 500. • Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the pole with a speed of 127.023 mph, and was the last of eight to hold the position. • Hendrick Motorsports notched its fifth pole of 2012, tied with Michael Waltrip Racing for most. • All four HMS drivers have now won a pole in 2012. • Jeff Gordon (second) has his 11th front-row start at Richmond, third front-row start of 2012. • Regan Smith (third) has second top-three start at Richmond, ties his best start of 2012 (Phoenix). • Clint Bowyer (fourth) grabbed fourth top-five start in the past five Richmond races. • Jimmie Johnson (fifth) got seventh top-10 start in the past eight races of the season. • Kyle Busch, who is trying to hang on to the last Chase wild-card spot, qualified 15th. • J.J. Yeley and Mark Green were the two drivers that failed to qualify. Dale Earnhardt Jr. picks Redskins as NFL's best team Dale Earnhardt Jr. has never been shy about his passion for the Washington Redskins. It was less than a year ago, during a Chase for the Sprint Cup race at Dover, that he asked -- on the in-race radio -- if the Redskins had won their game that Sunday. On Wednesday, NASCAR's most popular driver demonstrated his fandom yet again. Only hours after crashing during a test at Kansas Speedway, Earnhardt -- dressed in an orange polo shirt and blue jeans -- was rubbing elbows with Redskins owner Dan Snyder at FedEx Field in Landover, Md., before the NFL team's preseason game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Then, perhaps clouded by the Redskins' backups 16-0 lead over the Bucs' backups, Earnhardt dabbled into a new level of optimism while in the TV booth for a halftime interview. "They're the best team in the NFL, as far as I'm concerned," Earnhardt said. (Yes, Earnhardt was cleared by medical staff after the Kansas crash.) Earnhardt received a touch of criticism last year for asking about the Redskins while competing at NASCAR's highest level and telling reporters after another race he was more concerned with his fantasy football team than his performance. But he's unapologetic about his love for the Burgundy & Gold, and it's that type of everyman attitude that endears him to his legion of fans known as Junior Nation. "At Talladega when it slows down a little bit under caution, I'm curious about how the Redskins are doing," Earnhardt re-iterated Wednesday. "I can't think about anything else until I know." Dale Earnhardt Jr. crashes at Kansas test session Dale Earnhardt Jr. was OK after crashing his No. 88 Chevrolet during a Goodyear test Wednesday at Kansas Speedway. Track spokeswoman Kelly Hale said NASCAR's most popular driver had been seen by a medical staff, and the No. 88 team was packing its hauler to leave the track after the crash. It was the second day of testing on the brand new surface at the 1.5-mile superspeedway, which was reconfigured and repaved after the April 22 race. When the Sprint Cup Series returns to Kansas for the Oct. 19-21 weekend, the track will have variable banking in its turns from 17 to 20 degrees after having 15-degree banking since its 2001 opening. Goodyear said the crash occurred around 10:45 a.m. ET when Earnhardt cut down a right-front tire after making 20 laps. He was on a set of tires that were the same as those raced at Michigan International Speedway two weeks ago. Earnhardt was one of nine drivers at the tire test, which also included Brad Keselowski, Matt Kenseth, Regan Smith, Marcos Ambrose, Juan Pablo Montoya, Joey Logano, Paul Menard and Mark Martin. During a news conference Tuesday, Earnhardt told reporters he liked how his team had performed at tracks that had been repaved this season. He led both races at Pocono Raceway and scored two top fives at Michigan, including a June win that snapped a four-year winless streak. "I got good speed," Earnhardt said Tuesady at Kansas. "It feels comfortable in the car." It's the second time in the past two weeks that Earnhardt's No. 88 Chevrolet wrecked in the past two weeks, and neither crash was during a race. Earnhardt hit the wall near the end of final practice Aug. 19 at Michigan. He finished fourth the following day in a backup car. Early reviews positive for Kansas reconfiguration Several Sprint Cup Series teams took to the newly reconfigured Kansas Speedway on Tuesday in a Goodyear tire test and the reviews are in -- and they have been pretty positive as teams navigate the variable banking for the first time. "I think they did a really nice job repaving," Matt Kenseth said. "Drivers aren't huge fans of repaves, especially being the first ones on the track. By this afternoon the cars were more comfortable on the track. I think the repave is awesome." Regan Smith agreed. "We've seen quite a few of these this year already. They did a pretty good job with this one," he said. For Dale Earnhardt Jr., the day was about getting some time on the track. "It's nice to get out on the track. It's nice to see the track. I like this place," Earnhardt said. "The banking will add speed to the race track and [Turns] 1 and 2 definitely have more banking. This should be a fast little race track." Kenseth, who holds the track record of 180.856 mph set in 2005, expects that mark to fall. "We're already running, the last lap was 30.30 [seconds] or something," Kenseth said. "You know it's going to be faster when everybody runs in qualifying runs. I expect it to be the high 28s in a qualifying run." The Goodyear tire test concludes Wednesday and is open and free to the public. Tickets for the Oct. 19-21 race weekend, including the Nationwide Series' Kansas Lottery 300 and Cup Series' Hollywood Casino 400, are on sale now by calling 866.460.RACE (7223) or visiting www.kansasspeedway.com. Every season ticket comes with a track pass that provides access to the infield for the pre-race concert, drivers' introductions and much more. GAC Series The Definitive Showcases Past & Present NASCAR Stars The Definitive: Dale Earnhardt Jr.:(August 29) Earnhardt Jr. is one of NASCAR’s biggest stars, a third-generation driver and son of legendary seven-time NASCAR Cup Champion Dale Earnhardt. Now in his 13th NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is currently in the midst of one of his best seasons ever and is battling to take home his first-ever NASCAR Sprint Cup Series title. The Definitive: Dale Earnhardt Jr. will explore the challenges he’s faced throughout his career and document his rise to popularity and fame as NASCAR’s nine-time Most Popular Driver Award winner. The Definitive airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. Eastern on Great American Country. Are rear-end setups pushing the rules, or the newest innovation? Dale Earnhardt Jr. gave Brad Keselowski his big break in NASCAR, hiring the then-little known driver to pilot his Nationwide Series entry in what began as a three-race tryout. Keselowski won six times in that No. 88 car to put JR Motorsports on the map, and sought Earnhardt's blessing before making the leap to the Sprint Cup level with Penske Racing. The two have remained close, that one-time relationship between boss and employee transforming into one of equal standing and respect. But that doesn't mean the two always agree on everything. Especially when the subject turns to Hendrick Motorsports, and the rear-end setups that have made the organization's cars so strong the second half of this season. "Me and Brad are friends. I don't want any drama with Brad," Earnhardt said Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway. "I don't particularly like the things he's said lately about the company I drive for, so I take offense to the claims and the accusations. Just natural for me to do that. We're friends, and I don't want any drama [with] him. That's where I stand on that." Oh, what yaw hath wrought. Earnhardt's comments were in reaction to remarks Keselowski made last weekend at Michigan, when he referred to the cars of Earnhardt and Hendrick teammate Jimmie Johnson as "tricked up," and said his Penske team might be at a performance disadvantage because it wasn't as willing as some of its competitors to tiptoe through the sport's gray area. The saga began when other drivers noticed something different about the rear end of Johnson's car in a dominant victory at Indianapolis, and it's ignited a debate over that fine line between illegal and finding an edge. "Everybody's entitled to their opinion, but I think you need to have your facts straight and understand what's going on," Johnson said. "Our car's been through inspection multiple times. There's nothing out of line taking place." Indeed, it passed again Friday before rolling out onto the track. Last week at Michigan, race winner Greg Biffle said the issue stems from teams looking for a way to seal air from the bottom of their cars after NASCAR reduced the length of the right side skirt by an inch and a half. Crews are now using sway bars, springs, and tolerances in the axle housing to try and make up the difference, which can make the car appear to slide on its yaw axis as it traverses the corner. Team owner Jack Roush said he had received assurances from NASCAR that the tactic was within the rules. "These days I don't think you can afford to have something illegal," Roush driver Matt Kenseth said. "You see how huge the penalties are when you do. So I think we're always trying to work within those rules and within the framework of NASCAR rules to get your car to go as fast as possible without crossing the line." That much was evident when NASCAR hammered Paul Menard's team with fines, suspensions and a point deduction for modifications allegedly made to the frame rails on the No. 27 car, penalties owner Richard Childress plans to appeal. Keselowski clarified his comments this week, saying he didn't intend for his observations on what Hendrick and other teams were doing differently to carry an implication of cheating. "I think in general, there's a misconception in the stock-car community that since we drive stock cars, they're all the same. And that anyone who is driving a car that is not the same is cheating, which is a bit baffling to me," said Keselowski, who has won the past two Sprint Cup events at Bristol. "My comments were in general an observation to what was being seen, and I think those were turned around into an accusation of cheating. ... I made it a point to not call out specific teams, and I think I said in a sense that there's a half-dozen to a dozen cars that are running those things. ... I don't think there's anyone out there who doesn't believe the Hendrick cars were one of those groups, and I'm not trying to say that's the case. But I respect them in their ability to do those things and be innovators accordingly." The question, though, is whether Keselowski's Penske team will adopt similar setup tactics before the circuit moves next weekend to the big speedway in Atlanta, where such things can be more pronounced. "That's something we're watching," the driver said. But he added that team owner Roger Penske has traditionally been hesitant to take chances with NASCAR rules, something retired Penske great and recent Hall of Fame selection Rusty Wallace said goes back to the organization's founding. "When we started this team in '91, Roger and [team vice president] Walt [Czarnecki] and I sat down and had a long discussion and said, 'Look, if we've got to cheat to beat these guys, we're not going to do it. We've got too many employees, we've got too many companies, first-class people we're trying to impress, we don't want to be known as cheaters. We don't want to be known as people who push the rules too far and get caught.' So I know Penske Racing can only go so far, because that's Roger's mentality to not go over the line," Wallace said. "I know I've gotten a butt-chewing a couple of times, one time with a set of titanium roof flaps we got in a lot of trouble with ... and then another time with a carburetor that was so close it was unreal at Daytona. I know he didn't like it at all. He was very, very upset about it. He made it crystal clear, and said ... 'Look. we've got to find another way to win these races. We can't push [NASCAR]. They will not go for it.' " And yet, this current debate hinges on whether these rear-end setups are indeed pushing NASCAR, or just the latest breakthrough in the sport. Earnhardt can remember going to New Hampshire one year and seeing Geoffrey Bodine running in the top five in a car owned by Joe Bessey, whose team was ahead of the curve in the use of bump stops. He can remember one all-star weekend, and watching a car owned by Penske -- yes, Penske -- go down the straightaway sideways, a vanguard of the "twisting" of the last generation of Sprint Cup vehicles. He remembers everyone trying to play catch-up after one team found an advantage in coil binding springs. Now, the craze is rear-end suspensions. "The real big innovations, like bump stops and coil-binding springs and other things, that happens once every four years or something, where something real big comes in and changes the sport quite a bit and everybody eventually gets on the wagon, then everybody has to find another area to work in," Earnhardt said. "But there's all kind of little things that happen all year long. Little tiny things that are small pieces for speed that teams do. It could be even in the engines and all kinds of things. But that happens all year long. Every week, somebody's got an idea. That's what's supposed to happen, anyways. You've got all those guys you pay to be innovating, engineers and stuff. Every week, somebody's got an idea that needs to be tried somewhere." Besides, Earnhardt said, that degree of innovation helps prevent 43 cars from riding around in a single file. He believes it's good for the sport -- even if in this case, his friend Keselowski may seem a little suspicious of it. "Brad's a really good guy, has a pretty good heart," Earnhardt said. "And he's a really great race car driver, and I wish he'd concentrate on that. He likes to talk a lot, but I think his true skills shine on the race track and not really behind the microphone." Dale Earnhardt Jr. offers solution to fix Bristol By removing its progressive banking Bristol Motor Speedway is attempting to return its racing to the pre-2007 era. Dale Earnhardt Jr. would like to turn the dial back another 15 years on the Thunder Valley time machine. NASCAR's most popular driver has been attending races at Bristol since childhood, and his fondest memories are before the track switched to concrete in 1992. "I love it, think it's a great racetrack, (and) it's got a lot of history," Earnhardt told USA TODAY Sports. "I wish they would pave it and just be done with messing with it. With the way the technology is these days, I think they can put an asphalt surface down that would hold up. I think it'd be incredible. I think that concrete is just not optimum material to have for the surface of a racetrack. "Having the asphalt surface on that track in the current condition it's in would be great. I think it would just be insane how much fun we'd have racing there." Bristol was asphalt when it opened in 1961, but the surface needed constant patching because of its extreme banking (which was raised from 22 to 36 degrees in 1969). The Aug. 29, 1992, race at the 0.533-mile oval was the first in NASCAR's premier series to be contested on concrete. The track wasn't changed again until a repave before the August 2007 race that added multiple grooves that Earnhardt prefers. "I'm fine with it being one groove if that's what everybody wants, but we're just going to run around following each other," he said. "We're not going to run into the back of each other to try to pass. Now at the end with five laps to go, we'll run all over each other and wreck the (expletive) out of each other. "I think they've got to be careful what they wish for because we might run single-file for 450 laps, and that's not going to be very fun." Earnhardt thinks it's revisionist history to suggest the track featured non-stop fender-banging with only one groove. "I don't recall it being that way until the very end of the race," he said. "I think when it's wide and you have four or five different ways to go around the corner, and we all go in there two- and three-wide, you couldn't ask for more continuous action throughout an event. "I watched the (August 2011) race (Tuesday), and it's not perfect by no means, but I think it's better than what people are giving it credit for." Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon 'fine' after radio dust-up (Video) Dale Earnhardt Jr. has no regrets about how he drove against Jeff Gordon on a restart Sunday at Michigan International Speedway, but NASCAR's most popular driver laments how radio chatter turned a difference of opinion between the Hendrick Motorsports teammates into a firestorm. "I personally carried on a little bit on the radio about it; just curious about it," Earnhardt told USA TODAY Sports during a Tuesday interview at Hendrick Motorsports. "In retrospect, to try not to let ESPN or anybody like that make a big deal out of it, I should have not said anything at all so there wouldn't be any footage worth editing. "But truth be told, the fact that we were teammates allowed that conversation to happen. If it was Brad Keselowski and me, I would have never known he was mad. I would have never cared that another driver was upset with me because for the most part what happened between me and Jeff happens dozens of times in one race, but the drivers never play it out like me and Jeff did because the radio conversations and lines of communication aren't there." Earnhardt said he and Gordon are "fine" with each other and sorted it out with a text exchange after Sunday's Pure Michigan 400, and they met again at Hendrick's campus Tuesday for the team's weekly debriefing of drivers and crew chiefs. Gordon took umbrage after Earnhardt swung his No. 88 Chevrolet in front of his No. 24 shortly after a lap-74 restart. "Tell the (expletive) 88 he can thank me later for not wrecking his ass," Gordon radioed his team. "That was (expletive) stupid." When told of Gordon's comments, Earnhardt responded with disbelief. After suffering an engine problem midrace, Gordon told reporters that, "He took me four-wide, and that wasn't that big of a deal, but then he slid up in front of me off of Turn 2, and I had to (slow down), or I would have wrecked all of us. So, I just didn't think that it was the smartest thing to do, especially as teammates." Earnhardt said such situations normally result in inner monologues for drivers and not in the messages being relayed between spotters as was the case Sunday. "This happens a lot," Earnhardt said. "It was unusual because it happened between teammates. It happens dozens of times. It just never really gets any exposure because you (the news media) hardly know it happens. "We kind of let that one spill onto the radio a little bit more than we probably should have, so it got to be a bit of a story." Earnhardt said he would make the same move again because this year's repaving at Michigan puts passing at a premium, and restarts are the best opportunity to gain positions. "Jeff is a good driver with a lot of success," he said. "When I went to work (at Hendrick), that team was used to running well with a talented driver like Jeff. I feel like I have to work really hard to continue what he started. In the past several years, I've really had to run with my tail between my legs trying to survive on restarts. This year, we're having a great year, we've got great cars, and I'm able to be aggressive on restarts. When I go into the corner, I have to take as many positions as I can take. Unfortunately, some of those positions are going to be from my teammates at times. "I feel like he was frustrated with how his day is going or how his season is going, and I didn't think it was an overly aggressive situation on my part. I was just racing hard trying to get all the spots I could." It's not the first run-in for Earnhardt and Gordon. In the March 18 race at Bristol Motor Speedway, Earnhardt called it a "freak situation" when he made slight contact with Gordon, who spun into the wall with a cut left-rear tire. At Talladega Superspeedway in May 2008, Gordon was upset Earnhardt chose Ryan Newman as a drafting partner late in the race, and in October 2006 at the same track, Earnhardt and Gordon quarreled over defining the limits of aggressive bump-drafting. Earnhardt said the incidents with Gordon were just circumstantial. "I don't think we have issues," he said. "Fortunately, I've been competitive enough to have those situations happen between me and Jeff and other drivers. It just happens more often than people know about or hear about. When it's two teammates, it gets more exposure." Earnhardt, Letarte show their mettle at Michigan Dale Earnhardt Jr. struggled to sleep Saturday night, and it wasn't because he had suffered through his worst finishes of the season in each of the past two weeks. It wasn't because he had seen his Sprint Cup points lead transformed into a deficit. It wasn't because he was feeling the pressure to become the first driver in 17 years to sweep both races in a single season at Michigan International Speedway. It was because he was embarrassed. "I don't know if I can count on two hands the number of times I've spun a car out myself," Earnhardt said Sunday at the 2-mile track. "I pride myself on having a good reputation of keeping cars in one piece to try to bring them home, and not spend a lot of money on the race track wrecking cars. I just really felt like I was under a lot of pressure [Sunday] to put together a good race. A lot of pressure." Pressure, indeed. NASCAR's most popular driver was forced into a backup car after spinning on his own near the end of final practice Saturday, casting Earnhardt's return to the track where he broke his 147-race winless streak in an inauspicious light. Not only did it take away the same car that dominated here two months ago -- all they did was wash it, the driver said -- but it happened so late in practice, he wasn't able to get any laps in the replacement vehicle before the race. So here he was, starting from the rear, in a car he had plenty of questions about, with Hendrick Motorsports engines blowing up all around him like popcorn kernels, needing to stem the tide coming off the two worst finishes of his season. So yes, internally and externally, there was pressure. This was one of those weekends that would give us an indication of how much of a championship contender Earnhardt really was, given that his past two victories had come in Michigan, and he didn't want to lose any more momentum as the Chase crept within a few weeks. The response wasn't a victory, as so many in the estimated crowd of 83,000 surely hoped for. But it did show plenty of mettle nonetheless, given that Earnhardt slid behind the wheel of a 3,400-pound unknown and still challenged for the victory until eventually finishing fourth. "I don't think we had to get something as far as win," crew chief Steve Letarte said. "I think that it was important for our team to prove to ourselves that we can bring out a backup car and prepare it, and put the setup in it. It's kind of like, it's easy to say you can win a race until you do it. When you watch a team going to a backup car, you'd like to think you can have some success with yours. I think we proved today we've got a lot of bullets." In recent weeks, those bullets have flown a little off course. Two weeks ago at Pocono, Earnhardt suffered a transmission failure that forced him off the lead lap for the first time this season. Seven days later on the road course at Watkins Glen International, he spun while contending for a top-10 finish and wound up 28th. He fell from the points lead to fourth in the standings. Throughout it all, though, there was always Michigan, that big D-shaped haven where Earnhardt has so often run so well, a golden opportunity to get that one more victory to inch him a little closer to the top Chase seed. And then, with only moments left in final practice Saturday -- clank. They had tested the backup car two months earlier at Michigan, had finished third with it in a rain-shortened event on a 2-mile Auto Club Speedway very similar to this one, and Earnhardt professed confidence Saturday afternoon hours after the spin. Then he went to bed and stared at the ceiling, wondering how the thing would handle at 200 mph under green-flag conditions. The big concern? "Not knowing whether it's going to turn left or right going into the corner," he said. "These things have so many variables on them." Across the motorhome lot, Letarte was consumed by the same issue. As is custom when it comes to backups, NASCAR had allowed the No. 88 crew an extra hour in the garage area to work on the second car. Well after the gates were finally locked, there was still more to do. "It looked like an office supply store had exploded in my motorhome last night about midnight, because there were so many papers out," the crew chief said. With two poor finishes behind them and further adversity staring them in the face, there was ample opportunity to continue what was in danger of quickly becoming a slump. Instead, they rebounded with an effort reminiscent of the No. 48 team's on-the-fly rebuild in the thick of the 2009 championship race, which helped Jimmie Johnson salvage points at Texas in the season's third-to-last event. When they rolled that backup No. 88 car onto the grid Sunday morning, they knew it needed to be close. Starting in the rear and forced to make up so much ground, they were doomed if they were off. They got it almost all the way there, enough to take the lead with the help of some pit strategy, even if the vehicle couldn't quite hang with the leaders during a pair of late restarts. The end result was fourth place. A pair of short tracks, typically an Earnhardt strong suit, remain before the Chase. Momentum is back on the side of the No. 88 team again. Crisis averted. "There are a thousand things that can go wrong," Letarte said. "I was real proud of the guys [Sunday]. This is a true testament to the strength of the team we have. If we'd have been a little bit better, we'd have had a shot at the win. But we weren't quite good enough." Even so: "The guys did a really good job getting the car close, getting the car competitive," Earnhardt said. "We put a car on the starting grid we hadn't even put any laps on. That's just impressive as hell, and they deserve all the credit." Clearly, it wasn't perfect. The splitter height wasn't exactly right, and the vehicle proved a handful when Earnhardt was battling Johnson for the lead on a late restart. "On the edge every lap," he reported after being overtaken by his teammate. But it was fast enough to put him the mix, and good enough to make Earnhardt wonder what might have been possible had they had a little practice time left to work on it. "Probably should have won," he said. They may very well have had a shot, given that Johnson's engine expired as he led the race with only six laps remaining. But Sunday in Michigan, fourth place was enough to bring a little swagger back to a driver clearly beating himself up after spinning his race car in each of the past two weeks. And it was enough to provide a confidence boost to a program that needed to get things going in a more positive direction -- and under trying circumstances, did just that. "We've had a couple of bad weeks, and we haven't let that get to us," Earnhardt said. "I'm glad we're back on the upswing running like we should." Earnhardt-Gordon radio talk epitomizes Hendrick's odd day Between sour motors, stirring comebacks and strings of expletives punctuating emotionally charged radio chatter, Sunday's Pure Michigan 400 had a little of everything for Hendrick Motorsports. And the final tally essentially was an even split. Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kasey Kahne were on the positive side of the ledger while Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon were well into the red. Johnson suffered the worst of the meltdowns while leading on a lap 195 of a scheduled 200. With victory in sight at Michigan International Speedway (one of only five tracks where he hasn't won in Sprint Cup), the motor in Johnson's No. 48 Chevrolet suddenly quit. "You've got to be kidding me!" the five-time series champion screamed into his radio while limping back to the pits. Johnson, who forfeited his third-place starting position and started from the rear after changing motors before practice Saturday, didn't address the news media afterward. The motors of Gordon and Tony Stewart (whose team is supplied chassis and horsepower by Hendrick) had failed earlier in the race. Since his Aug. 5 victory at Pocono Raceway, Gordon (27th) has finished outside the top 20 in consecutive races and likely will need another win to make the Chase for the Sprint Cup as a wild card. With three races remaining until the Chase, Gordon is ranked 16th and trails Ryan Newman, who holds the final wild-card spot, by 30 points. "It's the kind of year we have been having," Gordon said. "I was hoping after Pocono we could carry some momentum and not have these kinds of back-to-back weekends." Earnhardt and Kasey Kahne both shored up their Chase bids by overcoming adversity with title-caliber performances. Kahne was involved in a lap 64 crash that required multiple pit stops to fix the damage to the No. 5. He restarted 26th but needed only 80 laps to rocket into the top five. He nearly passed runner-up Brad Keselowski on the final lap but settled for his third top-five in the past five races. "I slid through the (frontstretch) grass and thought it destroyed my car," Kahne said. "Fortunately, it just pushed the right-front fender in, (and) the guys were able to pop it out. Solid day, solid recovery." Ditto for Earnhardt, who started from the rear after crashing the Impala he won with at Michigan in June during Saturday's final practice. In a backup car he never practiced, Earnhardt led 25 laps and took advantage of a wise strategy by crew chief Steve Letarte that allowed his No. 88 Chevrolet to make its final stop ahead of most contenders. "My team put together a great race car that was comfortable and competitive," Earnhardt said. "Real happy to be able to run well. I feel like I was under pressure to just not make any more mistakes. I spun out twice in the last two weeks on my own, and I try not to have that kind of reputation." The race wasn't without some drama for Earnhardt, who drew an angry radio tirade from Gordon on a lap 74 restart. "He took me four-wide, and that wasn't that big of a deal, but then he slid up in front of me off of Turn 2, and I had to (slow down), or I would have wrecked all of us," Gordon said. "So, I just didn't think that it was the smartest thing to do, especially as teammates. But he chose to do it and that's fine. It all worked out. I don't care who I'm racing out there; I'm going to show my displeasure if I'm not happy about something." Earnhardt was befuddled when his spotter relayed Gordon's concern about the restart. "I don't know what I did, but I'm sorry if I did something," Earnhardt responded. After the race, Earnhardt told The Sporting News he was following team instructions to "take positions no matter who is driving the cars in front of me." "I try to take care of my teammates. I don't put them in the fence or run into them, but we've got to race on the racetrack just like everybody else in situations like today," Earnhardt said. "I understand if (Gordon) is upset, and he's got a lot of experience and he can help me understand what I might have done wrong if I did anything wrong. I'm just trying real hard for this team." 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