Dale Earnhardt Jr
News Archive

Changes shake up 'complacent' Hendrick team Rick Hendrick knew the world would be watching when he brought Dale Earnhardt Jr. into his race organization and, before he retires, the championship car owner wants to give NASCAR's most popular driver every tool he can to try to win races and contend for a championship. This week brings another step in that process, as Earnhardt assumes the crew chief and the team that once supported Jeff Gordon. As part of a massive personnel swap intended to bolster his entire organization, Earnhardt will now work with Steve Letarte, whose crew chiefed Gordon for the past five seasons and never missed a Chase. Gordon will be paired with Alan Gustafson, who was previously Mark Martin's crew chief, while Martin will work with Lance McGrew, who for most of the past two years was teamed with Earnhardt. Only Jimmie Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus, who together have won the past five championships in NASCAR's premier division, will remain together. It's more of a driver change than a crew chief change -- Hendrick said the people at the shops will all remain the same, the only differences being the driver, car number, and sponsor. Which means that Earnhardt, 25th and 21st in points the past two years, will be inserted into the group that had been working around Gordon. "When your confidence is shaken and you just get to the point where you need something to give you that feeling you can do it, and you've got faith in the guy you're working with, sometimes the frustration sets in and it just can't work," Hendrick said Wednesday. "That doesn't mean Dale wasn't a good driver, or Lance wasn't a good crew chief. It just got to the point where it wasn't working, and we needed to do something different. I've seen this many, many times, you make a switch and you get a new lease on life and everybody gets excited." But Hendrick was quick to point out that these moves weren't made for Earnhardt's sake, rather to bolster an organization that had grown somewhat stagnant despite winning its fifth consecutive title. He began thinking about making changes following the recent Sprint Cup race weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, after which he called crew chiefs and engineers together for a meeting that lasted three hours. In it, Hendrick quoted Winston Churchill: "It's not enough to do what's best. Sometimes you have to do what's required." And what was required were changes. Hendrick admits his team fell behind after NASCAR moved from the rear wing to the spoiler. The organization's cars simply weren't as good as they had been in 2009, when Johnson led Martin and Gordon in a Hendrick sweep of the top three points positions. The result was a reshaping at Hendrick, which will now have the Nos. 48 and 88 teams working out of one building, and the Nos. 24 and 5 out of another. The Johnson and Gordon teams had been joined at the hip since the No. 48 team's founding. "I think, in a nutshell, our whole organization after last year winning the championship and finishing 1-2-3 in the points ... we just got complacent, and other teams were stronger, and we were not where we needed to be," said Hendrick, who officially announced the changes Tuesday afternoon. "After the championship, we decided these moves would make all four teams better. Excitement inside our organization yesterday afternoon and last night, everybody was pumped and excited and have a new energy level to attack and get ready to go into 2011." Even though the changes were organization-wide, of course much of the focus falls on Earnhardt, who's won once since joining Hendrick prior to the 2008 season and has made the Chase as many times over that span. Hendrick looked for chemistry when pairing drivers and crew chiefs, and liked the existing relationship he saw between Earnhardt and Letarte, who is good friends with Tony Eury Jr., Earnhardt's cousin and former crew chief. A people person who is known for his ability to keep his driver's confidence up during races, Letarte became the natural choice to lead the No. 88 team. "Steve is probably, of all the crew chiefs we have, more of a people person," Hendrick said. "He's very smart, but he's got a tremendous personality. He knows how to get close to people. He and Junior have a relationship, I'm not sure if it's online racing or fantasy football, it's one of those things. But I think Junior has a lot of respect for Steve. Steve has a lot of insight into Junior, because he's mentioned it to me a couple of times in some debriefs and so forth. I feel like Dale needs a guy he can communicate with and has a proven track record. And the chemistry between the two of them, I think that is very good." By contrast, Hendrick said Gustafson is an engineer who is very matter-of-fact and engages in very little small talk, something he thought would mesh with Gordon at this point in the driver's career. The car owner added that Gordon, who in 2010 went winless for the second time in three years, approved the move before it was announced. "Jeff is a team player. He has a tremendous amount of respect for Alan," Hendrick said. "Over the years we've talked about different alignments at different shops, and Jeff wants to do whatever's necessary to give him an opportunity to win championships. Not that he's unhappy with Stevie ... [but] I think that the opportunity to try something different and new again would create a spark inside the company. I think Mark and Jeff would be a good combo in that building." Pairing Martin and McGrew combines an engineer crew chief with what Hendrick called a "very technical" driver. It also reunites Martin and Chris Heroy, who was lead engineer on Martin's No. 5 team when they nearly won the championship two years ago, and was moved to the No. 88 after that season to try to bolster Earnhardt's effort. Hendrick also made the moves with an eye toward 2012, when Kasey Kahne will join the organization and be paired with Gordon in the 24/5 shop. But: "We're not going to have a lame-duck situation," Hendrick said. "We're going to go for wins and championships. Mark can do that, and that team can do that." Hendrick called the personnel shuffle one of the most radical moves he's ever undertaken. But his organization clearly struggled to adapt after NASCAR moved from the wing to the spoiler, and Johnson's title run overshadowed the fact that his other three teams combined for zero victories in 2010. "The proof will be in the performance next year," he said. "I'm excited about making all four teams better. We are going to get better across the board. We're not going to leave any stone unturned." Hendrick swapping crew chiefs for three teams It didn't take long for Rick Hendrick to shake up Hendrick Motorsports, even though Sunday brought a fifth Cup Series championship to Jimmie Johnson and a 10th to the organization. Two days after the season came to a close in Florida, Hendrick Motorsports announced Tuesday afternoon it would shuffle the driver-crew chief pairings for drivers Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mark Martin. Earnhardt's crew chief, Lance McGrew, moves over to the No. 5 team of Mark Martin; Steve Letarte moves from Jeff Gordon's No. 24 team to Earnhardt's No. 88 team; and Alan Gustafson becomes Gordon's crew chief after two years with Martin. Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus, winners of five consecutive Cup championships, will remain paired. Johnson won six races in 2010; the other three Hendrick drivers were winless. Gordon made the Chase; Martin and Earnhardt did not. In addition to the personnel moves, the cars of Gordon and Martin will be fielded out of the same facility, now known as the 5/24 shop. Earnhardt and Johnson will be in the 48/88 shop. Previously the 24 and 48 cars were built in the same building, and the 5 and 88 were together. "This will improve us as an organization, across the board," Hendrick said. "We had a championship season [in 2010], but we weren't where we wanted and needed to be with all four teams. We've made the right adjustments, and I'm excited to go racing with this lineup." Lost season to end for Dale Earnhardt Jr. at a track that frustrates him Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s second consecutive season of frustration at Hendrick Motorsports will come to an end this weekend at the season finale as he tries to hold on to a spot in the top 20 in points. Earnhardt Jr. is 19th in the standings, 28 points ahead of AJ Allmendinger, 65 points ahead of Kasey Kahne and 90 points ahead of Martin Truex Jr. going into the 36th and final race of the season Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway. While Homestead is another 1.5-mile track, it has progressive banking – the banking changes through the turn, allowing for a better chance of multiple-groove racing. “Homestead has been one of my toughest tracks since they changed the configuration of it,” Earnhardt Jr. said in a news release. ”We’ve ran good, but I just don’t seem to really have a line. There are a million different ways you can go through the corner but I haven’t really figured out which one suits me the best.” In the two races for NASCAR's new car at Homestead, Earnhardt Jr. has finishes of 41st and 28th. “It’s a real challenging race track because it’s not like any other intermediate track that we race at,” crew chief Lance McGrew said. “It’s just very different – it has multiple grooves, it has progressive banking, you can run the bottom, you can run the top, you can run the middle.” Earnhardt Jr. and the team participated in a tire test at Homestead in September. “We got to try some kind of off-the-wall setups for us, and the car was real quick and real good for a long time,” McGrew said. “We ran nothing but long runs there 20 laps at a time or more. “For us, that’s where we’ve seemed to struggle. We’ve been able to get a car fast at the beginning or end of a run, but not fast over the entire length, and I think it was a big plus for us to get to do that.” After this weekend, the team will have to regroup for 2012. The team has not talked about any personnel changes, preferring to get through the season and make any decisions during the offseason. “My goals are to try to regroup and try to go to the next year a little more prepared,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We thought we had it all figured out going into this year, and we learned a little bit about how much more we had to improve. So when we start the season, we can’t have any doubts or questions in any areas.” Could Dale Earnhardt Jr. get a new crew chief? Dale Earnhardt Jr. doesn’t want to think about personnel issues with his No. 88 team until after the season finale this week at Homestead-Miami Speedway. That includes a decision about the status of crew chief Lance McGrew. “I ain’t really making any decisions on that until after the season’s over with,” Earnhardt Jr. told Sporting News at Phoenix. “I asked [team owner] Rick [Hendrick] and everybody in the corporation if I could just not consider any options for next year or any ideas until we’re done racing, that I wanted to focus on what we’re doing. I just wanted to get all I could out of these last two races before I started thinking about that. “I will say this about Lance: I’ve really enjoyed working with him. I’ve enjoyed even more so becoming his friend and getting to know him as well as I have. I have a lot of respect for him, and he’s put up with a lot of crap this year and last year, trying to help get this thing going. He gave me his best effort to try to help each weekend, and I’ve just got a lot of respect for him.” Since McGrew replaced Tony Eury Jr. as crew chief in mid-2009, the results have been disappointing. Earnhardt Jr. hasn’t won a race since June 2008, and this year he failed to make the Chase For The Sprint Cup for the second straight season. A year after finishing 25th in points, Earnhardt Jr. is 19th in the standings with just three top-five and eight top-10 finishes. He started 31st and finished 14th Sunday at Phoenix. Earnhardt Jr. isn’t laboring under any illusions when assessing the overall performance of the No. 88 team. “I think I can say that what’s going on on the race track is a fair assessment,” he said. “It’s had its ups and downs this year, but here lately we’ve struggled quite badly. It’s been unfortunate, and you really can’t visually see what our issues are. It’s a moving target for us.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. has long day Friday, will start 31st at Phoenix Dale Earnhardt Jr. felt good when he drove his Hendrick Motorsports car early in practice at Phoenix International Raceway. But he said Friday was one of those days where nothing his team did made the car better. Earnhardt Jr. wound up 31st in qualifying for the Kobalt Tools 500, which will be the next-to-last race of what has been a disappointing season for the 36-year-old Sprint Cup Series driver. “It was pretty good until we started working on it,” Earnhardt Jr. said after qualifying. “We ran a pretty good lap off the truck. We just got worse the more we [worked on] it.” Nineteenth in the standings, Earnhardt Jr. said he didn’t know what to expect in the race Sunday as he will need the two practices Saturday to see what will work. “We haven’t run any race trim,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We’ve showed up in qualifying trim every week. I don’t know what the car is going to do until we get in race trim tomorrow.” Earnhardt Jr. is coming off a long weekend at Texas, where he started 22nd and finished 25th. “I was really loose all weekend,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “It ran 20 laps and burned the right rear tire off and it happened over and over.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. still disappointed over causing Talladega wreck, not happy after qualifying at Texas Dale Earnhardt Jr. wanted to get back to the race track after a disappointing performance at Talladega Superspeedway last week, but he left Texas Motor Speedway Friday disappointed that he will start 22nd in the AAA Texas 500 on Sunday. Five days after accidentally wrecking Jeff Burton and himself at Talladega, Earnhardt Jr. spent the entire Friday practice session working on his qualifying setup. “We were pretty good in practice earlier with our qualifying stuff, but I was too loose to go any faster right there,” Earnhardt Jr. said after qualifying. “We made some adjustments before qualifying that we probably regret making now.” Earnhardt Jr., who is 19th in the Cup standings, said he still could run well Sunday. In April, he started ninth, led 46 laps and finished eighth at the 1.5-mile track. “I don’t really know yet,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We didn’t do any race-trim practice today. … We still have a good opportunity this weekend. Last time we raced here was when practice was rained out and we did not run a lap of race trim at all last time we raced here. “That’s been the best we ran at a mile-and-a-half all year. I hope we can take that setup and it works decent tomorrow and we can improve on it.” After his bump of Burton caused an accident last week, Earnhardt Jr. was ready to get back in the car. “I was pretty disappointed in myself from last week,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I didn’t really do anything that hadn’t been done all day long, but I just hate being the guy that starts anything at those tracks because normally when you start something, it takes a lot of people out. “I’ve been feeling pretty disappointed about that. We had an opportunity to get another good run, which we hadn’t been able to do. We ran good at Martinsville and wanted to get another run, we could have come here and run good and that would have been a good little string of momentum if we had run good and finished good at Talladega. We did run good [until the wreck].” While some might think Earnhardt Jr. wants the season to be over, he said he wants to keep working. He told Hendrick Motorsports officials he didn’t want to talk about changes for next season until after the season because he doesn’t want to ruin the last few races. “I wanted to keep working with these guys and keep trying to do what we could do for the rest of this year before we ever even considered turning one screw on the structure of our team,” Earnhardt Jr. said. And Earnhardt Jr. wishes he had more than three weeks to keep working. “I wish we were racing all the way into December and through January because you don’t want to ever quit when you’re not productive,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “The last couple of weeks have gone pretty good, but those tracks aren’t the majority of the ones on the circuit. “It feels like 90 percent of the tracks on the circuit are all mile-and-a-half tracks like Texas. We haven’t run good at those all year. I’d like to be able to keep working and not be able to quit until we are satisfied. We’re not satisfied.” Junior's house of horrors With five victories here, including four consecutive between 2001 and '03, Dale Earnhardt Jr. could always count on a treat or two when it came to Talladega Superspeedway. And the majority of fans who roar at every mention of his name have continued to expect the No. 88 Chevrolet to find its way to the front. But since his 2004 victory, the fall race at the 2.66-mile oval has somehow become a house of horrors for Junior. In 2005, he was caught up in a crash just 19 laps into the race, finishing 40th. The following year, he was battling for the lead when Brian Vickers turned Jimmie Johnson into Earnhardt. Engine woes sidelined him with another 40th-place finish in 2008. And on Halloween Sunday, Earnhardt fans were once again frustrated when he tangled with Jeff Burton on Lap 133, an accident that caused severe damage to Junior's car and required extensive repairs in the garage area. Earnhardt eventually returned to the race 25 laps down and wound up 39th. "I got into Jeff and didn't hit him square and turned him down the race track and ended up wrecking him," Junior said. "We just didn't hit him square, misjudged the push I was going to give him and did it incorrectly. [It] cost his crew a great race car and opportunity to win. He had a really fast car." Earnhardt felt badly enough about things to climb from his car and trot into the infield medical center to tell Burton he was sorry. "I just wanted to apologize to him," Junior said. "Man, he's one of the ambassadors for our sport and I have so much respect for him. When you are out there racing, you aren't considering all those things. "As soon as I turned him, I felt terrible about it. I just respect him so much. He's taught me a lot in my career. I didn't show him as much respect as I should have but I didn't have any intentions of spinning him out. I was racing a little bit hard out there." For his part, Burton saw it as just a typical restrictor-plate racing incident. "It's just racing," Burton said. "Junior and I worked really well [Sunday] and pushed each other a lot. We just didn't get lined up that time and I guess he got me in the right-rear quarter panel and got me turned around. "It wasn't anything on purpose. We just didn't get lined up. ... It all got started going into Turn 3 and it got three-wide and it kind of changed everybody's line a little bit and I think I moved a little different than he thought I was going to." Earnhardt also apologized to Richard Childress, the No. 31 crew and his own team for perhaps being a little too impatient. "My boys, too, they worked really hard on my car," Junior said. "We had a terrific engine [Sunday] and a real fast car. We were racing along there, probably more racing than we should have been doing, but it is fun. I just kind of got caught up and got a little overzealous there getting ready to push Jeff there." It was definitely a disappointing end to a day that held much promise. Junior started sixth and went to the front by Lap 3. He eventually led six times for a race-high 24 laps and was in the thick of the battle for the first two-thirds of the event. But it only takes one misstep to create a catastrophe at 190 mph, and for Earnhardt, it was a minute miscalculation. "Whenever you push somebody, you think you know what you are doing," Junior said. "They're moving and you are moving and the cars are dicing around in the air so you are always sliding across the back of each other. It just so happened it was the perfect storm. "I was coming up the track and he was sort of moving down and at the right time we touched to hook him. We had done it all day long and not had any problems. You saw a lot of other guys do the same thing and not have any problems. I just incorrectly did it and misjudged it, or whatever you want to call it." But for Earnhardt, the option of playing it safe just isn't part of his makeup. "The fans don't want to see us all running around the top," Junior said. "I mean we have run up there sometimes because you are going to go to the back if you pull out. When you have the opportunity to race, you want to race. We were just racing a little bit there and just got to racing a little bit too hard." Even though his luck in the fall race has been all bad, Earnhardt still has a ton of respect for close-quarters racing at NASCAR's biggest and fastest track. "It is hairy stuff but it is what you have to do if you want to get up to the lead," Junior said. "You want to be up front and you have to put your car toward the front for your sponsors and your fans. You have a lot of people here to please and you feel that responsibility to be up there all the time every lap you can be up front. "Everybody has that same mentality. We are all just kind of racing around. It is fun and pretty exciting. Just times as you seen with my accident and I guess the last couple that we have had, just sometimes you make mistakes and I made one [Sunday]." Earnhardt apologizes to Burton after wreck While crew members frantically worked to fix damage on the No. 88 car, Dale Earnhardt Jr. walked across the garage area to the infield medical center and apologized to Jeff Burton. Earnhardt blamed himself for brushing the back of Burton’s car at an awkward angle on lap 134 of Sunday’s race at Talladega Superspeedway, causing Burton to crash heavily. “I got into Jeff and didn’t hit him square and turned him down the racetrack and ended up wrecking him,” Earnhardt said. “Just didn’t hit him square, misjudged the push I was going to give him and did it incorrectly.” Burton wasn’t upset with Earnhardt. Bump-drafting, where a driver gives the car in front of him a push on the back bumper to make both cars go faster, is just a fact of life when it comes to racing at Talladega. And at speeds nearing 200 mph, things don’t always go according to plan. “He didn’t mean it,” Burton said in a television interview. “He didn’t do anything wrong. We just didn’t get lined up. It got a little hectic getting into (turn) three, and I think I moved a little bit more than he thought I was and we just didn’t get lined up right. It won’t be the last time it happens." Earnhardt said he felt particularly bad because of the respect he had for Burton, a veteran considered a leader in the garage area. “That’s one of the ambassadors of the sport, and I’ve got so much respect for him,” Earnhardt said. “When you’re out there racing, you’re not considering all those things and as soon as I turned him, I felt terrible about it. I just respect him so much.” For Earnhardt, it was another blown opportunity in a disappointing season. He was strong early in Sunday’s race, leading six times for a total of 24 laps and bringing fans to their feet every time he took the lead. Now he hasn’t won since Michigan in June 2008 and admits he is feeling pressure to run up front. “I mean, it’s hairy stuff, but it’s what you’ve got to do to get up to the lead,” Earnhardt said. “You want to be up front. You’ve got to put your car toward the front for your sponsors, for your fans. You’ve got a lot of people here to please and you feel that responsibility to be up there all the time.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. confident heading to Talladega, must figure out how to draft with new car Dale Earnhardt Jr. feels like he can win at Talladega Superspeedway no matter what car he is driving, but his last victory at the 2.66-mile oval came before NASCAR switched to its new car in 2007. Earnhardt Jr. has five wins at Talladega, but last won there in 2004. Since the new car was used at Talladega in October 2007, Earnhardt Jr. has only two top-10 finishes – second in April 2009 and 10th in April 2008. He has led laps, though, in each race, including 31 in that first race and 133 total in the last six events. “I feel like when I go to Talladega, I always have a shot to win,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “The racing is different these days. Racing is different and I have to learn how to do [it], how to get it done.” Racing at Talladega with the new car is different than racing with the old car. Two-driver drafts at times work better than a line of cars. “At Talladega, everybody’s car feels the same,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Nobody is way better or really slow. You’ve got to all get bumper-to-bumper and push each other around, and that’s a little trick that’s come up with this car. “It’s a whole different way of racing now, and you try to make that work and try to learn those things.” Jeff Gordon said the new car has impacted drivers such as Earnhardt Jr,. who used to be dominant at the track. “It just changes how you go about it, getting yourself in position and drafting is so much different,” Gordon said. “With the old car, you really could put yourself in a position to win that race and work through it and think about it and plan it and know what your car is going to do. “Nowadays, you just look for the revolving door – you just try to figure out who is going to get through it at the right time.” A driver doesn’t know that if he doesn’t run with the lead pack during the race, but Earnhardt Jr. acknowledged that there is some benefit to lagging behind the lead pack, as some drivers like to do until there are 20 or 30 laps remaining. The key is in creating a successful two-car draft. Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski showed in April 2009 just how dominating such a combination can be for a couple of laps. “A lot of the fans probably don’t like the guys that go ride in the back, but when they come up into the pack in the last 20 laps nobody really knows what kind of player they are and how strong they are,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “That is a good hand to hold, you know? When you haven’t shown everybody all day long what kind of moves you are capable of making, you can catch people off guard. “So those guys have a good hand at the end of race, too. The ones that have been up front running hard, which is what I like to do, you use up a lot of race car all day long beating around bumpers real hard, and you use up your car pretty good and you use up your engine. And, you’ve shown everybody what you are capable of doing and the people can use that against you. It is a tough call what to do.” Crew chief Lance McGrew doesn’t expect Earnhardt Jr. to lag around in the back. “Dale has absolutely zero interest in riding in the back, so I don’t consider it,” McGrew said. “He wants the car good enough to lead, and generally our car is that good, and he is that good at doing it. He is patient but he’s not that patient – he just doesn’t want to ride in the back. “History has proven that there are people who have done it and come away with some really good finishes but depending on how the cautions fly you could be in trouble.” The six new-car races at Talladega have been won by Kevin Harvick, Jamie McMurray, Brad Keselowski, Tony Stewart, Kyle Busch and Gordon. “The COT car races different than the old cars that we won all those races with,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Now the way the COT is, everybody basically has the same odds really going into Talladega. “We’ll go there and I always feel good and confident. Even if that was the only race we showed up for each year, I think we would feel good going into it.” Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Martinsville run good news for Talladega officials There were smiles all around the ticket offices of Talladega Superspeedway on Monday morning. That’s because Dale Earnhardt Jr. led 90 laps in the previous day’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway en route to a seventh-place finish. And because the next stop for the series is Sunday’s Amp Energy Juice 500 at Talladega. “I wish he could have stayed there [in the lead],” Grant Lynch, Talladega Superspeedway Chairman, said Monday. “Our phones would still be ringing.” Lynch isn’t showing favoritism. A few select tracks tend to favor certain drivers, and likewise some drivers always seem to perform better at particular venues. For a driver to be identified with a particular track isn’t all that common, but it does happen. And, as Lynch noted, “This has always been an Earnhardt track.” In much the same way that Martinsville, for a time, was a Jeff Gordon track. And then a Jimmie Johnson track. And now a Denny Hamlin track. “I think they can [impact] ticket sales when they’re the No. 1 driver in the sport,” Lynch said, “and certainly his daddy [Dale Earnhardt] carried that banner for years, especially here. “In 2000, the year he raced from 18th to first, that was one of the most amazing charges I’ve ever seen. With Kenny Wallace’s help, he just came right up the middle through the whole pack. “This has always been and Earnhardt track. All of his father’s [10] wins, the whole [Jeff] Gordon thing with all the beer cans [in 2004] … “I think of all the tracks that are out there, we probably have the highest percentage of Junior fans. You can’t put our problems or any other track’s problems on just one driver, but there are tracks that one driver favors, or maybe favors one driver.” Earnhardt Jr. is a five-time winner in the Cup series at Talladega, but hasn’t been to the winner’s circle there since October 2004. And he’s struggled in two of his three seasons with Hendrick Motorsports, winning just once and missing the Chase For The Sprint Cup in 2009 and ’10. His 90 laps led at Martinsville were more than he had led in the previous 31 races combined. The closeness of this year’s Chase – defending series champion Jimmie Johnson leads Denny Hamlin by six points with Kevin Harvick sitting 62 points out in third – could help generate interest in this weekend’s race as well, according to Lynch. “We certainly hope so,” he said. “We’ve got the things out there – a tight points battle, Harvick runs good here, Hamlin, I think he invented the new two-car push that’s so prevalent here now. That bodes well for him. “Unfortunately for Jimmie, this hasn’t been one of his favorite places to come. “Overall, I think the Chase has played out good for the sport and for us.” Forgotten Hendrick duo make noise at Martinsville All season long, they've been the odd men out in their own race organization. But for a while Sunday during the Tums Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway, there was no one better than either Mark Martin or Dale Earnhardt Jr. Martin never led a lap and eventually finished second to race winner Denny Hamlin, but he was coming hard at the end, running faster laps than anyone else. Earnhardt eventually faded to seventh, but not before he energized the crowd by leading 90 laps. So in a season when they have been consistently outrun by their two teammates at Hendrick Motorsports, four-time Sprint Cup champions Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon, this was finally a day when Martin and Earnhardt also took their turns at shining. Martin was all smiles when he climbed out of his No. 5 Chevrolet afterward -- despite limping noticeably and rubbing his aching left knee, a chronic pain which he described as "no big deal." When a pit crew member from Kyle Busch's race team congratulated him, the 51-year-old Martin beamed. "Hey, I gave 'em something to think about. I'm old, but I'm not that old," Martin said. He didn't look old at all on the final lap, when he was the fastest competitor on the track -- making the .526-mile circuit in 21.12 seconds. Hamlin's last lap was timed at 21.20 and Kevin Harvick, who finished third, was clocked at 21.44. So Martin was coming. He just didn't have enough time to get to the front. "I want to thank all the fans for coming out [Sunday]. I think they saw a great race. Another 20 laps and I think they would have seen a really great race," Martin said. Earlier, Earnhardt turned some heads of his own by taking a rare turn at the front of the field. He led more laps Sunday than he had in the first 31 races of the season combined -- during which he led in only four events for a total of 71 laps. "We got toward the front on some pit strategy that worked out really good and then we had a good enough car at the time to pass the guys that were around us. They had a little less tire than we had," Earnhardt said. "A lot of things worked in our favor to get us the lead, then we came out on the pit stop in first and held it all the way until the next caution. "The No. 31 [car of driver Jeff Burton] was coming but I felt like if I held my line just perfectly, I was actually a little bit better than him at that point. ... I felt good at that point." After the next round of pit stops, however, Earnhardt said his No. 88 Chevrolet "got real tight" and he started losing spots until the car loosened up later in the run, when he could at least hold his ground again. "I was just in the way for a while there," Earnhardt said. "It was tight on restarts -- but after 20 or 30 laps, we'd start rotating and we could either keep up or be a little bit better than the guys around us." That enabled him to post a seventh-place finish that was his best since finishing fourth at New Hampshire six races ago. He has only two top-10 finishes in his past 13 races and hasn't won since June of 2008 at Michigan -- 89 races ago. But he did say afterward that he believes Sunday was something he hopefully can build on. "Well, this isn't quite good enough. We have to run way better than this. ... But I feel pretty confident. That is how I feel. I'm not saying that is reality," Earnhardt said. Martin, meanwhile, has dealt with his own series of problems this year. But he now has finished in the top six in two of the past three races -- and, boy, did he have fun at the end Sunday. In the beginning of the race, well, maybe not so much because of a brake issue he had to battle. "It was basically just a fast race car. It got better and better the longer we raced," Martin said. "We started having hot brakes at Lap 30, so we couldn't run that hard. The whole last 100 laps, we could only run hard until they got soft -- and then I had a pretty good feel of how to keep 'em about right there. We've got a tore-up race car and everything else, but it worked out. "Man, that was fun. This is what I live for." Neither Martin nor Earnhardt has won this year, but Martin said he thought that was going to change for one of them earlier in the race. "Junior did run well. I was thinking at one time that I might be congratulating him afterward in Victory Lane," said Martin, whose own winless streak is now at 41 races. In the end, neither of them made it there -- and neither is a factor in the Chase. Martin moved up one spot to 14th in the point standings and Earnhardt remained mired in 19th. But they had fun for a change, and that much Earnhardt could appreciate. "I love short track racing and I love coming here," Earnhardt said. "This place has a lot of history. I have a lot of respect for it. I used to not understand how to get around here and then I have been pretty good here for a long time. I feel pretty confident that when I come here I can run good. "I like racing here and I like this style of racing. You kind of have to get over a lot of things out there that happen, and then you have to stand your ground in a lot of cases. It's an active day and a lot of fun." Qualifying, track position key for struggling Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Martinsville While Dale Earnhardt Jr. has had good qualifying runs the last two weeks, those haven’t translated into solid finishes. Obviously Earnhardt Jr. hopes to qualify well again this weekend as the series heads to Martinsville Speedway, the shortest track (0.526-mile) on the circuit, for the Tums Fast Relief 500. And if he qualifies well, it is possible he won’t fall back as quickly as he has in the last few races. “It is really, really imperative that your car handles well, because there is not much adjustment to the line in the corner that you can make to try to make up for something that your car isn’t doing correctly,” Earnhardt Jr. said in a news release. “So you really have to work hard with your team and show up pretty good out of the box.” At Martinsville earlier this year, Earnhardt Jr. started eighth and finished 15th. Crew chief Lance McGrew has opted to bring that same car back this weekend. In the last two races, Earnhardt Jr. started ninth but finished 16th at Auto Club Speedway and qualified eighth but finished 29th at Charlotte Motor Speedway. He has just two top-10 finishes in his last 14 races. “Qualifying is important at Martinsville – not so much for pit selection because there is really only one good pit stall there,” McGrew said. “It’s more the track position because you can go a lap down there pretty easily because of traffic. “It’s nice to get some track position from the beginning. It’s easier to maintain it than drive up through all that traffic because it’s so hard to pass there.” The key during the race will be brake management, McGrew said. “If your driver is really comfortable and he’s not overdriving it, then you can be there at the end,” McGrew said. “You can literally drive the tires off the car. If you are too hard on the brakes then you can melt beads and have a tire blow out. “Even as good as our cars have gotten and as efficient as our brake cooling is, you can still overwork the brakes and either wear them out or overheat them. Either way, you are in trouble and it’s going to make for a bad day.” Earnhardt Jr. has 21 career starts at Martinsville with five top-five finishes, including a runnerup finish in this race two years ago. His average finish is 14.1. “I love going to Martinsville,” said Earnhardt Jr., who is 19th in the standings, 44 points behind 18th-place Joey Logano and 65 points behind 17th-place David Reutimann. “There is just a lot of good history there. It is an old race track, and it is a short track. Martinsville is so unique being a paperclip and flat.” Dale Jr. Foundation to raise money at Charlotte To help those less fortunate, The Dale Jr. Foundation is giving others the chance of a lifetime. Charlotte Motor Speedway will host “Dale Jr. Day” on Monday in a major fundraising initiative that gives fans the chance to take laps around the 1.5-mile facility with Dale Earnhardt Jr., NASCAR’s seven-time Most Popular Driver. The event will be The Dale Jr. Foundation’s primary fundraising event of the year in providing funds for local charities—including Make-A-Wish and Victory Junction Gang Camp—with an emphasis on kids. Dale Jr. Day is a joint effort between The Dale Jr. Foundation and NASCAR Racing Experience. Fans have the option of seven different packages, and while each features its own uniqueness, all donors will have the opportunity to participate in a fan question-and-answer session with Earnhardt Jr. For event information and package details, log onto www.nascarracingexperience.com/NRE/DaleJrDay/index.html or www.TheDaleJrFoundation.org. “Ever since we started the foundation, we have one big fan event a year to help raise money for the charities we support,” Earnhardt said. “It’s a big deal to me and a big deal to my fans. We always have overwhelming support, and I really appreciate that. This will be the first time we’ve done a fundraising event that actually involves me driving a race car, so I’m pretty excited about that. I like to bring people into my world and let them see what I see. I think they’ll find a new appreciation for what we all do as drivers.” “We’ve tried to come up with ways to give value back to our donors through special events like Dale Jr. Day, and we hope for a good turnout this Monday,” said Camille Thompson, marketing manager for The Dale Jr. Foundation. “Our ‘hard card’ membership offers cool merchandise in return for donations, and our eBay program has everything from sports and music memorabilia to autographed die cast cars and fire suits. We like to give back to those who give to us. Most people don’t realize The Dale Jr. Foundation is almost 100 percent funded by contributions from donors, so we appreciate any amount fans are able to give so we can continue to do good things for underprivileged and critically ill children.” One lucky Make-A-Wish child will see his dream come true when he pairs up with Earnhardt Jr. for a ride around the track. Thanks in part to an anonymous donation to The Dale Jr. Foundation, the child will live out his lifelong dream of riding with his favorite NASCAR driver during the day’s activities. Earlier this year, Dale Jr. granted his 200th Wish for Make-A-Wish, making him one of the top five wish-granting athletes in the 30-year history of the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The 200th wish was chronicled on ESPN’s My Wish Series this summer. Proceeds from Dale Jr. Day will benefit Blessings in a Backpack, Make-A-Wish, The Ronald McDonald House of Charlotte, and Speedway Children’s Charities. Gilliam to premiere 'The Legend of Hallowdega' Award-winning filmmaker Terry Gilliam will premiere his short film The Legend of Hallowdega starring David Arquette and Justin Kirk with special appearances by Dale Earnhardt Jr., Darrell Waltrip and more on Oct. 31st. The film, produced by AMP Energy Juice and @radical.media, will premiere on Halloween Sunday with the first chapter to debut on ESPN just prior to the start of the AMP Energy Juice 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. Starting Halloween night, the film will be available in its entirety on www.LegendofHallowdega.com. The Legend of Hallowdega is the first short film for both Gilliam and AMP Energy Juice. "Terry [Gilliam] has a distinctive vision and is a truly gifted storyteller," said Frank Cooper, chief consumer engagement officer of PepsiCo Americas Beverages. "AMP Energy Juice is proud to have produced his one-of-a-kind take on the legends and lore that surround Talladega Superspeedway for race fans and film buffs everywhere." Director Terry Gilliam added, "To bring our little circus into the world of a truly monster circus was a thrill." The comedy, The Legend of Hallowdega, explores the mysteries around Talladega Superspeedway as the host of an investigative news show (Justin Kirk) joins forces with a techno-geek paranormal expert (David Arquette) to dodge close calls and chase crazy leads to get to the bottom of The Legend of Hallowdega. "The great folks at AMP Energy Juice have developed a new and innovative idea to research and debunk some of the myths surrounding Hallowdega" said Talladega Superspeedway chairman Grant Lynch. "We anxiously await the release of the film to see what Terry Gilliam and AMP Energy Juice have come up with." Dale Earnhardt Jr. will see if Dover car can work at Charlotte It appears that the experimenting will continue for Dale Earnhardt Jr., whose focus now is on regaining momentum to make the 2011 Chase For The Sprint Cup. The Hendrick Motorsports driver, 18th in the series standings with six races left in the season, will have the car he last used at Dover underneath him this weekend for the Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Although there is little similarity between the 1-mile concrete Dover oval and the 1.5-mile asphalt Charlotte trioval, there apparently is something the team wants to see about the car, which was the first built from scratch under the direction of crew chief Lance McGrew, who took over his role in May 2009. It was first used in 2009 at Indianapolis. Charlotte is a good place to experiment as many of the practice sessions will be held during the day but the race will be staged Saturday night. “You really don’t know what your car is going to do,” Earnhardt Jr. said in a news release. “You get it set up for the daytime, and it’s going to handle differently at night, but a fast car is a fast car usually. So if you unload good, then you don’t try to mess it up too much.” But most drivers have problems somewhere at Charlotte, a place where Earnhardt Jr. finished 22nd earlier this year. “You always have two problems -- you are generally tight in the center of Turn 2, which makes it loose off and you need your car to turn better in (turns) 3 and 4,” McGrew said. “There are certain bumps you’ve got to deal with. It’s difficult. That place is so fast and so narrow, and it’s getting rougher. “It’s very difficult to have the corners connect where the car acts the same in (turns) 1 and 2 as it does in (turns) 3 and 4. There are some tracks we go to where that’s not an issue but they are entirely different at Charlotte. That’s always been the biggest challenge – to get the corners similar.” The challenge is not only to get the corners similar but get them similar throughout the race, when the temperature could drop 15 degrees the deeper the race goes into the night. “You have to look at history – there is a certain point in time you’ve got to free up the car when the track cools down,” McGrew said. I’ve talked to [Jimmie Johnson crew chief] Chad [Knaus] about it because of the run he and Jimmie had where they couldn’t lose over there. “Over the years, he knows what the track is going to do through the course of the night, and I think you just have to go by those notes. Five or six races of history is not going to lie to you.” In 22 Cup starts at Charlotte, Earnhardt Jr. has recorded one pole position, five top-five finishes and nine top-10s. Earnhardt Jr. does have an all-star win at the track but is still looking for his first points victory at the hometown oval. “Just winning in front of people who I grew up close to, even if I don’t know them and even if they don’t pull for me – winning in your hometown is a big deal,” Earnhardt Jr. said. California track doesn't bode well for struggling Dale Earnhardt Jr., Hendrick team Dale Earnhardt Jr., 17th in the Sprint Cup point standings, heads into this weekend’s race at Auto Club Speedway hoping to halt the freefall that has seen his No. 88 team finish outside the top-10 in 10 of its last 11 starts. That the 2-mile track, site of Sunday’s Pepsi Max 400, is up next doesn’t bode particularly well for the 18-time Cup winner, however. It’s a track where Earnhardt Jr. hasn’t finished inside the top 10 since 2007. In February, an axle problem sent him to the garage for a lengthy stay and resulted in a 32nd-place finish. In this race a year ago, a potential top-10 finish was erased when he was caught up in a late-race multicar-car incident. And among the 22 tracks currently on the Cup schedule, California rates as one of Earnhardt Jr.’s worst, given his 22nd-place average finishing position in 17 career starts there. Still, he does have four top-10s and three top-fives at the Southern California track. “We’vie had some decent runs at California, but just haven’t had the luck,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “The thing about California is that you can hunt around as the [racing] groove changes. You’vie got to have that adjust ability in your setup. My teammates have been good there, and they are a good reference.” If there’s anyone who seems to have figured out the configuration and what it takes to contend for wins there, it would be Hendrick teammate Jimmie Johnson. The defending series champion and current points leader scored his fifth career win at the track in February and has won four of the last six Cup races there. Fellow Hendrick driver Jeff Gordon is a three-time winner at California as well. For crew chief Lance McGee, though, it’s all about finding where the team’s performance got off track and correcting the problem. “I feel our intermediate program in general hasn’t been where it needs to be,” McGee said. “I’m not really sure where we got off, because we were really good in the beginning of the season. Somewhere along the way we’vie lost something, and we’vie tried package after package to get back some of that speed that we seem to have lost. “We have struggled to find something that is both comfortable and fast. We have found something that is fast, but not comfortable. It just seems to be difficult [to find both] with this tire, with this car, with this scenario.” And while most drivers enjoy the opportunity to move around and search for a faster groove during the course of a race, McGee said that opportunity makes it more difficult to lock in on a setup that will be competitive for the duration. “As the groove moves around, it's just so wide, your setup is kind of generic because you've got to move around and you have to build in a lot of adjust ability … but it seems like there it's harder to hone in on it [at California],” he said. Starting 20th at Kansas, Dale Earnhardt Jr. optimistic he can rebound after Dover struggles The numbers won’t show it, but Dale Earnhardt Jr. was optimistic despite qualifying 20th for the Price Chopper 400 this weekend at Kansas Speedway and actually found something good to take from the 23rd-place finish at Dover a week earlier. And the reason for his optimism really doesn’t come from leading 41 laps at Kansas last year before having an engine expire. “I totally forgot about that until [crew chief] Lance [McGrew] reminded me,” Earnhardt Jr. said Friday after his qualifying lap. “It’s been so damn long since I’ve had any runs like that, you don’t really have it fresh on the memory. “I like this track. I enjoy running here. It’s a wide track. It’s got a lot of grooves. I like a track where you can adapt to your car. You can move around. I look forward to the race, and hopefully we’ll hit on something tomorrow in practice and hopefully we’ll have a good car.” The Hendrick Motorsports driver, who is 18th in the series standings, is coming off a somewhat disappointing Dover race last week. During that race, he pitted under green and lost two laps when the caution came out before the leaders had pitted. But at least he didn’t pit thinking there was something wrong with the car when there wasn’t, which is what he did at Dover in May. “It wasn’t the end of the day, we just weren’t really fast all last week,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We ran real, real hard to run 22nd. One of the things I guess that we can take away from it was we had about the same car in the first race [at Dover] and I self-destructed. “In this one, we just kept plugging away even though there wasn’t much hope for us in really rebounding in the middle of the race.” Earnhardt Jr., who sat on the outside of the front row for the Kansas race a year ago, also was 20th-fastest in practice after running only 13 laps. The reason for the lack of laps, he said, was because the team started the session with a qualifying setup and did short qualifying runs. “We just didn’t make quite enough gains on the car [in practice] and then we over-adjusted it big time right there for qualifying. … I’m disappointed,” said Earnhardt Jr., who added that the tire is different for this race than a year ago. “The lap time isn’t real good, and the way the car drove, it felt like it was slower than that. We qualified on the outside pole here last year and the car really drove bad right there – really tight, way, way too tight.” The expectations for Kansas are higher than what Earnhardt Jr. had heading into Dover last week. He has four top-10s in nine starts at Kansas. “I think we’ll have a better opportunity to run better this weekend,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “This track is a track I enjoy running. I haven’t really got a hold of Dover in a long time and didn’t really expect to last week. “So I feel pretty good we might have an opportunity to get a hold of this place and have a car that [can] get around here.” Earnhardt uses fame to support charitable causes When Dale Earnhardt Jr. supports a cause, his fans around the globe often follow suit. So much so, in fact, that when NASCAR's seven-time most popular driver granted his 200th wish through the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the amount of support he attracted shocked ESPN producers. Jeffrey Buzzell, a 15-year-old from Maine who loves to work on cars with his dad, has Outport Syndrome. The genetic kidney disease took the life of his mother's brother when he was Buzzell's age. His kidneys are deteriorating. By next February, they're predicted to be functioning at only 10 percent of their capacity if he does not get a transplant. His wish was to race Go Karts with his hero. And what he got was even better: two days in the life of Dale Earnhardt Jr., one of the top-requested people for Make-A-Wish. The charity, which grants the wish of a seriously ill child every 40 minutes, is nearing its 200,000-wish mark. Earnhardt's father, racing legend Dale Earnhardt, was also active at granting wishes through the organization. ESPN shared a behind-the-scenes look at their meeting through SportCenter's "My Wish" series, which for the last five years has chronicled sports-themed wishes granted to children with life-threatening medical conditions. After the segment aired, Earnhardt's fans responded to ESPN. "Their phones blew up and it was Dale's fans asking "Where can I give a kidney?" and they were not used to that," says Camille Thompson, marketing manager for JR Motorsports. (Buzzell had not yet found a match by press time). "The producers were floored by the response," Kelley Earnhardt, one of NASCAR's most prominent businesswomen, Dale's older sister and the backbone of his business interests. "It's great that Dale can have that influence to have so many people want to do that, but he's pretty enamored by the fact that somebody's major wish in their life would be to meet him and come to a race. "When he gets into a situation like that it makes me very proud because he's very busy, he's got a lot on his shoulders, and he can just remove all that and take time to focus on them and their family. To that kid or that family or that charity, that's the world to them." Buzzell and his family were invited for a personal tour of Earnhardt's property just outside Mooresville, "Dirty Mo Acres," which contains a western-themed town, Whisky River. There, he beat Earnhardt in a 10-lap Go-Kart race. Buzzell also was honored during July's Sprint All-Star Race, where he became an honorary crew member, sat in Earnhardts's car, met other NASCAR greats like Jimmie Johnson and Richard Petty, and was introduced to the crowd before he rode around Charlotte Motor Speedway with Earnhardt and his crew. The experience made an impression on Earnhardt, too: He recently told Lake Norman Magazine the experience was the most memorable of the 200 wishes he has granted. Earnhardt's charitable organization, The Dale Jr. Foundation, supports other local charities including Family Promise of Cabarrus County, Speedway Children's Charities and Ace & TJ's Grin Kids, among many others throughout the lake area. The often-shy driver doesn't ever brag about his deeds, Thompson says. "Even if he writes a check and says, 'Don't tell anybody,' which he does all the time, I have to tell some people," she says. "He says 'I'm going to do this but don't make a big deal out of it.' And I always say, 'Great, but can I make a little bit of big deal about it?' Because that's how we get people to donate to charities we support." People often have the misconception that the foundation relies on Earnhardt's checkbook alone, but support from donors is crucial to keep the foundation's work going, Thompson says. The foundation's focus is on helping those less fortunate, especially kids. "I think Dale relates to that well, being this kid that had these big dreams," says Kelley. "He had a dad who probably could've put him a lot more forward than he did. He worked very hard and had to earn what he did - and Dale's always just liked the underdog." Dale Jr. grew up skinny, pale, and "about a foot shorter than everybody in his class," his older sister says. "He got picked on a good bit." Kelley often watched out for him and stuck up for him after their parents' divorce and while on the road with their racing legend father. "And I always was helping him with his chores," she adds. "He didn't want to do anything. He was lazy. I would just follow behind him and do his chores so he didn't get in trouble, because he would just take the punishment." 'He's really down to earth' Another of Dale's latest charitable efforts grew out of his love for music. He recently donated $1 million to Victory Junction Gang Camp, which was looking build a space to host plays, concerts and fundraisers. On March 27, Dale Jr. broke ground for the Dale Jr. Corral and Amphitheatre. It is scheduled to be completed Oct. 23. Founded by NASCAR driver Kyle Petty and his wife, Pattie, in honor of their late son Adam, the year-round camp serves children, ages 7-15, with chronic medical conditions or serious illnesses. Dale was a friend of the Pettys' son and this year marks the 10th anniversary of Adam's death. "He's just a huge music person," says Kelley. "So we just took our time to think about what we could do that was meaningful to Dale." Earnhardt Jr. is the only third-generation NASCAR champion. His father was a seven-time Cup champion and winner of 76 races who was nicknamed "The Intimidator." His grandfather, Ralph Earnhardt, in 2007 was posthumously inducted into the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame. Both his father and grandfather were selected among NASCAR's 50 greatest drivers of all-time in 1999. Together, the three Earnhardts account for 10 NASCAR championships. His lineage might contribute to his fan base, but one reason behind that fan count is much simpler. "He's really down to earth," says Kelley. "People feel like he's somebody they can relate to, that they could sit down and have dinner with him or hang out at the bar. He is who he is. He doesn't ever pretend to be anybody different. He's just real and down home, so I think that resonates with a lot of people. You can feel it." But in person, the racer keeps many of his feelings beneath the surface. "Dale's not real affectionate," says his sister. "We never spend a lot of time talking about our dad and his passing and things like that. He'll just come out every now and then and he'll just surprise you with a little thoughtfulness." He'll even surprise his big sister. Though she ultimately got a degree in business administration from UNC Charlotte, she also briefly pursued a racing career. He built her a car once for her, from the ground up. "That night, I wrecked. Someone turned me into the wall. It was a pretty good hit. My helmet radio came undone, they couldn't talk to me, so everyone was kind of freaking out. I felt like my neck was cut but it wasn't bad. "Then he came to the ambulance and sat with me and says, 'Don't worry about that car, I just want you to be all right.'" Kelley Earnhardt left racing in 1996. For his sister's 30th birthday, Dale wrote her a letter conveying what he thought their dad would be thinking, a rare gesture she appreciated. "Those things are surprising because he doesn't do those a lot," she says. "We don't get the opportunity to talk that much." Together or apart, their mission is the same: It doesn't matter who you choose to help, as long as you're helping someone. "For me, it's just about giving back to your community," says Kelley, who also helps with animal rescue efforts. "There are a lot of issues out there and there are a lot of people that are needing and hurting and most of those people want to do better for themselves, and they need that kick-start to do that for them. Whether it's through our foundation, or through some other effort, that's part of the humanity of our world: to be helping." Learn more: People interested in becoming a match for Jeffrey Buzzell, who needs a kidney transplant, can contact the Maine Transplant Program at 800-870-5230. To find out how you can become an organ donor in your state, visit Donatelife.net/CommitToDonation. To see Earnhardt's "My Wish" segment, visit www.espn.com and search "My Wish." To support the local chapter of Make-A-Wish that facilitated all of Dale Jr.'s 200 wish-grantings, visit www.ncwish.orgTo donate to The Dale Jr. Foundation, visit www.thedalejrfoundation.org. For all things Dale, visit www.jrnation.com or www.dalejr.com. Want Dale Jr.'s autograph? The Dale Jr. Foundation is auctioning off autographed copies of Lake Norman Magazine to raise money for the foundation's causes. Visit www.thedalejrfoundation.org/auctions.html to place a bid! Dale Earnhardt Jr. hopes strong run at Kansas last year translates into good performance this weekend Only two tracks remain this season that the Sprint Cup Series hasn’t raced at already this year, and Kansas Speedway this weekend is one of them. So that means that drivers and crew chiefs must balance what worked well a year ago with the development of the new car since the last time they raced at the track. But for a driver such as Dale Earnhardt Jr., who started second and led 41 laps last year before having his motor expire with 35 laps remaining, he will have at least part of his 2009 setup in the car when he rolls off the truck Friday to practice on the 1.5-mile oval. “We had a really good run there last year, and I know Lance and the guys are coming back with something similar,” Earnhardt Jr. said in a news release. “Kansas can be challenging to get the car to work at both ends, but it’s a pretty simple race track. I enjoy running there.” Earnhardt Jr. is coming off a Dover race in which he ran well at times but a green-flag pit stop just before the yellow flag came out cost him two laps. He never got them back and finished three laps down in 23rd and remained 18th in the standings. The good news is that nothing translates from Dover to Kansas, one of several intermediate tracks on the circuit. Earnhardt Jr. had decent finishes early in the season at intermediate tracks but has struggled at them recently. “I’m hoping that after our tire test in Homestead [earlier this month], that it gave us a clear-cut direction,” crew chief Lance McGrew said. “We were good at Kansas last year. “It’s a place I enjoy going and have always enjoyed going there. I won there with Ricky [Hendrick] in a truck race so I have a lot of fond memories. We qualified really well there last year, and Dale likes that race track, too.” McGrew says the team will use some of the information it learned from Chicago – built at the same time as Kansas and with a fairly similar configuration – but the transitions at Kansas are more smooth and the track is often a little easier to drive. So that will mean that last year’s setup will definitely play a role at a track where Earnhardt Jr. has four top-10s in nine career starts. “The places that we ran good at last year, we’ve come back with a similar setup and have been pretty close,” McGrew said. “It’s not going to be exactly the same because everything changes – the track surface changes, the tire changes – but I think it’s definitely a good starting spot.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. hopes to build momentum with good run at Dover, but tough oval has given him trouble Dale Earnhardt Jr. says he doesn’t want to downplay Sunday’s fourth-place finish at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, but he likely won’t put too much stock in the all-too-rare top-five either. In part, he says, because next up is Sunday’s AAA 400 at Dover International Speedway, a 1-mile, high-banked oval that has vexed the No. 88 team in recent years. “The team is coming off a good run, and we want to build on that,” Earnhardt Jr. said in a news release from the team. “It's been awhile since we've had a good run at Dover, but it's a tough track. Dover is a rough track and that concrete is bumpy.” The No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports team has managed back-to-back top-10 finishes only once this year. And while one of his 18 career wins in NASCAR’s Cup series came at Dover (in 2001), recent efforts there have been much less successful. Through the past seven races at Dover, Earnhardt Jr. has an average finish of 20th, and that average includes a third-place finish in 2007. Will the Loudon momentum carry over for another week? Or will Dover prove to be yet another stumbling block for a team that’s fought to find its footing for the better part of the 2010 season? Lance McGrew, who took over as crew chief midway through last season, says he’s “cautiously optimistic” about the team’s chances heading into the 28th points race of the year. “Dover is a real tough place, and your car has to be very, very good to be fast there all day long, and the driver has to like it,” McGrew said. “I'm hoping for good things. "It's tough because it's more than just one event that builds momentum. It's nice, and [Loudon] was a good run. It's a place we historically run well at. “I'd prefer to go to a place we historically run well after a good finish, but we haven't run well at Dover, and it's been awhile since Dale has run well there. I'm hoping that some of the things we've learned over the past several weeks carry over and we see a positive weekend out of it.” The chassis of choice for Dover has seen action before. Chassis no. 88-556 was the first built from scratch by McGrew, and debuted at Indianapolis Motor Speedway last season. More recently, Earnhardt Jr. finished 25th with the same chassis at Chicago in July of this year. Dover is one of only two concrete tracks on which Cup teams compete. Unlike asphalt, the concrete racing surface remains relatively unchanged from race to race. A larger concern that surfaced during this year’s spring race there, McGrew said, was the buildup of rubber on the track. “I think … the concrete brings some stability to the setup where it doesn't change as much with track temperature,” he said. “We really struggled with the tire rubber buildup earlier this year. It seemed to be because of the tire compound that Goodyear brought, and it was more of an issue than we realized at the time. You worry about the rubber buildup on the track more than anything else, and it's not anything you can control in the setup. You just have to position your car on the race track to where it least affects you." Dale Earnhardt Jr. overcomes adversity for much-needed fourth-place finish at New Hampshire Before Dale Earnhardt Jr. even climbed out of his car following a fourth-place finish Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, he thanked his team and crew chief Lance McGrew. That was the same crew chief who told Earnhardt Jr. to “calm down” and talk less on the radio during the race, to which Earnhardt Jr. responded: “How are you going to know how to fix it if you don’t know what’s wrong, buddy? I’ve got to be able to talk to you.” But being told to settle down and focus and be a little less feisty on the radio is exactly what Earnhardt Jr. wanted from McGrew, and he thanked his crew chief for that following his first top-five finish in the last nine races. “We really needed it,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I can’t remember the last time we had a car that competitive.” It wasn’t an easy top-five finish. Earnhardt Jr. had the area of his car where the jack goes break on the first pit stop of the race and fell back to 30th. He didn’t pit with the leaders on the next set of stops in order to get track position, but on his next stop, Regan Smith blocked him in as Smith entered his pit while Earnhardt Jr. was attempting to leave his. So the remainder of the day was again trying to get track position. “Track position was what we needed at the end,” Earnhardt Jr. “We didn’t have it. [Before then] we were able to start on the outside [on some restarts] and gain spots on some guys that were a little bit slower than us and get back to where we needed to be.” It was the second consecutive race for Earnhardt Jr. at New Hampshire where he qualified poorly but ran well. In June, he qualified 31st and finished eighth. He started 32nd on the 1.058-mile track Sunday. “It was pretty good in practice, and we improved on it a little bit,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We had an eighth-place finish last time and felt like we were really fast and competitive all day long. “We can’t qualify very good here, but once we get in race trim, we just kind of go to the front or get near the front.” Earnhardt Jr. moved up one spot in the standings from 19th to 18th. “The guys did a good job,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We unloaded really good and worked on the car all weekend. … It was a good way to battle back and get back into the top-10, and we got a top-five there with everybody running out of fuel.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. expects car to race better than its starting spot of 32nd Dale Earnhardt Jr., one of several Sprint Cup Series drivers looking to turn their seasons around in the final 10 races of the 2010 season, knows he’ll have his work cut out for him on Sunday. The Hendrick Motorsports driver was just 32nd fastest in Friday’s qualifying for Sunday’s Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. After struggling to just stay inside the top 20 in the points for much of the second half of the season, it isn’t’ the way he had hoped to begin the final 10 races. “It was bad,” Earnhardt Jr. said after climbing from his car. “The same thing we did here last time we qualified. I just can’t even hardly get the car off pit road [because] the rear tires have so little grip.” In June at NHMS, Earnhardt Jr. finished eighth after qualifying 31st. He’s hoping for a similar turnaround this time at the 1.058-mile track. “The car drives fine in race trim,” he said. “But when we go to qualify, I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with it. [I] can’t even get off pit road with the rear tires like they are. I’m going need more grip in the rear tires to be able to go like they want me to go. I don’t know what we’re doing wrong or what, but it shouldn’t drive that bad.” Earnhardt Jr. said the car handled well in race trim during the day’s lone practice session, and the team felt the car’s qualifying package was better than what was in the car in June. That didn’t, however, prove to be the case. Instead, he’ll go off from outside the top 20 for the seventh time in his last nine starts. “I thought we had improved upon it a little bit, but obviously not,” he said. “When you get in the gas to pull off pit road, you can’t even put the gas down [it’s] spinning the rear tires so bad. “We’ve been bad in qualifying the last four or five months; we were pretty good at the beginning of the season, every week, and then we just forgot what the [crap] we were doing, I guess.” While teammates Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon are among those in the Chase, Earnhardt Jr. said his team would be focused on correcting its own problems rather than helping test parts and pieces or setups for his teammates. “I don’t think I am. I’m running whatever I need to run to try to get going,” he said. “If we happen to show up somewhere and be really, really fast, they might look at it a little bit. … I don’t think we’re a guinea pig or doing a bunch of testing for them.” Steve Letarte, crew chief for Gordon, said Earnhardt Jr. and teammate Mark Martin “have a responsibility to their team and their sponsors to get those cars running the best that they can run.” “Without a doubt, we look at their notes like we do every weekend,” he said. “The Hendrick cars are always, I’m not going to say the same, but usually in the same picture of setups. We don’t need a car to show up just like the 24 or just like the 48.” Crew chiefs Lance McGrew (Earnhardt Jr.) and Alan Gustafson (Martin) can help by simply doing “what they’ve done all year long,” Letarte said. “They’re very, very smart guys, they go out and run a good practice, and we’ll look at their information and we’ll pick up what we can off of it.” Earnhardt Jr. did participate in a Goodyear tire test at Homestead-Miami Speedway earlier this week, along with AJ Allmendinger (Richard Petty Motorsports), Brad Keselowski (Penske Racing) and Joey Logano (Joe Gibbs Racing). “It was pretty decent, we learned a little bit,” he said of the test. “It was only [one] day. We used every last minute, ran a lot of different stuff. “We haven’t had a chance really to test at a track that big all year. It felt good to be able to get out there and try a few things that we’ve been wanting to work on. You just have such limited time during the [race] weekend to get things like that in and try things like you want. You run out of time in practice. I think we learned a little bit.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. expects to snap out of slump at New Hampshire Dale Earnhardt Jr. has gone eight weeks without a top-10 finish and has slumped to 19th in points, missing the Chase For The Sprint Cup. It’s not, however, the end of the world for the Hendrick Motorsports team. Troubled times perhaps, but also time to take stock and continue working to move forward. “We’ve had a couple of tough weeks, but we’ve been working hard and going back to basics,” Earnhardt Jr. said of his finishes of 22nd at Atlanta and 34th at Richmond. Earnhardt Jr., who was 11th in points just eight races ago, stumbled badly down the stretch, with an average finishing position of 23rd in the past two months. As a result, he not only fell out of Chase contention, but has lost eight spots in the standings. One of the bright spots in a season in which there have been few was the team’s performance during the series’ most recent stop at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, site of this week’s first Chase race. Despite qualifying 31st, Earnhardt Jr. managed to race his way into the top 10 by lap 105 and stayed there for the remainder of the race, eventually finishing eighth. It’s one of only six top-10s for the team this year. Even with that finish, however, he admits a poor qualifying effort at New Hampshire can be difficult to overcome. “[It’s] a flat track and can be a one-groove track. It's tough to pass there so qualifying is at a premium,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I like running at New Hampshire, and I traditionally feel like we are a top-10 team there every time we show up.” Crew chief Lance McGrew said changes to the track have helped open up the passing lanes to some extent, but it remains one of the more difficult tracks on which a driver can pick his way through the field. “It seems like when they added the footing to the bottom of the corners, it helped,” McGrew said. “It put another groove there. It used to be one groove, so it’s a place that’s very difficult to pass. “You’ve got to work – it doesn’t matter who it is. It’s a real handling race track, difficult to get the car perfect, but we’ve been fortunate that the car has been good there. “We’ve been focusing on qualifying because I feel like it’s a race we can win if we can start where we need to start. We’ve managed to work our way to the front every time, but it would be nice to qualify up front and stay there.” Earnhardt Jr. has five top-five and nine top-10 finishes at New Hampshire. He was running fourth with just 17 laps remaining in last year’s second race at New Hampshire when contact with David Reutimann sent the No. 88 entry into the wall and relegated him to 35th. “He really likes that track,” McGrew said of his driver, “and every time we’ve been there we’ve run good. … It’s a short track, but it’s very technical. He’s real good at it.” At Richmond, Junior falls further into the abyss With apologies to the excellent racing that took place Saturday night at Richmond International Raceway, the most striking aspect of the Air Guard 400 was not the spellbinding and admirably clean battle between teammates Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch in the closing laps. Nor was it the confidence that propelled Clint Bowyer into the Chase. By far the most intriguing -- and disturbing -- story on Saturday night was Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s abject failure to launch -- and the Richmond fans' reaction to it. Earnhardt qualified ninth Friday and earned a rousing ovation during Saturday's driver introductions, a response that dwarfed all others. Understand that Richmond rivals Talladega as an Earnhardt stronghold, and fans showed up in their Amp Energy and old No. 8 Budweiser regalia hoping against hope that their driver would turn that qualifying effort into something special. After qualifying, Earnhardt told reporters that talk of expanding the Chase to 15 drivers had put him in an awkward position -- given the inevitable perception that NASCAR would be amending its playoff rules to help Earnhardt qualify for the Chase. "We've put ourselves in the position to be the fall guy, the scapegoat for all that, and if they do extend the Chase to more cars, a lot of people will say it's because of me and trying to get me into the Chase," Earnhardt said. "And we put ourselves in that position to be that joke, to be the punch line to that joke, to be honest." Forget punch line. The performance of Earnhardt and his No. 88 team on Saturday, in objective terms, was a complete joke. Earnhardt started ninth. By Lap 20, he was running 18th. By Lap 40, he had dropped to 26th. When a light, misting rain interrupted the race at Lap 225, Earnhardt was three laps down in 34th position, and fans began filing out of the speedway. Not just a few fans. Enough to create a logjam at the exits and enough to snarl traffic once they got to their cars. It wasn't the rain that sent those fans home. It was disappointment. Though he hasn't won a Cup Series race since June 2008, Earnhardt can stir the passions of NASCAR fans like no other driver. That's what NASCAR's market research says about the sport's most popular driver, and everyone knows it. "They really want Dale Jr. to win more races -- they really do," NASCAR chairman and CEO Brian France said recently. "Well, we can't tweak [the rules] that way. Hopefully, he'll get it going. It would be good for us." Earnhardt never got it going at Richmond. He finished 34th, six laps down, three positions and two laps behind oval-track newcomer Mattias Ekstrom, the German Touring Car pro who was making his first stab at a short track in the No. 83 Red Bull Toyota. Earnhardt's run at Richmond was on par with the 40th-place disaster in the May 2009 Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte. That was the race that precipitated the ouster of crew chief Tony Eury Jr. and the succession of Lance McGrew to that position. Yes, Earnhardt can point to improvement this year. His average finish in 2010 is 17.8 versus 23.2 in 2009. But Earnhardt can claim only two top-five finishes in each of those seasons -- two at Daytona and one each at Talladega and Michigan. In 2008, his last full season with Eury on the pit box, Earnhardt won a race at Michigan and posted nine other top-fives, with an average finishing position of 14.1. He qualified for the Chase for the only time in the past four years. So the gains of 2010 still haven't equaled the start at Hendrick Motorsports two years earlier. "You are what your record says you are," Jeff Burton is fond of saying, most recently at Atlant Even with the progress this year, Earnhardt's record says "mediocrity." The question is: What are Earnhardt, McGrew and team owner Rick Hendrick going to do about it? Fair or not, the sport and its fans are waiting for the answer. Kyle Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr. among 10 finalists for NMPA's Most Popular Driver Award Ten drivers are finalists for the NASCAR National Motorsports Press Association Hamburger Helper Most Popular Driver Award. Online voting for the award produced the 10 finalists, and now fans can vote once daily through the end of the year. Online voting is being conducted at www.mostpopulardriver.com. Votes from the “regular season” are not included in the final tally; only voting from Monday through Nov. 22 will count in the final results. The 10 finalists, in alphabetical order, are Kyle Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Carl Edwards, Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson, Kasey Kahne, Matt Kenseth, Bobby Labonte and Tony Stewart. Last season, Earnhardt Jr. earned his seventh consecutive Most Popular Driver Award, which is administered by the NMPA. Only Earnhardt Jr. and Bill Elliott have won the award seven consecutive times since its inception in 1953. The award sponsor also is conducting the “Hamburger Helper Most Passionate Fan Contest.” The winner will receive a trip for two to Las Vegas and the opportunity to help present the NMPA Hamburger Helper Most Popular Driver Award. To enter, fans must submit a 15- to 30-second video by October 20. Submissions and rules are available at the voting website. Despite Chase hopes being over, Dale Earnhardt Jr. optimistic about Richmond Sprint Cup race Though Dale Earnhardt Jr. won’t be battling for a spot in the Chase Saturday night at Richmond, there is reason for optimism heading to the 0.75-mile short track. Earnhardt Jr. has three wins at Richmond, which ties him with Jimmie Johnson and Tony Stewart for most wins there among active full-time drivers. In 22 career starts at Richmond, Earnhardt Jr. has eight top-five finishes, matching his personal best at a track. And his average finish of 13.2 at Richmond is third-best among all tracks for Earnhardt Jr. And he typically runs better at Richmond in September than he does in May. He led 90 laps and finished fourth there in September 2008. Though he has slumped to 19th in points and is out of Chase contention – 219 behind 12th-place Clint Bowyer – Earnhardt Jr. is poised for a good run this weekend. "Richmond fits my driving style,” he said. “I grew up racing at Myrtle Beach [S.C.], and it's got the same characteristics of that track. It's got multiple grooves and multiple ways of racing around there. “The car changes quite a bit over the night, and you've got to be able to move around and find different grooves. We've struggled there the past couple of times but we've been doing a lot of testing to get ready for this weekend." Crew chief Lance McGrew says his Hendrick Motorsports crew tried some new setups recently in preparation for the Richmond race. "We went testing at a track that is comparable to Richmond,” said McGrew, whose team recently tested at Gresham (Ga.) Motorsports Park. “It was more of an effort to try some new things. It's not a race that we prepare any different for other than the fact that you can't go to a place that compares to say, Atlanta and test. You've got to learn some lessons at a smaller track and hope they carry over to some of the larger tracks." A big challenge at Richmond is practicing and qualifying during the day, and then racing under the lights. "It's difficult because you have to look back at the history and changes you've made at the race the last time you went there,” McGrew said. “It does throw a big wrinkle in it because the grip level is so different from day to night that sometimes your car will do something completely different. “Ultimately, you try to build some adjustability into your car for the night time." Despite the challenge, both McGrew and Earnhardt Jr. like racing on a Saturday night. “I've always liked Saturday night racing because it is more the way you grew up racing,” McGrew said. “For those of us that grew up racing, you were racing Friday and Saturday nights. The way the lights reflect off the cars, usually the crowd's a lot more excited because they've done some tailgating and are in a pretty good mood. “I like it. It reminds me of simpler times." Dale Earnhardt Jr. loses spots late, winds up 22nd at Atlanta Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s car was getting better for the first 280 laps of the 325-lap Emory Healthcare 500 on Sunday night at Atlanta Motor Speedway. But when he pitted with 28 laps remaining, he lost track position and Earnhardt Jr. didn’t have a car that he could gain many spots. Earnhardt Jr. started 25th and improved to 11th with 45 laps left in the event but went on to finish 22nd. The Hendrick Motorsports driver dropped one spot in the standings to 19th. Mark Martin, Earnhardt Jr.’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate whose cars are housed in the same building, didn’t fare any better as he finished 21st. “Awesome job, appreciate it,” Earnhardt Jr. told his crew after the race. “It’s all we can do, man. I don’t get it,” crew chief Lance McGrew responded. “I know. We ain’t got our [stuff] together,” Earnhardt Jr. replied. “We’ll get it together. Let’s get this testing, get this [stuff] figured out and see what we can do.” Throughout the race, Earnhardt Jr. was complaining of a loose race car. Early adjustments didn’t help the car but Earnhardt Jr. was able to hold his position. Adjustments from about the midway point to two-thirds of the way through the event did. “There was no tightening that car up for sure,” McGrew told his driver. “It didn’t matter what we did to it. We went either way and it didn’t do anything.” Rick Hendrick says he's happy with chemistry of Dale Earnhardt Jr. team as well as rest of organization Rick Hendrick said he doesn’t anticipate any crew chief changes in his organization for 2011, that he is happy with the chemistry and the teams’ work ethic at a time when it appears that two of his teams won’t make the Chase For The Sprint Cup. Mark Martin is 14th in the standings and 101 points out of 12th while Dale Earnhardt Jr. is 18th in the standings and 170 points out of 12th. There are two races left before the 12-driver Chase field is set. The highest profile team is that of Earnhardt Jr., guided by Lance McGrew since May 2009. “Actually, I’m pretty happy with the chemistry [on the No. 88 team] now,” Hendrick said Saturday at Atlanta Motor Speedway. “I know maybe some of you guys don’t agree. But I’m around them, I’m in the shop during the week, I’m in the Tuesday meetings, I talk to Dale and I talk to Lance and I’ve talked to them both after they’ve been testing. “We had some good momentum going and then we kind of fumbled the ball a little bit here right before the Chase. If you can’t pinpoint where your problem is, then the whole organization needs to be better. We’re working hard but we’re not as sharp as we want to me for all four cars.” Teammates Jeff Gordon is currently second in the point standings and defending series champion Jimmie Johnson is ninth. Hendrick said when a team misses the Chase, there shouldn’t just be change for change’s sake. “If the driver and crew chief are getting along and they’re working together and they’re trying, that’s all I can ask for,” Hendrick said. “It’s pretty darn competitive here in the garage. Guys get on a streak and guys fall back a little bit. “We’re not happy with where we are as an organization but we’re working on it. Nobody’s blaming anybody and nobody is giving up. We’re getting ready for the Chase, and we’re trying a lot of stuff. We’re all over the map this weekend, but we’re trying some things. We know we’ve got to get better. I’m really happy with my whole group with the way they work together.” That includes McGrew and Earnhardt Jr., who at times have shown potential and were in the top 12 in points after eight of the 24 races this year. “We make decisions as things develop during the season and at the end of the season,” Hendrick said. “Right now, we’ve got a game plan and we’re sticking to it. Today, next week, going into the Chase and at the end of the Chase our plan is for those two guys to be together.” It is not Hendrick’s style to make wholesale changes, even in the offseason. He is traditionally hesitant to make changes unless he feels the current lineup can’t get the job done. “If you get the machete out the first time you miss the Chase, that’s not the way to build an organization,” Hendrick said. “My philosophy is when you’ve got some areas to work on, you work hard and you work together. I would rather miss the Chase and have momentum in the last 10 than be in the Chase and grind toward nothing at the end of the year. “Our plan is to build momentum and get better every week. Hopefully by the end of the year, and hopefully we’ll have all four teams going forward and not backing up. For your sponsors, your drivers and your fans, you’re not happy when any of your teams don’t make the Chase.” The last time Hendrick did not have at least three drivers in the Chase was 2005, when only one of his four drivers qualified for the 10-race affair. “You’re going to have times when you get them all in and you don’t win it,” Hendrick said. “This year, we have our work cut out for us to get any more than two in. We’ve had some distractions and we haven’t been as good as we need to be since we went to the spoiler over the wing and we’re still working on it.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. among drivers to test tires at Homestead-Miami Speedway Four drivers will participate in a Goodyear tire test Sept. 13 at Homestead-Miami Speedway in preparation for NASCAR’s final Sprint Cup race of the season. The test, which will be on the Monday after Richmond, includes four drivers not expected to make the Chase For The Sprint Cup. Hendrick Motorsports’ Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Chevrolet), Penske Racing’s Brad Keselowski (Dodge), Richard Petty Motorsports’ AJ Allmendinger (Ford) and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Joey Logano (Toyota) will participate in the test, according to the track. Goodyear tries to use drivers who are not in the Chase for the tests at Chase tracks so drivers in the playoff race do not gain an advantage. Dale Earnhardt Jr. expects to be fast at Atlanta, where he won his last Sprint Cup pole Dale Earnhardt Jr. will return to the track where he won his last pole as the Sprint Cup Series visits Atlanta Motor Speedway for this weekend’s Emory Healthcare 500. Earnhardt Jr. sat on the pole for the March race at Atlanta. He was running sixth during the race when he pitted under green for what he thought was a wheel or tire issue. The crew couldn’t find anything wrong with the tires and Earnhardt Jr. returned to the race 31st in the running order and salvaged a 15th-place finish. He won’t have the same car for Atlanta as crew chief Lance McGrew has a new car ready for the Hendrick Motorsports driver this weekend. “We laid down a fast lap there last time, and I had great engine,” Earnhardt Jr. said in a prerace news release. “We have a good starting point for practice on Saturday.” Sprint Cup teams will practice from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. EDT and 1:45 p.m.-2:30 p.m. Saturday but the race won’t start until 7:30 p.m. Sunday. “Atlanta can get pretty hairy pretty fast,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “It will be fast for the first several laps on tires and then they’ll fall off enough to where you can try different things and try different lines. “We’ll see some incredible lap times on new tires late in the race. It can be hard to get a feel for the track because we practice during the day and race at night.” In this race a year ago, Earnhardt Jr. started 31st and finished 17th. It was the first time that Cup teams had raced a full event under the lights at the track. “It’s valuable having that one year of notes to go back and look at because the track temp during practice is going to be drastically different than what it is going to be during the race,” McGrew said. “The fact that you have those notes and go back and look at the changes we made for different conditions – that’s pretty valuable information.” The other valuable information the team has is the information of what worked well in March. “The balance of the car was really good,” McGrew said. “We’ll start in race trim for first practice and when we switch to qualifying trim we’ll go straight to that setup and we’ll tune on it from there to see how much the track conditions actually have changed. “We feel like we have a lot better package – the car makes more downforce. We have a more fundamental idea of what’s going on with the packages we are running and, hopefully, we can duplicate that effort.” Atlanta historically has been good for Earnhardt Jr. as he has two poles, one win and eight top-five finishes on the 1.54-mile track. He has led 632 laps there. “It’s a place where power really shows up and you’ve got to have good aero balance,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I like Atlanta because you can hunt around for different lines – it’s a driver’s track.” Earnhardt Jr. is 18th in the standings and 170 points out of 12th with two races left before the 12-driver Chase For The Sprint Cup field is determined. “Our goals haven’t changed,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “All season long we have tried to win races and run as well as we are capable of running. Whether you are 10 points or 1,000 points behind, you don’t approach the weekend any differently.” Ray Evernham says Dale Earnhardt Jr. needs to commit to giving better feedback and being less argumentative with crew chief If Dale Earnhardt Jr. is committed to being a championship race-car driver, he will need to react better to situations during the race and communicate better with his crew chief, three-time Cup champion crew chief Ray Evernham said. Evernham, who hired current Earnhardt Jr. crew chief Lance McGrew at Hendrick Motorsports in 1999, said he himself had similar issues with Jeff Gordon earlier in his career. Earnhardt Jr. has 18 career victories but only one in his last 158 races and only one since joining Hendrick Motorsports in 2008. He changed crew chiefs from cousin Tony Eury Jr. to McGrew in May 2009 and while there have been signs of improvement, Earnhardt Jr. is 18th in the 2010 standings, has no wins this year and has virtually no hope of making the Chase For The Sprint Cup for the second consecutive season. “I don’t see improvement until the communication gets better,” Evernham said Tuesday following an appearance to talk about the evolution of a pit stop at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. “I’m not close enough to Junior to know what’s going on. I am close enough to Rick Hendrick to know that Rick is trying everything he can do. He’s putting a lot of effort in getting that turned around. “I know Junior a little bit and I’ve talked to him. I feel like I knew his dad pretty well. In the end, a person has to decide whether they’re committed to something or not. That’s just the bottom line. He’s talented enough to win races. He’s talented enough to win championships. But I listen on the scanner and you just can’t be aggravated all the time.” The former crew chief and team owner, Evernham currently serves as an analyst for ESPN. “I sincerely want to see him do good,” he said. “I really do. There’s a ton of people that are more than happy and willing to help him, but sometimes you’ve got to be a big part of the solution, too. … At some time, you’ve just got to say look, ‘This is what I have to do to get the job done. I have to fit this personality to get the job done.’ “When you’re arguing, you’re not being productive.” Evernham stressed he had great respect for Earnhardt Jr. as a driver. Earnhardt Jr. has three times finished in the top five in points but has finished 16th, 12th and 25th the last three seasons. One of the keys is feedback to get the car better throughout the race, Evernham said. “You want a little bit more consistency [in feedback],” Evernham said. “Guys that are doing good, if you listen to Jimmie Johnson or if you listen to Jeff, 75 percent of the time they’re going to be straight-up, and 25 percent of the time they’re going to be a pain in the ass or be a smart ass. You just have to put up with it because it’s hot, they’re trying hard and the noise drives them crazy. “Somebody gets on your nerves, they get on your nerves. Or they’re frustrated. But they can’t be up-and-down and they can’t make it personal." Earnhardt Jr. arguing on the radio is nothing new. He has done it with crew chiefs for years and says it is nothing personal. But Evernham believes the back-and-forth is not constructive. “I was listening to he and Lance the other night, and there’s just times I just think there is stuff that is said on the radio both ways that don’t need to be said,” Evernham said. “That’s my opinion that sometimes Lance says stuff to him that shouldn’t be said, and Junior says stuff to him that shouldn’t be said. “That’s what happened with Tony. And that kind of thing has got to stop happening. If Lance and Junior’s personality don’t fit, then they need to do something else again.” Both Gordon and Kasey Kahne have had similar problems at times, Evernham said. “The first couple of years [with Gordon], we had our spats on the radio.” Evernham said. “I felt like he was pretty immature, but Jeff always listened. He had enough respect for myself and for Rick Hendrick, that he evolved. “The key thing with anybody is that Jeff knew I cared about him and I wasn’t just [ripping] him. I want to win, you want to win, but you can’t be yelling and screaming like that because when you’re yelling at me, you’re going slow.” During the week, Evernham and Gordon would listen to the in-car radio transmissions from the previous race so Gordon could understand why Evernham had trouble adjusting the car. The meetings were done privately, and Evernham was able to make Gordon understand the importance of solid feedback. “I would go, ‘All right, what would you want me to do?’ And he’d go, ‘Man, I’m sorry,’” Evernham said. “I would say, ‘How can I fix it? You’re screaming at me one time it’s pushing, another it’s loose and the next time you’re just calling me an idiot. What am I going to do?’ “And then he started to realize that he had to control his emotions before he could get us bonded. I had several conversations with Kasey Kahne about that and still do. Kasey Kahne has the talent to become a champion and I’ve told Kasey, ‘You’ve got to control your emotions before you can become a champion’ and I think he is doing that.” Evernham said reviewing his radio communications might help Earnhardt Jr. “Maybe Junior doesn’t even know when he’s mad,” Evernham said. “Jeff didn’t. With Jeff, a big part of it was when we started with the fresh air in the car. Jeff used to get carbon monoxide really bad and three-quarters near the end of the race like at Martinsville when we were rookies, he’d be yelling at me and I’d be like, ‘What is the problem with this guy?’ “After the race, he’d be like, ‘Oh man, I have a terrible headache. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you.’ It just wasn’t him.” Now Evernham is not lobbying to be Earnhardt Jr.’s crew chief. He’s just talking about a driver he has seen enjoy the highs and lows of the sport while bearing the one of the most famous names in the sport. “I wish I could wave a magic wand and help him because I have so much respect for his father and have so much respect for him,” Evernham said. “I really like Junior. I hate to see somebody that I know is capable of really running good, not running good. That bothers me. Ask any other driver, and drivers know, if you ask another driver if Junior can drive a race car and they will tell you absolutely that that guy can drive. “We know he can drive. So for him not to be winning, it is a shame.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. runs well at Bristol but fades to another disappointing finish Dale Earnhardt Jr. appeared to be headed for a strong run at Bristol Motor Speedway Saturday night, but, like they have for much of this season, adjustments to his car during the Irwin Tools Night Race didn’t always work, saddling him with another disappointing finish. Earnhardt Jr. ran well most of the night while at other times, he and his Hendrick Motorsports crew lost the handle on the car. Starting 27th, Earnhardt Jr. worked his way through the field and climbed as high as seventh with 50 laps to go in the race. But then the handling went away and he faded to finish 13th. Even though it was his best finish in his last six races, Earnhardt Jr. wasn’t too pleased afterward. “That last run was awful,” he told his team over the radio. Crew chief Lance McGrew told Earnhardt Jr. that the changes designed to tighten up the car worked early in a run, but then the car would get worse the longer they ran. “I wished we could have gotten it tightened up,” McGrew told Earnhardt Jr. after the race. “We tightened it up every time you came down pit road. Big changes, too. Every time we got it tighter at the beginning, we’d just get looser at the end.” Earnhardt Jr., who left the track before reporters could get to him following the race, dropped a spot in the standings to 18th. He is 170 points out of 12th with two races left before the Chase For The Sprint Cup field is set. Dale Earnhardt Jr. gains knowledge for Cup race with fourth-place Nationwide run Dale Earnhardt Jr. fans are probably worried that their driver is starting 27th in the Sprint Cup race Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway. But they at least know Earnhardt Jr. is coming off a solid performance in the Nationwide Series event Friday night as he placed fourth in the Food City 250. Not only did Earnhardt Jr. finish fourth, he was a lap down before getting the free pass on a caution on lap 83 of the 250-lap event. After getting back on the lead lap, Earnhardt Jr. drove through the field to as high as second. “I am not going to make any predictions, but I think the [Cup] car drove a lot similar to the one I’ve got tonight,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We know a lot more about what the race track is going to do, and I feel pretty good. … I was able to work on the bottom all night and make up a lot of time. “Hopefully the car will work good there [Saturday] night.” Driving for the team he co-owns in the Nationwide Series, Earnhardt Jr. won in his most recent Nationwide appearance at Daytona. His fourth-place finish Friday wasn’t a win, but it will help him Saturday with knowledge about the tires, he said. “I learned a lot of things – probably more than I thought I would,” Earnhardt Jr. said. Earnhardt Jr. has struggled in Cup in the past month and sits 17th in the standings, 129 points out of 12th with three races left before the 12-driver Chase For The Sprint Cup field is set. One of his biggest issues has been the team’s inability to improve the car during the race. But in the Nationwide event Friday, crew chief Tony Eury Sr. used his feedback and made the car better. At one point late in the race, Earnhardt Jr. restarted second but couldn’t hold off Elliott Sadler and fell back to fourth by the finish. “We started off really loose, Tony Sr. made a lot of great adjustments,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We ended up running real good at the end. We struggled a little bit on them last restarts on the inside. You wanted to be up high. It seemed like if you restarted fourth, you were in second by the time you came off Turn 2. … It’s real hard to pass when you get in the top five.” Earnhardt Jr. also left Bristol optimistic about the future of his No. 88 Nationwide team. Aric Almirola, who placed third in the No. 88 car last month at O’Reilly Raceway Park, will drive the car next season and could see some time in it again later this year. “We just signed Almirola and he saw what that thing did tonight and he knows what it did at ORP and I look forward to all that happening and getting him in the car a little bit before the end of the year,” Earnhardt Jr. said. Commercial shoots like pair of old shoes to Junior Ever wonder whose kitchen that is where Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his sister are standing in those Nationwide Insurance commercials? Well, it isn't his. It's a loaner from a high-end neighborhood on Lake Norman in North Carolina where Joe Gibbs lives. What about the phone? Nope, that's not his either. It's Nationwide's trademark prop. However, the cast of characters is real. Yes, that is his sister, Kelley Earnhardt, and his uncle, Tony Eury Sr. The spots tout the Earnhardt family image and 30-year dedication to the insurance provider. And yes, that is even the same insurance agent, Steve Cook of Kannapolis, N.C., Earnhardt met when he was a young boy. Earnhardt and Cook shot their commercial and a couple of others in December building off last year's Nationwide advertising campaign. "I couldn't believe it but Steve was nervous," Earnhardt laughed. "Being an agent and having the ability to talk to people, that surprised me. He was funny, unintentionally that is. But yes, he's legitimately been my agent for all these years. I remember having to go to him about speeding tickets and all kinds of stuff. He was a good family friend." Earnhardt enjoyed shooting the commercials because it offered the opportunity to spend a good amount of time with friends and family away from his hectic NASCAR lifestyle. "It was good to be around him that long because we don't get to talk that much and I've know him for all these years and then being able to shoot a commercial with him was cool. We were both just standing there thinking who would ever thought we'd be doing this," Earnhardt added. Eury didn't think he'd ever be in any commercial campaign. The crew chief for Earnhardt's No. 88 Nationwide Series team is most comfortable under the hood of a car, not in front of a camera. Thankfully for him, his commercial shoot was at the JR Motorsports shop so he wasn't totally outside his element. Still, commercial stardom is not in Pop's future, joked Earnhardt . "Working with Pops, um he was really nervous ... he would just assume not be in the middle of it," Earnhardt said. "Oh yeah," Eury said with a laugh. "We made like probably 10 or 12 different shots or scenes and every scene we did it took like three each with different camera directions. "They tell you what expressions to make and when to nod your head where. They tell you all that, but actually it was pretty neat to see how they do it." There was a time Earnhardt, now a seasoned commercial actor, was admittedly just as tense. "It's not comfortable doing a commercial when there's 15 or 20 people on the other side of the camera watching you and it's tough when you're young and an introvert anyway," Earnhardt said. "I think you get more comfortable with experience but the first several commercials you're nervous and stiff. I took me a long time to get comfortable with it but now I can go in there and I know what I want to accomplish. I know how long things take and I can help move it along." So, are there any Oscar-nominated films in your future, Dale Robertson ... err Earnhardt? "Those are still nerve-wracking because I get star struck," he smiled. Hard to imagine the sport's most popular driver and one of the world's most recognizable athletes still gets star struck. But Earnhardt didn't reach his commercial star status overnight. Like other commercial actors, he's gone through the ropes and on-the-set-training. "Absolutely, the directors all have a lot of experience working with a lot of different people and they'll give you tone and sort of [tell you] what to say, obviously, before you do the commercial," he explained. "You have to see it in your head kind of all happening together. Sometimes, you get to commercial shoots and read the script and you don't understand how it is working and don't know what the tone is. Whether you're being demanding or coy or whatever, you don't know what emotion to have. So they go through that during the process as your shooting it. And then it is easy, they tell you what to do and you just do it. That's all there is to it." It's lights, camera, action ... but what about wardrobe? "They have choices and you choose what you're most comfortable in," Earnhardt said. "They never force you to wear something you don't want to wear. I've been in situations where they put some options out that I won't wear." Defined but his iconic white T-shirt and jeans accessorized with a pair of sneaks, the star keeps it simple. "I love shoes," said Earnhardt, who says he custom-designs up to eight pairs in one order. "But then you get them back and you realized you screwed up this part or man, that was a poor choice of color, so five out of the eight are cool. Then you give the other three pair to your buddy and say, 'Hey, I got you a gift." Earnhardt Jr. lags, Hendrick shut out of top 10 at Michigan Dale Earnhardt Jr. didn't have much to say after Sunday's Carfax 400 at Michigan International Speedway. It didn't seem his Hendrick Motorsports teammates might, either. For the second time in four Sprint Cup races, NASCAR's powerhouse team didn't finish in the top 10, and Michigan marked the fourth consecutive race without a top five for a Hendrick Chevrolet. After a 19th that dealt a likely fatal blow to his hopes of making the Chase for the Sprint Cup, Earnhardt hastily departed the garage after a few curt answers to the media. For the Hendrick trio still in position to make the Chase, though, the tone was upbeat. Since consecutive victories at Sonoma, Calif., and New Hampshire in late June, four-time defending series champion Jimmie Johnson has finished outside the top 10 in five of six races (with a best of 10th at Pocono) but found optimism in a 12th at Michigan. "It's definitely not the finish we wanted, but it was a big victory in a lot of other areas," said Johnson, who paced 14 laps (the third time in the past five races he has led at least 10). "At a few races this year we've had some struggles and you can all get frustrated and start making mistakes, but we kept our head in the game." Though Jeff Gordon didn't lead Sunday, his No. 24 Chevrolet might have been the fastest for Hendrick, rising from 36th to third before a cut tire landed him in 27th. He remained second in points and said "heads up, I think we can beat anybody in 10 races, especially the 10 tracks in the Chase. "Your momentum can shift at any time," said Gordon, whose 51-race winless streak is the longest of his career. "If you show that your cars are fast and you've got a good team, you can get one or two wins and all of a sudden the momentum and confidence and everything is there." With no top fives since May 30 at Charlotte, Mark Martin is hoping for such a turnaround. A 28th at Michigan dropped him out of the last Chase spot, 35 points behind 12th-ranked Clint Bowyer, but he wasn't giving up after scraping the wall while racing aggressively early. "We're going to go down swinging, and that's what we did today," he said. Time for another shake-up to Earnhardt's team With a nondescript 19th-place finish at Michigan International Speedway, Dale Earnhardt Jr. all but ensured he’ll miss the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship for the third time in four years. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Not with all the resources Hendrick Motorsports poured into rebuilding Earnhardt’s team in an effort to turn NASCAR’s most popular driver if not into a champion, then at least a winner again. Yet Earnhardt and his No. 88 team have fallen short again, and with three races left to set the Chase field, he’s 129 points out of the 12th and final qualifying spot. He was short with reporters following Sunday’s race, in which he struggled most of the afternoon and was in no mood to discuss his Chase chances after his fifth consecutive finish outside the top 15. “I just want to go home,” he said. “It wasn’t good. We were junk all day. We weren’t good. We worked hard.” Nobody questions whether or not Earnhardt works hard. In fact, those around him insist the driver has never put forth a greater effort to turn around his fortunes and fulfill the expectations that come with being the son of one of NASCAR’s greatest racers. All the pieces were supposed to finally be in place when he teamed with Rick Hendrick in 2008, positioning himself with NASCAR’s top team because, in his own words at his 2007 hiring announcement, “I think that I’ll have a good opportunity to succeed and win a lot of races. Personally, I think I will cherish a championship on my mantle when it’s all said and done.” Only the reality is that Earnhardt has just one victory in 95 races with HMS. He made the Chase just once, in 2008, when he spent most of the season ranked third in points but finished 12th in the final standings. Last season was the worst of his Cup career, and Hendrick had to fire Earnhardt’s longtime crew chief, Tony Eury Jr., in an effort to salvage the season. It didn’t really work as Earnhardt notched only five top-10 finishes and a career-worst 25th-place finish in the standings at the same time teammates Jimmie Johnson, Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon led a 1-2-3 sweep of the points. So Hendrick made an organizational commitment to Earnhardt. He spent the offseason tightly pairing Earnhardt’s team with Martin’s team and gave new Earnhardt crew chief Lance McGrew key personnel members from Martin’s team. The focus on the No. 88 team has clearly hurt Martin’s bunch: A five-race winner and championship contender last season, he’s yet to make it to Victory Lane this year and finds himself trailing Clint Bowyer by 35 points for the final Chase berth. Clearly, Hendrick’s efforts haven’t worked, for Earnhardt or Martin, as Martin’s team has taken a step back and any improvement shown by Earnhardt is certainly not at the expected levels. So now it’s time to try something else. Hendrick last week solved one of his pressing matters by stashing Kasey Kahne at Red Bull Racing for next season as he waits to replace Martin in the No. 5 car in 2012. Kahne has a crew chief he really likes in Kenny Francis, and Francis has seemed to be the odd man out in the entire Kahne saga. It appears he can’t move over to Red Bull next season with Kahne because manufacturer Toyota seems opposed to allowing a crew chief a one-year internship with its parts and pieces—the chance to gain insight Francis could later take elsewhere, namely Hendrick Motorsports. So Hendrick technically has an opportunity to grab Francis now. It obviously wouldn’t be with Johnson or Gordon, who both have longtime relationships with crew chiefs who this season signed lengthy contract extensions to stay right where they are. Instead, Hendrick should put Francis on the No. 5 car immediately, and let him work next season with Martin in preparation for Kahne’s 2012 arrival. That of course pushes out Alan Gustafson, one of the most loyal employees Hendrick has ever had. But Gustafson wouldn’t have to go far. It just might be that Gustafson could be the answer to all of Earnhardt’s woes. Hendrick earlier this year described Gustafson as the ultimate company man, the employee he never had to worry about turning down a task that the boss believed would benefit the company. “If there’s ever a soldier that you have to take into battle with you, it’s Alan Gustafson,” Hendrick told The Associated Press. Well, there’s no bigger battle right now than fixing Earnhardt’s team. HMS officials said there’s been zero discussion of moving Gustafson to Earnhardt’s crew, but that’s doesn’t mean the talks shouldn’t happen. Earnhardt is heading into the fourth year of a five-year contract with HMS, and for whatever reason, Hendrick has been unable to give him the chemistry and confidence he had during a 15-win stretch from 2000 to 2004. Earnhardt has remained supportive of McGrew, who graciously stepped into the hardest crew chief job in the garage and has helped the driver show flashes while operating under an intense spotlight. But for whatever reason, it’s simply not clicking consistently, and it may be time for someone else to get the chance. This might be the one time, though, that Gustafson balks at a potential Hendrick reassignment. He’s built the No. 5 car to its current level, weathering a tumultuous period with Kyle Busch, a noncompetitive stretch with Casey Mears, and, finally, the pairing with Martin and a shot at last year’s championship. Gustafson has earned the right to decline another rebuilding project, but is more prone to do anything the boss asks of him. At this stage, it might be a request Hendrick can’t afford not to make. Dale Earnhardt Jr. finishes 19th, Chase chances go from slim to worse Dale Earnhardt Jr. saw his slim Chase For The Sprint Cup hopes become a virtual impossibility as his 19th-place finish in the Carfax 400 dropped him to 17th in the standings. With just three races left before the 12-driver Chase For The Sprint Cup field is set, Earnhardt Jr. is 129 points out of 12th. Gaining 43 points a race would mean that he would have to do better than Clint Bowyer (currently the 12th-place driver) by likely at least a dozen spots in each race. He also would have to leap over Mark Martin, Ryan Newman, Jamie McMurray and Kasey Kahne in the standings. What does Earnhardt Jr. think of his Chase chances? “I don’t give a [expletive],” Earnhardt Jr. said as he walked from his car straight to the driver motorhome lot after the race. “I just want to go home. I busted my ass all day long.” Earnhardt Jr. actually had a better finish than where he ran for most of the day at Michigan International Speedway. The Hendrick Motorsports driver had been mired between 22nd and 30th for much of the event. “It wasn’t good,” said Earnhardt Jr., who likely will miss the Chase for the third time in the last four years. “We were junk all day. We weren’t good. We worked hard.” Struggling all weekend, Earnhardt Jr. started the race from the 38th spot, so it wasn’t all that surprising that he didn’t have a great day. But his on-track issues were a little surprising to the crew. “It was really good for 10 or 15 laps, but then the car would start going loose,” crew chief Lance McGrew said. “Yesterday, it just kept building tight. I’m not sure why it did that. “We changed everything and got it sort of drivable. But then it was just too tight. It was still a little loose in and then it was too tight off for him to make up positions.” McGrew said while he will keep his eye on the points, it’s pretty simple what the team needs as far as results. “You always have got to look at it until you’re mathematically eliminated,” McGrew said. “We’ve just got to have better finishes.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. pinning hopes on familiar car at Michigan While the chances for Dale Earnhardt Jr. to make NASCAR's Chase For The Sprint Cup look bleak, if he was going to try to start a comeback anywhere, Michigan International Speedway would be a good place to start. Earnhardt Jr. has his only Hendrick Motorsports points-race victory at the track – a win that came 79 races ago in June 2008 – and he started a stretch of four consecutive top-11 finishes with a seventh-place run at Michigan two months ago. With four races left for the 12-driver Chase field to be determined, Earnhardt Jr. enters this weekend’s Carfax 400 16th in the standings, 121 points behind 12th-place Mark Martin. Crew chief Lance McGrew has opted to bring the same car Earnhardt Jr. drove at Michigan in June back to the 2-mile oval this weekend. It also is the car that Earnhardt Jr. drove to an eighth-place finish at Texas earlier this year. “Lance and the guys unloaded a great car last time at Michigan,” Earnhardt Jr. said in a prerace news release. “We’ve had some good runs with this car. “I enjoy going to Michigan because it’s so wide. It has a lot of different grooves, and we can move around and find places to run on the track. We like coming here because it’s in the backyard of the manufacturers.” That the race is in the Motor City makes it a big one to win, McGrew said. “Not that it wouldn’t mean the same to win anywhere else, but it would be especially sweet to win there,” McGrew said. “It was the last place Dale has won a race and we’d like to back that up.” While it’s the same car, McGrew says it has undergone changes and hopes Earnhardt Jr. likes it more this time around. “We have made some substantial changes to it since the first Michigan race,” McGrew said. “Even though we felt like we were really good there last time, as a company we are going in a direction that we feel like is going to make us even better this time.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. set to make milestone start at Watkins Glen Dale Earnhardt Jr. will make his 500th career start in a NASCAR national series points event this weekend when the Sprint Cup Series competes at Watkins Glen International. In addition to 384 career Cup starts, Earnhardt Jr. has 115 career starts in NASCAR’s Nationwide Series. “I didn’t realize that I was approaching 500,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I take a lot of pride in what I’ve accomplished in these past 15 years or so. I’m proud of the two Nationwide championships, the wins in both series and having worked with a lot of talented people. “I like that I’m able to do what I do for a living. I’m passionate about racing and it keeps me from having to get a real job.” Earnhardt Jr. has 18 career Cup wins and 23 in the Nationwide Series. The Hendrick Motorsports driver is 14th in Cup points, 129 behind 12th-place Clint Bowyer. Only five races remain before the field is set for the Chase For The Sprint Cup. The 2.45-mile track hasn’t been kind to Earnhardt Jr. in recent years, as he’s finished 18th or worse in his last four starts there. Prior to those, however, the 35-year-old had managed three consecutive top-10 finishes. He has two top-five finishes and three top-10s in 10 career Cup starts at The Glen. Earlier this year, he finished 11th at Infineon Raceway, site of the series’ only other road course race. But crew chief Lance McGrew cautions that the two tracks are “way different.” “The way [Infineon] is laid out, it’s very precise and you have to drive it a certain way,” he said. “It’s not a real fast track. I think he tends to like a faster-type place; it may just be that he likes one better for one particular reason, but he has had way more success at The Glen.” Unlike the series’ more plentiful ovals, road-course races don’t allow for a huge exchange of information between driver and crew chief during the course of a race. With both left- and right-hand turns, it’s often less about finding the perfect setup and more about finding one that works on key portions of the track. “Your driver doesn’t walk you around every corner … like you would on an oval,” McGrew said. “It’s more fuel mileage and your driver reporting, for instance, ‘I’m brake-hopping here’ or ‘I need forward bite into here.’ “You do what you can do. You are kind of limited because what you do to help a left-handed corner is going to hurt a right-handed corner. You are kind of limited once the race starts and what kind of adjustments you can make that will make a big difference on how the car drives. “It normally comes down to speed and strategy.” Dale Earnhardt Jr.: 'We're not a good team' as struggles continue with poor finish at Pocono Dale Earnhardt Jr. doesn’t have a great record at Pocono Raceway, so he was already facing long odds. And on a day when he needed a good run at Pocono, he didn’t get it. Earnhardt Jr. spent much of the race running between 15th and 20th before a two-tire pit stop on lap 146 put him in second place. But he faded quickly on the restart and then spun on lap 158. His engine sputtered over the final 20 laps and finally gave out as he finished 27th, the first car a lap down. The Hendrick Motorsports driver remained 14th in the standings but dropped from 93 to 129 points behind 12th-place Clint Bowyer with five races remaining before the Chase For The Sprint Cup field is set. “It hurt it,” Earnhardt Jr. said afterward about his Chase chances. “We didn’t have a great car. The motor broke at the end. The car was junk all day. … I spun out. The car wasn’t good.” Earnhardt Jr. said he had hoped the gamble on two tires would work, but it couldn’t make up for the struggles the team had all weekend. He started the race in 20th and moved up a few spots but could not gain much ground on the leaders. At one point, he was lapped by Jimmie Johnson but was able to get the free pass under caution. “We’re not very good – we’re not a good team,” a disappointed Earnhardt Jr. said. Dale Earnhardt Jr. looking to climb back into Chase contention with strong run at Pocono Dale Earnhardt Jr. has posted three top-10 finishes since NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series last visited Pocono Raceway in June. The combination of two of those (an eighth at Loudon and fourth at Daytona) resulted in a move into the top 12 in the point standings for the Hendrick Motorsports driver. The good news for Earnhardt Jr. fans ends there, however. Finishes of 23rd at Chicago and 27th at Indianapolis in recent weeks all but wiped out the team’s brief stay inside the Chase cutoff, and he heads back to Pocono this weekend trailing 12th-place Clint Bowyer by 93 points. Qualifying for Sunday’s Sunoco Red Cross Pennsylvania 500 is set for Friday, with the race slated for 1 p.m. Sunday. Earnhardt Jr. qualified third at Pocono in June, his best starting effort at the 2.5-mile track since winning the pole three years earlier. But he came home 19th for his fifth consecutive finish of 18th or worse. Much of what the team learned from this year’s first stop will be useful this time around, crew chief Lance McGrew said. But only part of it might actually be beneficial. Even though the series was at Pocono just eight weeks ago, track conditions are likely to be much different. “Usually the track loses a fair bit of grip, so if you were a little bit loose before then you are going to be a lot loose now,” McGrew said. “We did fight that a little bit during the course of the June race so we are making some adjustments for that. “It’s just track surface temperature more than anything. Our setup for qualifying was really good. If we had a better qualifying draw, then I think we would have been on the pole. Our qualifying setup is going to be very similar and our race setup is going to be very similar.” As is always the case for teams trying to get a handle on the unique track, getting the car to turn in the three distinct corners will likely dictate one’s fortunes. “I think the difference between a good finish and a bad finish at Pocono is getting the car to turn through the center [of the corners] and really being able to get down into Turn 1,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “The car wants to go straight into that corner so bad. … The corners are so different it’s so easy to try to improve one thing and just screw up something that wasn’t even a problem. “So when we’ve run good, we’ve had awesome race cars.” Earnhardt Jr. has led 98 laps in 21 career starts at Pocono. He has two runnerup finishes (2001, ’07). "SHAQ VS" PREMIERES AUGUST 3 ON ABC In the premiere episode, "Shaq VS Dale Earnhardt Jr.," four-time NBA champion Shaquille O'Neal will race head to head at Concord Speedway in North Carolina against Dale Earnhardt Jr., NASCAR's most popular driver and recent winner of the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Daytona International Speedway and more than 40 NASCAR-sanctioned races. Shaq has swapped his size-23 basketball shoes for racing Velcro; traded his breezy, cool basketball jersey for a heavy, fire-retardant driver's suit; forgone the familiarity of basketball hardwood for the cramped quarters of a stock-car cockpit - all 7-foot-1-inch, 325 pounds of him. In this episode he also travels to the nation's capital to take on the Scripps National Spelling Bee champion, 15-year old Kavya Shivashankar, and enlists the help of this year's finalists, along with Kavya's 8-year old sister, Vanya. Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s JR Motorsports won't have Cup team in 2011, still seeks full-time Nationwide Series driver JR Motorsports is still evaluating drivers for its No. 88 car, and young drivers Steve Arpin, Coleman Pressley and Josh Wise are still in the mix for a full-time ride in 2011. What JRM is not considering is a move to the Sprint Cup Series. “No Cup plans,” team co-owner Kelley Earnhardt said on Wednesday. “No Kasey Kahne. No Mark Martin. Nothing for JR Motorsports. At this point, we would need to get started on that, and it’s definitely not in our future for 2011.” Instead, Earnhardt and her brother, Dale Earnhardt Jr., need to find sponsorship and drivers for their Nationwide Series cars for next year. She knows Danica Patrick will drive in 13 races in a GoDaddy.com-sponsored car and that Grand Touring Vodka will sponsor 15 races with a driver to be determined. But that doesn’t even fill one full season for an organization that plans to have two Nationwide cars again next year. This year, those two cars have had 13 drivers, and Aric Almirola will become the 14th when he drives the No. 88 car next week at O’Reilly Raceway Park. “I’d like to find somebody like Aric that has been to the tracks,” Kelley Earnhardt said about her future driver. “He gets there and it’s not brand new. He’s driven the cars and knows what the feel is.” But that likely won’t be Almirola. JRM competition director Tony Eury Sr. said he doesn’t expect Almirola to be available next season. “I think somebody is going to grab him up,” Eury Sr. said. “There will be Cup teams looking for drivers, and I think Aric will be one that gets picked up.” Kelly Bires, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Patrick, Jamie McMurray, Elliott Sadler, Greg Sacks, Scott Wimmer, Ron Fellows, Landon Cassill and J.R. Fitzpatrick have all driven for the organization this year. Eury Sr. said that Arpin, Wise and Pressley are all being considered for full-time rides next year. Wise will drive the No. 7 this weekend at Gateway International Raceway and Arpin will drive the No. 88. Arpin has five starts for JRM and has been in accidents in three of them. His best finish was 10th at Daytona. Wise, who was a Michael Waltrip Racing development driver, has two starts for JR Motorsports, finishing 16th at Nashville and 15th at Kentucky. Pressley had two starts with finishes of 12th and 18th. “We see Josh as a guy that runs up front, he keeps his car clean [and] if you give him a good car, there’s a chance to win the race there,” said Eury Sr., who also is the crew chief for the No. 88 car. “If not, the car comes home in one piece and he gets you the best finish he can. “Arpin is the harder charger guy of the two. He doesn’t have the experience Josh has. That will come. It just takes those dirt racers a little while when they come to the asphalt deal. We see a lot in both of them. We’ve looked at those two and looked at Coleman Pressley. I think it’s down to those three. We’ll get a few more races under our belts here and then we’ll make a decision on what we’re going to do [for 2011].” Kelley Earnhardt said the organization needs to know a little more about NASCAR’s plans to change the Nationwide Series rules to help promote younger drivers. She needs to know, she said, if there will be limits on Cup drivers and what programs are in place to help young drivers so the team can convince a sponsor to support an up-and-coming driver. “It would be nice to know specifically what we’re working with and what we can sell and do,” Kelley Earnhardt said. “In the environment that we’re in from the economic standpoint, it takes a personality to sell a sponsor. “Performance and being up front and somebody they can market and somebody the consumer is going to recognize and want to be a part of whatever they’re doing is so important.” Sponsors are hesitant to go with a young driver, she said. “I don’t think teams will be able to just take a kid right off the street and sell him on sponsorship at this level,” Earnhardt said. “You can’t sell $6-7 million on Brad Coleman and these guys. They’ve got talent, no doubt about it, but until they can get on the race track and get some dollars behind them, it just all works in a big circle.” Jr.'s winning No. 3 car displayed at new Hall The famed No. 3 car Dale Earnhardt Jr. drove to victory in this month's Nationwide race at Daytona has been added as a temporary display at the new NASCAR Hall of Fame. The Wrangle-sponsored yellow and blue car, which pays tribute to the late Dale Earnhardt Sr., will stay at the downtown Charlotte facility through Sept. 19. Earnhardt entered the No. 3 car on July 2 in honour of his father's induction into the Hall of Fame's first class. He then ended an 85-race winless drought in an emotional night at the track where his father died in 2001. Kelley Earnhardt, Dale Jr.'s sister and the co-owner of JR Motorsports, says they'll eventually reuse the car's chassis. After its stint at the Hall of Fame, the body of the car will be cut off and hung at JRM. Dale Earnhardt Jr. looking for performance to match luck Dale Earnhardt Jr. doesn’t necessarily want to change his recent luck on the race track, but he would like to see a bit of a change in his team’s performance. With finishes of seventh, 11th, eighth and fourth in the last four races, Earnhardt Jr. has vaulted from 16th to 11th in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series point standings. But the team still wants more speed. “We’ve had a competitive car the past couple of races,” the Hendrick Motorsports driver said in a news release. “We are getting lucky more than I’d like, but I’m proud of the guys and their hard work.” With the Sprint Cup Series headed to Chicagoland Speedway for this weekend’s event, Earnhardt Jr. returns to the track where he won in 2005, and where he has three top-10 finishes in nine career starts. “I like racing at Chicago,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We had a pretty good run there last year [finishing 15th] and probably should have finished a little higher than we did.” Earnhardt Jr. has a 46-point cushion on Hendrick teammate Mark Martin, who is 13th in the standings, just outside the Chase For The Sprint Cup cutoff with eight races left before the 12-driver field is determined. “It’s all about that effort and everyone doing everything they can,” said Earnhardt Jr. crew chief Lance McGrew. “At the end of the day you put the best product you can on the race track and hope you get the finish. “We’ve managed to do that, and we’ve had some good luck along the way. We’ve also had good race cars the past five or six events. Dale has been really positive and upbeat. We have a positive thing going right now so we are going to keep on with it.” Earnhardt Jr. finished 25th in the standings last year and was 21st in the standings at this point. He has earned 367 more points through the first 18 races of this season. “There’s been a lot of races where I don’t think we had the speed we needed to have,” McGrew said. “Recently, I feel like we have been considerably better. … There’s always room for improvement, and that goes across the board. “I was pretty excited when I looked and saw that we were [considerably] ahead of where we were last year, which is impressive. As far as points go, I’m pretty excited and looking forward to the next eight races and hopefully keep this momentum going.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. victory at Daytona earns third-best Nationwide television rating of season The NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Daytona International Speedway pulled in a 1.9 rating Friday night and averaged more than 2.5 million viewers, making it the most-viewed Nationwide race ever on ESPN, according to an ESPN news release. The rating was a 27 percent increase over the 1.5 last year. The rating was the third best of the season, with the other two (Daytona at 3.2 and Las Vegas at 2.1) on ESPN2. The race Friday was highlighted by Dale Earnhardt Jr. winning in a No. 3 car with a paint scheme similar to the Wrangler scheme his father drove to two Cup titles. Junior's win in the No. 3 to be remembered forever If you're looking for a defining moment to an event, it doesn't get much better than Tony Eury Jr., in the immediate aftermath of his cousin Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s artfully-crafted and exquisitely-unexpected victory Friday night at Daytona. This was Daytona, -- of all places -- for the Earnhardt family. And in a one-time, one-race tribute to his late father Dale Earnhardt's No. 3 Wrangler Chevrolet, "Little E" delivered. "We lost everything here," Eury Jr. told the television audience, his emotions welling. "To come back with that number and do this, it means everything." And with that, he turned from the camera, possibly lost in thoughts of the dark February day in 2001 when Earnhardt was killed in a crash in Turn 4 on the last lap of the Daytona 500. Neither Eury Jr., nor anyone else for that matter, could accurately portray what NASCAR's 2010 landscape might resemble if Earnhardt had lived. But leave it to Earnhardt Jr. -- some 40 minutes later -- to put a passionate exclamation point to all the emotion. His alternately playful, invective-spiced discourse that was simultaneously deeply thoughtful as only Earnhardt Jr. can achieve, was something rarely, if ever seen at this level of NASCAR. Even carrying no less than 26 conversationally-eloquent curse words of varying levels, it was a thing of beauty -- as much as the retro No. 3 Wrangler-branded ride Earnhardt Jr. qualified, ironically, in the third spot. And so was the race itself, despite the obvious pressure of being Dale Jr. at a plate race and carrying the branding his dad had made famous. Never mind the fact that Earnhardt Jr. had won consecutive Nationwide Series titles driving a No. 3 car -- indeed, had made nearly every start in that series up to the point he went full-time in Cup, in a No. 3. This was all about karma, and it was big. "I felt a lot of pressure to win," Earnhardt Jr. said. "I didn't know if we could pull it off. But we were very lucky and very fortunate to have made some of the moves we made, and we had some great luck. It just all worked out. I feel lucky. "I mean, there's always pressure driving with that car [and] that sponsor. To everyone outside this room, maybe some of you guys here, anything less than a win was pointless. What did we do this for? Did we even honor him by bringing it out and running fifth? What the hell?" But Earnhardt Jr. and his cousin, who was responsible in a hands-on way for virtually all of his Cup wins and most of his Nationwide ones, delivered. Even though Earnhardt Jr. proved early he had a good car, it was never a sure thing. He didn't lead until Lap 70 of the scheduled 100. But once he got there, he led the final 33 laps -- including holding off the car he thought was better, Joey Logano's, in a green-white-checkered finish. Was that luck, or destiny? Whatever it was, it answered at least one question that Junior already -- long ago -- had figured out. This was "it" for him and the No. 3. "I will never do it, I'll never rethink it, I'll never consider it," Earnhardt Jr. said when asked of his future plans for he and the No. 3. "I think that it's important for everybody to know that that's as concrete as it gets. I'll never do it again." The fallacy the public creates is that Earnhardt Jr. is a machine, a marketing dynamo impervious to doubt, or pressure or emotion. He is none of those things. What he has proven, forever and every day he's been at NASCAR's highest level, is that he's bluntly honest. "I enjoyed it," he said of the experience. "[But] it's hard for me. It's a balancing act between you and the public and myself and my own feelings. It's such a tough deal. It's real emotional for me preparing for it and putting it together [because] it's just so damn hard to know how everybody feels about it. "I just want to come race. I just like cool-looking cars. This was a helluva cool-looking car. I always loved the scheme. That's all that mattered to me, was just the scheme. I just love the car. I wanted to race it once, and I did [Friday night]. "I'd run the number before in this series, so I didn't really put a lot of stock in the fact that the No. 3 was coming back like a lot of people did. But when I started hearing all that -- how everybody was making such a big deal about it -- I was like, '[Shoot], man, this is like pressure, man. This is a big deal.' So I was a little nervous. "It doesn't make sense for me to do this again. I think in the Nationwide Series it makes enough sense, and I really wanted to do it and I've done it. I don't ever want to do it again. And I'll never change my mind, ever." On pit road before the race, as he walked from the back of the grid to the front, after getting out of his pre-race truck ride, Junior stopped to chat with Kenny Wallace, who stood next to his No. 28 car in the 42nd grid position. They shook hands and Wallace cracked, "I heard you sold a million dollars worth of diecasts. I want one." Earnhardt smiled like that was news to him and shot back, "So do I," as he walked toward the front of the line. But promotional opportunities aside, in Earnhardt Jr.'s mind, there was one thing beyond feel-good that his victory created. "I do believe this [victory] helps me [Saturday] because the [new] Nationwide car now kind of drives similar [to the current Cup car]," Earnhardt Jr. said. "This helps my confidence. You know, every time you win and do good, I just think it will give you a boost. I told Rick [Hendrick, Cup owner] I had another tank in the bus for [Saturday] and we'd bring it out." And that led to a question, and led to one of Earnhardt Jr.'s most insightful, and incisive, sets of comments. The query was that old saw about Junior's "commitment." "I think people can stop questioning my commitment -- whether I care, whether I have the passion anymore, enough passion," Earnhardt Jr. said. "I have worked my ass off to get back just to subpar. Are we right? No, I'm still wrong [laughter]. "Anyways, to be above average, I have busted my ass. I mean, I can't drive and work any harder than I'm working right now. I can't. This is all I got. And I'm doing it hard, man. I mean, I cannot work any harder. "You can't do this half-assed. You can't do it 90 percent. You'll get eaten up. It will be obvious to everybody around you: Your team, your crew chief, everybody who builds your motors, builds your cars -- they'll stop giving a [crap] because they know you're not giving a [crap] and you won't go anywhere. "I'm not burnt out. I still got a lot in the tank. We got a long season left. But I got the passion, man. I want to win. I want to be here for a long, long time. But I guess people will question that until you're done -- not just me, other drivers, too, I'm sure. "I shouldn't take it so personal. But, man, when you work so damn hard -- I mean, you guys know how it is. You're working your [tail] off to try to get somewhere, do the best you can to do your job, whatever it is. For anyone to ever wonder whether you're giving it all you got pisses you off. But that's just the way it is." In the end, "it" -- the win -- was big; even nine years after the death of Dale Earnhardt. The Lap 3, three-finger salute by thousands proved his memory will never die -- even if his son, in his passion, made one last plea. "This is it," Earnhardt Jr. said of him and his dad's former number. "I just knew before the race, and I said it -- I felt 110 percent sure, regardless of whether we finished or even started the race. So, yeah, I'm so glad we won. "It means more to me now, knowing that I won't ever do it again, that I won. You know, we can all just remember this, squash it, finish our lives, you know? Do what we got to do, what we need to do, 'til we get too old to do whatever we want to do." And thank God, the cousins proved, Friday night, that day's a long way into the future. Earnhardt drives No. 3 to Nationwide Daytona victory Driving the No. 3 Wrangler Chevrolet in honor of his late father, Dale Earnhardt Jr. broke a Nationwide Series drought of almost four years in winning Friday's Subway Jalapeno 250 NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Daytona International Speedway. The victory, the 23rd of Earnhardt's career, was his first in the series since Aug. 19, 2006, when he took the checkered flag at Michigan. It was his first points win in any of NASCAR's top three series since June 15, 2008, when Earnhardt captured the Lifelock 400 Sprint Cup race, again at Michigan. Joey Logano ran second, followed by Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Brad Keselowski and Kevin Harvick. With a push from Justin Allgaier, Earnhardt took the lead for the first time on Lap 70, surging past Kyle Busch through Turns 1 and 2. On that same lap, NASCAR called a caution for debris on the backstretch. Pitting under the caution, Earnhardt retained his lead, thanks to a quick, problem-free stop. Earnhardt held the top spot through Lap 96, when NASCAR threw a debris caution that set up a two-lap run to the finish. Earnhardt stayed out on old tires, as did seven other contending cars, but Busch, Carl Edwards, Clint Bowyer, Trevor Bayne and Ryan Newman came to the pits for tires under the yellow. Earnhardt chose the inside lane for the restart on Lap 101 and held it for the final two circuits, as the race went two laps beyond its scheduled distance of 100 laps. The race marked the debut of NASCAR's new Nationwide car. Daytona race might be last time Dale Earnhardt Jr. races famous No. 3, so he plans to enjoy Nationwide Series event Dale Earnhardt Jr. doesn’t intend to keep running paint schemes in honor of his dad and he says this might the last time he drives a car bearing the famous No. 3, so he plans to enjoy this weekend’s Nationwide Series race at Daytona International Speedway. Earnhardt Jr.’s No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevy will carry the No. 3 and a blue-and-yellow Wrangler paint scheme in honor of his dad, who was inducted in the NASCAR Hall of Fame in May. JR Motorsports, Earnhardt Jr.'s Nationwide team, is fielding the car and special paint scheme in conjunction with Richard Childress, who owned Earnhardt’s No. 3 cars, and Teresa Earnhardt, Earnhardt’s widow and Earnhardt Jr.’s stepmother. “This is a one-time deal,” said Earnhardt Jr., who drives for Hendrick Motorsports in the Sprint Cup Series. “I have no intensions of making it a habit to run special paint schemes with my dad’s number every year, and I’m pretty sure this will be the last time I drive the No. 3. It’s my dad’s number. We are borrowing it this weekend to honor him, and I hope the fans remember him when they see this blue-and-yellow car on the track.” The retro No. 3 Chevrolet will mirror the Wrangler paint scheme made famous by Earnhardt through the 1981 to 1987 Cup seasons. Earnhardt and Childress won Cup championships in 1986-87 with the Wrangler car. “We’re bringing back this Wrangler paint scheme because it’s kind of what started his whole persona as being the tough guy that he was,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We have a lot of memories of the No. 3 Wrangler car, and I think all my Dad’s fans will get a kick out of seeing it on the track again.” The Daytona race also marks a reunion of sorts as Earnhardt Jr. will be reunited with cousin Tony Eury Jr., who will serve as crew of the No. 3. Earnhardt Jr. and Eury Jr., both co-owners of JRM, have not worked together as crew chief and driver since they parted ways at Hendrick Motorsports in May 2009. While Earnhardt Jr. is driving the No. 3, Greg Sacks and Steve Arpin will drive the other two JR Motorsports entries. Sacks will drive the No. 88 while Arpin will be in the No. 7. The race marks the 25th anniversary of Sacks’ memorable victory in the 1985 Pepsi Firecracker 400 at Daytona. “It’s going to be good to be back behind the wheel of a race car, I can tell you that,” Sacks said. “With the type of equipment Tony [Eury] Sr. and the guys put together, I know we can be competitive. “I just couldn't pass on an opportunity to race at Daytona in top equipment on the 25th anniversary of my Pepsi Firecracker 400 victory. On top of that, being the only driver in this event that actually raced with Dale [Earnhardt, Sr.] in the Wrangler No. 3 and now being teammates with Dale Jr. in that car is just awesome.” Earnhardt and Martin headed in opposite directions Dale Earnhardt Jr. is on a roll, at least by his recent standards, as he returns to Daytona International Speedway this week. His eighth-place finish Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway moved him just three points outside the top-12 in the Sprint Cup Series standings. With one of his best tracks before him, Earnhardt could make some serious gains Saturday night and find himself in legitimate contention for a berth in the Chase for the championship. He knew it, too, as he completed the final few laps at New Hampshire. “I was doing the math those last 10 laps,” he joked. As Earnhardt prepares for Daytona, where he stormed through the field in the closing laps of the season-opener to nearly steal a victory in the Daytona 500, his legion of fans knows another similar drive will be a tremendous step toward rebuilding his No. 88 team. What’s less discussed is the price of his improvement. While Earnhardt is moving closer and closer back to respectability, Hendrick Motorsports teammate Mark Martin is slipping farther and farther out of championship contention. Martin was the lowest finisher of Hendrick’s four drivers on Sunday, coming in 21st for his seventh finish outside the top-10 in the last eight races. He’s 11th in the points, clinging to a spot inside the top-12. What’s shocking is that Martin and his No. 5 team couldn’t have been more on it last season, when they had three victories at this point and were well on their way toward challenging teammate Jimmie Johnson for the title. Although they settled for second in the final standings, it was a banner year for NASCAR’s most respected driver. But instead of working on what the team could do to take that final step toward a title this season, Gustafson and his crew turned their attention to helping Earnhardt’s No. 88 team. There was an official request from team owner Rick Hendrick to Gustafson, one of the most loyal employees he’s ever had, and Gustafson, as always, obliged. It meant the loss of his lead race engineer and a key mechanic - both were moved to assist Earnhardt’s crew chief Lance McGrew- as well as a total reorganization of the race shop to get the No. 5 and No. 88 teams working in unison. The idea was to strengthen both teams, and after a rough patch, Earnhardt seems headed in the right direction. He had stumbled in the standings after five straight finishes outside the top-15, and that included a demoralizing 30th-place finish at Dover. But in the last three races, he was seventh at Michigan, 11th at Sonoma - and considering how much he hates the road course, tying his career-best finish was a moral victory - and finally eighth on Sunday. Martin, meanwhile, has headed the opposite direction. He’s led just one lap in the last 11 races and his fourth-place finish at Charlotte is his only top-10 in the last eight events. Gustafson blames the team’s problems on his own inadequacies in dealing with NASCAR’s switch in March from the wing to the spoiler. Only everyone else wonders what role the focus on Earnhardt has played in the No. 5 team’s demise. Earnhardt admits tying the two teams together has improved his group. “I think it helped us,” he said, before quickly adding, “I know Mark is struggling compared to last year. But it helped us as a team. (Engineer) Chris Heroy come over was a big deal for me and Lance both. I think he’s enjoyed being part of our group.” Gustafson, on the other hand, won’t blame their struggles on linking up with the No. 88. “If I was somebody who was not involved in this everyday, that is what I would say because that is the most obvious and makes the most sense,” Gustafson said. “I think it’s wrong. I do think our shop has made a net gain, even though we haven’t won any races. The 88 is significantly better than what they were. So I think the team strength is a lot better. “Are there areas where we may have slowed down a little bit? Yes. But that’s not why we are where we are. And there’s a bigger gain, that when we all get right, will make us even stronger. It’s like cleaning up your house: Sometimes you have to mess it up to get it how you want it.” The true test of this partnership won’t be at Daytona, where Martin and Earnhardt swept the front row in February and made everyone believe their strengthened relationship was working wonders. Chances are, Earnhardt is going to do just fine Saturday night and likely leave Daytona inside the top 12. His success brings more attention to NASCAR, and that’s good for everyone. Well, maybe everyone except Martin. Eighth-place run fuels Earnhardt's optimism Dale Earnhardt Jr. finally had reason to smile. No, he wasn't contending for the win in Sunday's Lenox Industrial Tools 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, but he left the Magic Mile with a feeling that the No. 88 Chevrolet's program is finally headed in the right direction. "I think it is a good start to a turning point," said Earnhardt, who finished eighth after starting 31st and moved tantalizingly close to the top 12 in the Cup Series standings. "I like running here, and I traditionally feel like I am a top-10 here every time I show up. "The car was really fast at the start of the race. The first run not so good, but the second run, we really got going. We started adjusting on it, and we just lost that little pep it had that drove it up to the top 10. But, it was still good enough to hang on. But we kept skipping back and forth over the balance of the car from tight to loose on those last couple of adjustments. Just couldn't get the car like it was when it was really good right before the middle of the race." Earnhardt is 13th in the standings, three points behind 12th-place Carl Edwards. "I was real glad the car ran good," Earnhardt said. "The car was excellent the first half of the race, and then we sort of struggled with it the last half of the race, but we still had a good finish. It still was a competitive car. We're real proud of our run [Sunday], and it's a good move for us in the points." Dale Jr. helps ease Patrick's return to Nationwide Series An occasional test with crew chief Tony Eury Jr. aside, Danica Patrick hasn't raced a stock car since Feb. 27 at Las Vegas. To help prepare her for returning to the Nationwide Series this weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Patrick got help from one of her JR Motorsports team owners -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. Patrick paid a surreptitious visit to the race track Thursday night and did a ride-around with Earnhardt in a street car in preparation for Saturday's New England 200. "Well, Dale Jr. took time out of his schedule [Thursday] night to go around the track for a couple of laps -- I don't know how secret this stuff is, he's Dale Jr., he can go anywhere," Patrick said Friday after Nationwide Series practice. "He showed me the line and gave me tips about running out here, whether it's the race or pitting or whatever, or where to go to help your car do different things. It's incredibly helpful. "I got in [Thursday] night after, I don't know ... I'm not big like all these guys, and I don't have my own jet. So I flew commercial here -- and regretted every minute of it, while I sat in Philadelphia during the rainstorm and sat there for a couple of hours. I got into the track at like 8 o'clock [Thursday] night, and Dale took time to do that. It's stuff like that that makes a huge difference for me." Though Patrick hasn't raced a stock car for nearly four months, she said the absence from NASCAR competition isn't what kept her 43rd of 44 cars on the speed chart in Friday's first practice. "I really don't notice much of a difference between the first time I get in and the second time, or one weekend after another or four months," said Patrick, who was more than six miles per hour slower than Brad Keselowski, who paced the first Nationwide practice session. "It's like riding -- a bicycle. You get back in it, the feelings are familiar, and that's where you really have to trust your instincts in what you really need in a car and don't make up what's not there. "It's going to take time, and I'm going to have to learn a lot of this stuff for myself. Even with everyone's help, you still have to feel it. You have to feel it in your gut and your butt and your hands and know for yourself." In final Nationwide practice Friday afternoon, Patrick improved significantly, to 24th fastest on the speed chart. For Junior, road-course progress; a Chase boost Wonders will never cease. A road course, of all places, has Dale Earnhardt Jr. back on the verge of Chase contention. A driver raised on late models, who joked earlier in the weekend that he didn't race all those ovals to pursue a career in Formula One, built on last Sunday's drought-busting performance at Michigan with an 11th-place effort at Infineon Raceway. More importantly, Earnhardt made up a little more ground in the standings, picking up one position to 13th and pulling within 57 points of Carl Edwards for the final Chase berths with 10 events remaining until the championship field is decided. "I don't get that pumped up about it," said Earnhardt, who prior to last weekend's seventh-place finish had complied five straight results of 19th or worse, sinking to a low of 17th in points over that span. "I just get relief to be able to go home and not be ticked off. But that's every week." It didn't come easy for Earnhardt, who in Friday's opening practice had equipment problems and ranked 45th-fastest among the 46 drivers attempting to qualify for the event. He started in 24th on Sunday, and though he was never a threat to win, he saw the car improve to the point where he was able to run in the top 10 toward the latter portion of the race. Crew chief Lance McGrew's setup seemed to work better on fresher tires, and pit cycles helped the No. 88 car finish the event with rubber that had fewer than 20 laps of wear. From there, Earnhardt took advantage of circumstances, watching as other competitors took one another out, and trying to avoid the fray. Earnhardt was ninth with 10 laps remaining, and narrowly missed recording his first back-to-back top-10s since Michigan and Bristol in August of last season. "I just sat there and watched the first half of that race, and a lot of these guys were kind of taking themselves out of the race," he said. "I just wasn't really braking hard or running hard, and was playing around with tires to see what saved them and what didn't. Nothing really worked. But I ran one run where I didn't even spin a wheel the whole run to see what it would do, but it didn't make a difference. At the end of the race I thought all right, if we're going to get something, let's get it. And a couple of holes opened up and we got lucky and got us up in the top 10 and we just tried to hold it." Others weren't so fortunate. Earnhardt's forward progress came at the expense of Clint Bowyer, who was involved in a pair of scrapes on an aggression-filled day and wound up 31st, dropping one spot in the standings as a result. Even championship contenders weren't immune -- Denny Hamlin, the series leader with five victories, took early damage and finished 34th. His Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch was involved in the day's first accident, spent considerable time in the garage area undergoing repairs, and returned with a patched-up vehicle that placed 39th. Earnhardt will be the first to admit that he has a frustrating relationship with road courses, even though he and his father teamed with a pair of road racing specialists to finish fourth in Daytona 24-hour event in 2001. Sunday's result tied Earnhardt's best career finish at Sonoma, recorded three times previously, including last year. He's had better fortune at Watkins Glen, where he won a then-Busch Series event in 1999, and has finished inside the top 10 three times in Cup races, most recently in 2005. "I feel like I can run in the top 10 at the Glen on a good day. I don't feel like that here yet," Earnhardt said. "Even when the car is handling good in practice like it had been in years past, I just don't have the confidence." After Sunday, perhaps that will begin to change. Dale Earnhardt Jr. will try to avoid pitfalls and improve mediocre road-course record at Sonoma Dale Earnhardt Jr. knows what it takes to run fast at Infineon Raceway. What he isn’t so sure about is what it takes to win on the winding, 11-turn road course. “You don’t race cars, you don’t race corners individually, you put the corners together in a series to make it fast,” Earnhardt Jr. said Friday after qualifying 24th for Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350. “You put corners together like a puzzle to make that stretch [of track] quick, which completes the lap. And the guy that can continuously do that without any regard to what’s happening around him on the race track is the [guy to beat].” Earnhardt Jr. has a forgettable record at Infineon, and the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series’ other road-course stop, Watkins Glen International. His average finishing position in 10 career starts at Infineon, where he has failed to register a single top-10, is 21.4. He has three top-10s at The Glen, the most recent of those coming in 2005. So what gives? Aside from his general preference for the series’ more common ovals, that is – “I raced ovals all my life not to make it to Formula 1,” he joked shortly after his qualifying run. “I guess my biggest problem is I get to racing everybody around me,” the Hendrick Motorsports driver said. “The guy in front of me, I want to catch him and the next corner, I drive into [it] like it’s a short track, trying to roll in on him and get in the throttle sooner, and then we’ve got another corner coming up and I’m totally off line for it and I’m slow. Everything I’ve gained, he gets back. "We sit there and do that [crap] all day long, all of us back there in 20th, 15th, whatever.” Earnhardt Jr. isn’t alone when it comes to coming up short on the series’ two road courses. Four-time champion Jimmie Johnson, who will go off second in Sunday’s race, is likewise still seeking his first road-course win. “But he’s been fast,” Earnhardt Jr. said of Johnson. “You have to put it together, put yourself in the right position in these races. That’s about as far as I can go on it, because that’s about as far as I’ve gotten at this place. “I can’t sit here and tell you how to go about getting in the top 10 here because I ain’t ever done it. I’ve either run into the side of somebody racing too hard in the middle of the race with a car that should have finished in the top 10, or you’re getting stacked up in the slow corners and get run over, mixed up in something like that. “Guys that run good are guys that aren’t in that stuff somehow. They’re either in front of it or their strategy has put them behind it or whatever. But you never see the typical [Tony] Stewarts or [Jeff] Gordons getting in stackups and foolish pileups that happen all the time.” A broken gear during Friday’s lone practice at Infineon slowed any progress the team had hoped to make, but Earnhardt Jr. said the team still has setup notes from a year ago, when he ran in the top 10 before running into trouble, that it can fall back on if necessary. But that, he said, is more of a last option than a preferred choice. “We’re going to try some things [in practice Saturday] … we’ve got a setup sort of in our back pocket that we know can run a top-10 if the driver does everything right,” he said. “But [they’re] just trying to help me out a little bit, trying to get something a little better there. But we’ve been unsuccessful so far.” Although he was burned in a fire while racing at Infineon in a sports-car race in 2004, Earnhardt Jr. says that incident hasn’t affected his stock-car performance at the track, noting that “I’ve been running that way since I got here.” His aim for now, he said, is for small improvements to his road-course record. “Hopefully we can improve from mediocre to subpar this weekend,” he said. Told that subpar would be a step backward, Earnhardt Jr. replied: “Is it? Subpar is worse? What’s better than mediocre without really giving myself too much credit?” Average, perhaps, he was told. “I’m already average,” he said. “I’m average now.” Shaquille O'Neal to race Dale Earnhardt Jr. as part of TV series Dale Earnhardt Jr. will face a challenge from four-time NBA champion Shaquille O’Neal in a stock-car race Wednesday at Concord (N.C.) Speedway for an episode of the ABC television show “Shaq Vs.” The show will be aired later this summer. The terms of the race will be negotiated by Earnhardt Jr. and O’Neal on Wednesday. The event is free to the public, with gates opening at 1 p.m. EDT and the race beginning at 4 p.m. No phones, cameras or recording devices will be permitted. The show’s premise pits O’Neal against stars of other sports and activities, such as dance and a spelling contest, each week. Previous episodes have seen O’Neal compete against athletes such as Olympian Michael Phelps, boxer Oscar De La Hoya and Major League Baseball’s Albert Pujols. Concord Speedway is a half-mile trioval. It seats 8,000 and parking is limited. Is Dale Earnhardt Jr. a soccer fan? Sponsor says so as Junior helps promote World Cup Dale Earnhardt Jr., soccer guru? At least that’s what Adidas, one of Earnhardt Jr.’s sponsors, wants fans to believe. Earnhardt Jr., whose team of choice in all sports seems to be the Washington Redskins, is helping Adidas generate interest in the 2010 World Cup soccer tournament. NFL star Reggie Bush, NBA star Dwight Howard, baseball star B.J. Upton and Earnhardt Jr. have made videos and will do commentary and host trivia contests about the World Cup on the Adidas World Cup page on Facebook. Bush is attending the World Cup. Bush, Howard, Earnhardt Jr. and Upton will compete against each other during the tournament by seeing who can get more fans to support the U.S. team in South Africa on Facebook. To access the Facebook fan page that features Earnhardt Jr. and the other athletes, got to http://www.facebook.com/adidassoccer#!/adidassoccer?v=app_7146470109 for a link to the Facebook application with the videos and quizzes. Earnhardt Jr. happy after top-10 at Michigan Dale Earnhardt Jr. isn't ready to say he's back. Not by a long shot. Yet after posting his best finish in nearly three months by surging to seventh at Michigan on Sunday, NASCAR's most popular -- and sometimes most sullen -- driver sounded downright giddy. "We were able to be competitive at the end of the race," Earnhardt said. That hasn't been the case too often during this frustrating season for Earnhardt. He began the year by finishing runner-up to Jamie McMurray at Daytona but has struggled finding any sort of consistency in the ensuing weeks. His performance at the 2-mile oval was his highest finish since running seventh at Bristol in March. Even better, he managed to beat cars he felt were better than his No. 88 Chevrolet. Earnhardt outdueled Jeff Burton in the final laps by laying hard on the wheel and going low. "I felt like I could hold my own on the bottom in [Turns] 1 and 2 and run around the middle in 3 and 4 and my momentum would keep me ahead of him and it worked," Earnhardt said. Earnhardt moved up to 14th in the points race with 11 races to go before the Chase. He trails 12th-place Mark Martin by 81 points heading into next week's trip to the road course at Sonoma. There's plenty of time to make up ground, and on the two-year anniversary of his last win, Earnhardt was quick to praise crew chief Lance McGrew. McGrew called Earnhardt to the pits when a late caution came out. The crew slapped on new tires, giving Earnhardt enough grip to climb into the top 10. "Lance and the guys unloaded a good car and it stayed good all weekend," Earnhardt said. "We had a good call at the end to get four tires. That worked out for us, got a couple more spots. We had about a 10th-place car [Sunday]." Junior tries to make strides to end two-year drought How unbelievable is Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s two-year victory drought? Since Junior visited Michigan International Speedway's Victory Lane after winning the 2008 LifeLock 400 -- 71 races ago -- no fewer than 19 other Sprint Cup drivers have won races, including 11 who have multiple victories. In that time period, Junior's three Hendrick teammates have combined for 22 victories. The man he replaced, Kyle Busch, has won 10 races. Tony Stewart has won races for two separate operations. And the driver Junior hired to pilot his Nationwide team has a Cup victory under his belt. But for a multitude of reasons, Dale Earnhardt Jr. remains winless. For a driver who had won 18 races and never had fewer than seven top-five finishes in a season since his rookie year, Earnhardt's lack of success is almost unparalleled. Since that race here in 2008, Junior has just six top-five finishes,13 top-10s and has led in only 22 races. In fact, after qualifying 27th for Sunday's Heluva Good! 400, Junior admitted to reporters the anniversary hadn't even crossed his mind until it was brought up to Mark Martin. Martin tried to put Junior's frustration into perspective. "It is really, really hard to win in this series, no matter how well you run," Martin said. "Just look at how well Jeff Gordon has run the first half of the season without getting a win. It is just amazing. I think it's underestimated by so many people how difficult it is to win these races and how little things interrupt. "They have run good enough to win some races last year and they've run well in some races this year, many of them have been foiled by one little issue here, one little issue there. They are dug in and Dale Earnhardt Jr. is driving, in my eyes, he's driving harder than any race car driver out there. I can see it clear as day how bad he wants it when I'm on the race track with him. All the stars just haven't lined up to work out yet." Earnhardt agreed, and said his struggles are definitely not from lack of effort. In fact, he's glad that his teammates can see how hard the team is working to get back to Victory Lane. One of those in his corner is Johnson. "Man, I see great progress within their team," Johnson said. "I see race weekends where they are fast at different times and think it is time for them to win a race and break through and end that streak. I'm not inside their team enough to know exactly what all goes on, but I know he feels and knows that it is time. "That has been well-documented with getting excited on the radio and the drive from the team, their level and how hard they are pushing to get to Victory Lane. As a teammate and a friend, I am hopeful that happens very soon for them and I know that they are working hard." Earnhardt said the car was good in Friday's practice, but when rain washed away the accumulated rubber and the track became hot and slippery, he struggled to find the same speed in qualifying. "We worked on the car in race trim when we first got here and felt like we had a really good car, but there was really a lot of grip in the track in the morning," Earnhardt said. "I like the balance of the car. We went into qualifying trim and ran an OK lap but the car wasn't glued and gripped up into the race track like it had been, like it normally feels in qualifying trim. "It actually felt better in race trim than in qualifying trim. We went out there and ran just now and it really was about the same. It wasn't very good. But it felt like what we unloaded [Friday] morning felt pretty good to me." The No. 88 Chevrolet team attempted to make strides in Saturday's practices. In the morning session, he was 12th-quickest with a fast lap of 183.421 mph, although Earnhardt dropped back to 19th in Happy Hour, complaining about inconsistent handling throughout the practice. All 43 cars got on the track during the final 60 minutes of practice, with Johnson leading the way with a best lap of 183.795 mph. He was followed by Paul Menard, Denny Hamlin, Jeff Gordon and Kevin Harvick. Clint Bowyer was forced to his backup after roughing up the right side of his primary. Dale Earnhardt Jr. says he 'failed miserably' at Dover, but believes Hendrick Motorsports team is improving Dale Earnhardt Jr. took the blame for a horrible performance at Dover International Speedway two weeks ago and said Thursday he believes his team is not far behind the competition, despite his recent slide in the Sprint Cup standings. While Earnhardt Jr. fans might blame crew chief Lance McGrew after finishes of 32nd at Richmond, 18th at Darlington and 30th at Dover, Earnhardt Jr. said that’s not where to point fingers heading into the Coca-Cola 600 this weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway. “Me and Lance are doing fine,” said Earnhardt Jr., who has a 69-race winless streak and has worked with McGrew for the last 36 races. “I failed him miserably at Dover as a driver. Other than that, we’ve really done more positive things than we had last year. I feel like we were getting better as a team. “So hopefully we can pick that back up this Sunday for 600 miles.” Earnhardt Jr. said poor performances in the past three races have beaten him up pretty bad. At Dover, Earnhardt Jr. thought the steering broke in his car so he pitted, and his crew spent seven laps trying to diagnose a problem that didn’t exist. “Dover was all my fault,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I went in there and didn’t understand what my car was doing and made a lot of bad judgments as a driver. … We’re a real good team and we’re trying to revert back to some things that were working for us.” Having dropped from seventh in the standings to 16th over the last four races, Earnhardt Jr. is 43 points out of the top 12. The other three Hendrick Motorsports drivers – Jimmie Johnson (fourth), Jeff Gordon (sixth) and Mark Martin (11th) – sit ahead of him in the standings. “As a driver, I feel like I’m putting forth my best effort and I feel like Lance does the same,” said Earnhardt Jr., who finished 25th in the standings last year. “The team, they all get behind Lance and get behind me. We’re just working really hard. We aren’t leaving any stones unturned to find out where the competitiveness has gone. “We have a lot of great resources, and as we continue to be outpaced by our teammates, between me and Lance, we’ve gotten more honest about what we feel like our weaknesses are and what we feel like we need to work on. We seem to be able to work on those ideas and work on those problems. I definitely am not satisfied with running poorly. I don’t think any driver in the garage is.” And what about his chances this weekend? He still doesn’t know. “I have to see how the car is [in practice] Saturday,” said Earnhardt Jr., who spent all of Thursday working on qualifying and will start 24th on Sunday. “Hopefully, we don’t get any rain and we can work on the car and be able to make some laps. “I don’t like how the car drove in the all-star race and I’m sure Lance wants to go in another route. … Hopefully we can get some laps to be able to help ourselves find what we need in race trim.” Earnhardt Jr. provided plenty of feedback to McGrew during the all-star race last week and felt as if the car would improve during the event. It never did, and he finished 12th. “We always get better every week with the communication,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Last week, I was pretty excited and the car didn’t respond in the last half of that race like I thought we were going to, like I had it played out in my head.” While he has never won a Cup event at Charlotte, Earnhardt Jr. said he likes this track. He has five top-five finishes in 21 career starts at CMS. “The way the competition is these days and the way the races play themselves out in the end with the pit stops and the cautions and everything, it’s anybody’s shot,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “More times than not, the fastest car doesn’t win the race. I swear, I feel like any day we can show up and it would be just like a switch and there we’d be running up front. I feel like it’s right around the corner.” Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kasey Kahne, others paying tribute to troops with special Memorial Day paint schemes As usual, the Coca-Cola 600 presents Charlotte Motor Speedway and NASCAR fans an opportunity to celebrate Memorial Day and pay tribute to military personnel and their families. Several Sprint Cup teams are doing their part by racing cars with special paint schemes that honor the armed forces. Aside from Elliott Sadler (Air Force), Ryan Newman (U.S. Army) and David Stremme (Air National Guard), who are all sponsored by the armed forces on a regular basis, other drivers carrying special military-themed paint schemes include: • Dale Earnhardt Jr. – National Guard Honoring Our Soldiers. • Jeff Gordon – DuPont Stars & Stripes • Jimmie Johnson – Lowe’s Memorial Day Tribute • David Reutimann – Aaron’s Armed Forces Foundation • Kasey Kahne – Budweiser Armed Forces Tribute Gordon said he was grateful for the opportunity to pay tribute to the National Guard and the rest of the troops. "It means a lot especially since we've built our relationship with the National Guard and gotten a chance to spend a lot more time in D.C. and with several members of the armed forces,” he said. “It really has educated me in a way that I'm more appreciative and thankful of Memorial Day today and this weekend than I ever have been. “We're really proud to be carrying our version of red, white and blue colors on the DuPont Chevrolet and to be honoring those men and women that serve our country. They really sacrifice not only their lives but they put their families on the line. There's a lot on the line there for what they do for our freedom. “It's awesome to know that we have people like that who have that kind of commitment. Every time I see them I can't smile and thank them enough for that because we certainly wouldn't be doing what we're doing at the race track if it weren't for them." Kahne's car has a special camouflage paint scheme. “I am definitely looking forward to it. We unveiled the car at Fort Hood a month ago and there were a lot of people excited about it,” Kahne said. “As a driver, I am excited about it. To have the camouflage and be able to represent the Armed Forces and what they do for us each year is great. “We will run it this weekend and then at Daytona. I am excited that Budweiser and the U.S.O. put it together.” CMS and its sponsors are honoring military personnel through the "Let the Troops Race" ticket program. Through the program, fans who purchased tickets to the Coca-Cola 600 had the option to purchase an additional ticket for $20 to send a member of the armed forces to the race. Other discount tickets are also available to military personnel. The track is also donating 3,000 tickets to soldiers from Fort Bragg, N.C. More than 600 Fort Bragg soldiers will participate in the prerace show. Dale Jr.'s future connected to fans, owners and drivers Roughly 30 minutes after Sunday's induction ceremonies at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, three giants of the racing world -- Rick Hendrick, Richard Childress and Darrell Waltrip -- shared a dais preparing to take questions from the media. "Rick and I formed a company, and we're going to bring Darrell back as a driver," Childress said in a joking preface to his remarks about the Hall of Fame. In all seriousness, though, a meeting of the minds between the two car owners isn't a bad idea. Childress and Hendrick ought to put their heads together and come up with a solution to a problem that clearly is no laughing matter -- namely the struggles of Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Hendrick Motorsports. Without laying blame, it's obvious the Earnhardt-Hendrick equation hasn't added up to success on the track. Earnhardt won his first race in Hendrick's No. 88 Chevrolet, the 2008 Budweiser Shootout. He won his only points race with Hendrick at Michigan in June 2008, but since then the team's performance has deteriorated. Yes, Earnhardt has maintained an on-again, off-again flirtation with the top 12 in the Cup standings this year. Militating against that is the recent fiasco at Dover, where Earnhardt lost seven laps as his crew looked for a non-existent problem, after Earnhardt brought the car to pit road insisting something was broken. The resulting 30th-place finish dropped him to 16th in points. A crew chief change from Tony Eury Jr., Earnhardt's cousin, to Lance McGrew hasn't produced a victory during McGrew's nearly year-long tenure. Neither has this year's much-ballyhooed between-season change in the culture and consequent reallocation of personnel at the shop Earnhardt's No. 88 team shares with the No. 5 Chevrolet of Mark Martin. For a stark set of facts, contrast Earnhardt's record at Hendrick with that of Martin, who arrived in 2009, teamed with crew chief Alan Gustafson and won five races and seven poles in his first season. Martin finished second to Jimmie Johnson in last year's Chase for the Sprint Cup. Earnhardt ended the season 25th. Martin clicked with the Hendrick organization almost immediately. Earnhardt, McGrew and the No. 88 team have yet to achieve critical mass. Despite the Dover meltdown, Hendrick reaffirmed his support. "You don't let one race or a bad situation destroy the chemistry that's there," Hendrick said three days after the race, in a video chat on the Web site AmpUpThe88.com. "They have a tremendous amount of confidence in each other. And Dale has told me as late as this week that he's very confident in the team. We just had a bad week." Objectively speaking, however, the inescapable conclusion is that -- nearly two-and-a-half years into a relationship that has brought more disappointment than joy to Earnhardt, Hendrick and their respective followers -- it's time for a change. The shape of things to come might be nebulous right now, but there are clues to what the future could hold for Earnhardt. This past September, Austin Dillon, Childress' grandson, made his Truck Series debut at Iowa Speedway in a black No. 3 Chevrolet. Though the paint scheme commemorated Richard Childress Racing's 40th year in the sport, it was more than vaguely reminiscent of the No. 3 Goodwrench Chevrolet Dale Earnhardt Sr. made famous before his death from a last-lap crash in the 2001 Daytona 500. The bottom line is that a black No. 3 RCR Chevy was back on the track in one of NASCAR's top three series for the first time since the Daytona race that changed the course of NASCAR history. Late April of this year brought the announcement that Earnhardt Jr. would drive a No. 3 Wrangler Chevrolet in July's Nationwide Series race at Daytona. The paint scheme is a throwback to the yellow-and-blue Wrangler car Earnhardt Sr. drove before the black 3 became his trademark. For the five days after it went on sale, No. 3 Wrangler merchandise accounted for 52 percent of sales through NASCAR.COM Superstore. All 333 limited-edition die-cast cars sold out within 36 hours of their offering?at $89.99 each. Childress, Dale Earnhardt Inc. (owned by Teresa Earnhardt) and JR Motorsports (jointly owned by Earnhardt Jr., Hendrick, Eury and Kelley Earnhardt) all have a piece of the No. 3 Wrangler action. They share in souvenir revenues. As to the car Earnhardt will drive in tribute to his father's induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, RCR is the owner of record. JRM will build and prepare the car. Hendrick Motorsports -- not Earnhardt-Childress Racing -- will supply the engines. If the introduction of No. 3 Chevrolets to the Truck and Nationwide Series is a progression -- testing the waters, so to speak -- the next logical step should be obvious. An Earnhardt return to the No. 3 RCR Chevrolet in the Cup series -- perhaps after an interim move to JRM next year -- would solve a litany of problems, depending on the timing. First of all, it would create room at Hendrick for Kasey Kahne, whom Hendrick has signed to a multiyear deal that starts in 2011. Hendrick is obligated to find a suitable ride for Kahne next year, in the event that HMS maintains its present complement of four drivers. Here's the rub. One of Hendrick's stated options -- to farm out Kahne to another Chevrolet team in 2011 -- hit a snag when other Cup owners questioned whether signing Kahne and placing him with another team violated the spirit, if not the letter of NASCAR's four-car limit. Joe Gibbs, who also had been in the running for Kahne's services, expressed that point of view to NASCAR brass during race weekend at Texas in April. According to a source familiar with the situation, NASCAR won't allow Hendrick to hold paper on Kahne while Kahne is driving for another team. In other words, should Kahne drive for Stewart-Haas Racing -- which receives technical support, engines and chassis from Hendrick -- he would have to be under contract to Stewart-Haas. If Kahne drives for Hendrick next year, however, the problem is solved. There are plenty of devils in the details of the Earnhardt and Kahne premises. Who sponsors whom? How are crew chiefs allocated? Is Earnhardt reunited with Tony Eury Sr. or Eury Jr. or neither? Does Martin drive the No. 5 next year, or does Kahne? Is Hendrick willing to sell his interest in JRM, which he'd have to do to maintain compliance with NASCAR's four-car rule? Is the No. 3 Wrangler car truly a "one-off" at Daytona -- as were the blue No. 3 Oreo's car and yellow No. 3 Nilla Wafers car Earnhardt drove in Nationwide races at Daytona and Charlotte, respectively, in 2002 -- or might he drive it in future Nationwide races? There are plenty of disclaimers, too. Earnhardt continues to insist that JRM isn't ready to make the leap from the Nationwide Series to a short-term, full-time Cup effort. Martin continues to insist he'll drive the No. 5 car at Hendrick next year, with Kahne his successor in 2012. Hendrick and McGrew continue to insist things are improving in the No. 88 camp, despite the occasional setback. And Earnhardt insists he's with Hendrick for the long haul. "I like working with Rick," Earnhardt said recently at Richmond. "I'm going to stick there, stick around as long as I can. I want to stay with Rick as long as he will keep me." From a global standpoint, however, an Earnhardt move to RCR of itself would prop up a sagging market in souvenir sales. It also would be welcome news to the legions of Earnhardt fans who have lived in ambivalence since his move to Hendrick Motorsports. Is it a move Childress is willing to make? When Earnhardt lost his father, Childress lost his best friend. Putting a No. 3 Wrangler car on the track in the Nationwide Series is one thing. Fielding a No. 3 car in the Cup series would be an intensely emotional decision for the six-time champion car owner. And is it a move Earnhardt Jr. would contemplate? Would Earnhardt chafe beneath the mantle of his father's greatness? Perhaps so, but could it be any more uncomfortable than the pressure and frustration that dog him right now? Dale Earnhardt's Hall of Fame induction brings family together for rare public appearance For the second time in the last four weeks, Dale Earnhardt’s four children were together, along with his widow, Teresa, in a public setting to honor the seven-time Cup champion. Like many families, they haven’t always seen eye-to-eye, especially since their father’s death, but Dale Earnhardt’s induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame on Sunday was a special occasion. There have been few public appearances together since a bitter 2007 split between Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Dale Earnhardt Inc., the company his father founded and that Teresa took over after Earnhardt’s death. Honoring and preserving the legacy of Dale Earnhardt, who was killed on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500, has been their bond, and they all have great pride in his accomplishments. That’s why the NASCAR Hall of Fame induction brought them together. “Obviously this is a great opportunity for all of us to get together,” Teresa Earnhardt said in a news conference following the induction ceremony. “As you all know, this industry and this lifestyle does not really afford the opportunity to live like a normal routine work schedule does for us to get together. “We kind of did that forever. We’re kind of used to it. We see you when we see you and if we need something, we’ll call [each other].” The four children have three different mothers. Kerry Earnhardt, 40, is the son of Earnhardt’s first wife, Latane Key. Kelley, 37, and Dale Earnhardt Jr., 35, are the children of Earnhardt’s second wife, Brenda Jackson. Taylor, 21, is the daughter of Teresa. “There may not be a lot of public moments that you get to see all five of us share a stage like we did today,” Kelley Earnhardt said. “But we’ve all had the Christmases and Thanksgiving and the special times that we can share together. “Sometimes we get to do that [with] two, three or four [of us] and sometimes we get to do that with all five of us. It’s been that way all of our lives. So we are a family that comes together. We come together on a special day like today to honor our dad.” All four of the children spoke during the ceremony, as did Teresa. “You can’t hardly explain in this short, simple time, what it all means to us,” Kelley Earnhardt said. “It was an honor to have our whole family here today and my grandmother [Martha] Earnhardt. “For us to all accept the award together … was really neat.” Among Dale Earnhardt’s accomplishments was his creation of DEI, which has won 24 Cup races and three Daytona 500s and now fields Cup cars through Earnhardt Ganassi Racing. Earnhardt Jr. left DEI following the 2007 season after Teresa would not give him any ownership in the organization. He now drives for Hendrick Motorsports and co-owns JR Motorsports with Kelley, who runs the day-to-day operations of the Nationwide Series organization. Kelley also manages much of Earnhardt Jr.’s career and oversees his business ventures, giving them a tight bond. Kerry and Taylor have bonded as Kerry’s 7-year-old daughter has formed a close relationship with her aunt. Kerry works at DEI, while Taylor competes in rodeo events and is a national barrel racing champion. “[My husband] was very aware and hopeful that his children could do whatever they chose to do,” Teresa Earnhardt said. Teresa said the induction was an emotional day. “We’ve been enjoying these emotions ever since the nominations were confirmed [in October],” Teresa Earnhardt said. “It is emotional. I’m the type that I really don’t put my emotions out there. But I do have them.” Earnhardt Jr., whose love for the history of the sport can be traced to him doing television commentary for specials of past races, said he enjoyed hearing the stories about his father and the other inductees – Richard Petty, Junior Johnson, Bill France Sr., and Bill France Jr. “The atmosphere was really, really good,” Earnhardt Jr. said about the ceremony. “The program went so smoothly, it was really no effort at all [to speak]. There was really no nerves at all.” His father would have liked the induction ceremony, Earnhardt Jr. said. “He would be happy about this sport as a whole,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “He’s obviously super thankful to the support from all his fans.” Kelley said she has good, fond memories of her father, who “left us too soon.” “Our dad worked hard from where he came from to be the champion that he was in the sport,” she said. “More importantly than what he accomplished on the race track was just the person that he was to others. He always gave back to others, he always was fair about what he did in life and he wanted to see others succeed, too.” Earnhardt Jr., Wrangler a strong-selling combination Combine one of NASCAR’s biggest names with one of its most recognizable paint schemes from the past and you’ve got licensing gold. Merchandise commemorating Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s retro No. 3 Wrangler car is flying off the virtual shelves at the NASCAR.com Superstore. The Wrangler machine honoring Earnhardt’s late father won’t appear on the track until the July 2 Nationwide Series race at Daytona, but the die-cast cars, T-shirts, hats and trinkets have been selling since the April 29 announcement. Gear from the No. 3 Wrangler car, which will run once this season as a special paint scheme, likely will wind up as one of the biggest sellers of the year. In the first five days on the market after the April announcement, Wrangler No. 3 goods were responsible for 52 percent of all licensed sales. Some of the products offered at NASCAR.com, which include nearly 30 different items, feature the image of Dale Earnhardt along with his son. Since the announcement, Wrangler No. 3 merchandise has accounted for eight of the NASCAR.com Superstore’s top 10 best-selling items and it has led all other driver categories in sales. Within 36 hours of the announcement, the Superstore sold out of its second-highest priced item, a special die-cast car that came in a limited edition of 333, priced at $89.99. Initial projections from the licensees forecast close to $5 million in retail sales in a very tight program centered on the NASCAR Hall of Fame inductions on Sunday and Father’s Day. Royalties are shared by three teams: Earnhardt Jr.’s JR Motorsports, which initiated the idea and is building the car; Richard Childress Racing, which owns the rights to the No. 3 in NASCAR; and Dale Earnhardt Inc., the organization that manages Dale Earnhardt’s image and likeness. Merchandise is available trackside through Motorsports Authentics, as well as online at NASCAR.com and the teams’ websites. “There’s always some back-of-the-brain concerns about how a program will go, but clearly the fans have been very responsive,” said Mike Brown, RCR’s vice president of licensing. Because of the rights issues, it took the combined efforts of those three organizations to recreate the yellow and blue car that Dale Earnhardt made famous while driving it from 1981-87. During that stint, Dale Earnhardt was the lead in Wrangler’s “One Tough Customer” ad campaign, giving root to the relationship between the jeans maker and the Earnhardt family that’s in its 30th year. Wrangler maintains a personal-services agreement with Earnhardt Jr. and uses him heavily in its advertising, but it has not previously appeared as a primary sponsor on a car from JR Motorsports. “We went into the season with some unsponsored cars, and the message from Dale was to do something that’s meaningful with partners that have been good to us,” said Joe Mattes, vice president of licensing and marketing at JRM. “Dale said he’d do this if it was about his dad. If we were just going to paint the car, he didn’t want to do it. With Senior going into the Hall of Fame this year, it made sense to honor him.” In order to assemble the rights necessary, JRM needed cooperation from RCR and DEI. Mattes worked with Kelley Earnhardt, Dale Jr.’s sister and JRM’s general manager, to pitch the theme of “Family. Honor. Tradition,” which was presented to Wrangler and the other teams. “With Dale’s induction this year, plus a chance to do something with a 30-year sponsor, that’s what made this special,” said Jeff Steiner, executive vice president at DEI. “It took all three teams coming together and working in a nontraditional way to make this happen.” Earnhardt Jr. had not had anything to do with DEI, his former place of employment, since his messy and contentious departure in 2007, when he left the DEI shop to drive for Hendrick Motorsports. The biggest challenge to the Wrangler deal was getting Earnhardt Jr. and his stepmother, Teresa, to agree to work together. Teresa Earnhardt, Dale Earnhardt’s widow, runs DEI, and her split with Earnhardt Jr. in 2007 was the start of DEI’s downfall as a race team. DEI later merged what was left of the race operations with Chip Ganassi Racing. “Teresa said it was about a tribute to Dale,” Steiner said. That they got together on a deal “probably surprised some people. I’m sure it raised a few eyebrows, but it was fully supported by her. Teresa has been very engaged.” JRM serves as the licenser of record, with royalties flowing through the team and then dispersed to DEI and RCR. Dale Earnhardt Jr. pits with 'broken' car at Dover Dale Earnhardt Jr. thought something on his car was broken shortly before the halfway point of the Autism Speaks 400 at Dover International Speedway. But when his team took a look on pit road, there was nothing broken and about seven laps clicked away while he was on pit road on the green flag. It’s not unusual for a driver to believe something is wrong with his car when it isn’t. The Hendrick Motorsports driver told his crew that the car wouldn’t turn in turns 1 and 2 and that it felt like something in the steering was broken. He told his crew he was coming in to pit right away. But after going under the hood, the team couldn’t find anything wrong with the car, and a few laps later, Earnhardt Jr. was running consistently fast laps. “There was nothing to be fixed,” a dejected crew chief Lance McGrew said afterward. “Nothing.” Earnhardt Jr. ended up 10 laps down in 30th, dropping four positions to 16th in the standings. "There's a bunch of marbles on the race track down there and I was on the inside," Earnhardt Jr. told SBNation.com. "We got the green and I hit those [marbles] and the car went straight. We'd been dragging the splitter all day in the corner coming off of [Turn] 4, and the car just went straight like it had a flat tire. "We'd been so loose before that, I figured something must be [messed] up and broke on it. That thing drove like it was … broke in half." Earnhardt Jr. to reach Make-A-Wish milestone In specific terms, the wish is simple -- meet Dale Earnhardt Jr., share a few laughs and stories, ask questions like "What is your favorite hobby?" or "What video games do you play?" and enjoy a NASCAR experience that on any other weekend would come through a television. In broader terms, the wish is even simpler -- escape reality. And through Make-A-Wish Foundation over the past decade, Earnhardt Jr. has helped kids diagnosed with life-threatening medical conditions do just that by giving his time at the track each weekend with a Make-A-Wish family. Earnhardt Jr. began his relationship with Make-A-Wish Foundation in 1999 as a driver in the Nationwide Series. More than 10 years later, the driver is closing in on his 200th wish granted, a milestone shared only by a handful of America's top athletes. Earnhardt Jr. will facilitate No. 200 at Charlotte Motor Speedway during All-Star Race weekend. "To meet these kids and families is a privilege," Earnhardt Jr. said. "A lot of times the Make-A-Wish meeting is the best part of the whole weekend. It's amazing that when you talk to the kids and learn about their lives, you learn a lot about yourself as well." To commemorate Earnhardt Jr.'s 200th wish milestone, AMP Energy and the National Guard have donated the hood of the No. 88 Chevrolet to The Dale Jr. Foundation for the All-Star Race on May 22. The predominantly black paint scheme was designed by Earnhardt Jr., and it prominently features the logo of The Dale Jr. Foundation. "I want to thank AMP Energy and the National Guard for donating the hood of the car," Earnhardt Jr. said. "It's their advertising space, they pay for it, and for the second year in a row they were gracious enough to give us prime location on the car and help bring exposure to my foundation and the charities we support, like Make-A-Wish. I think the fans will embrace the paint scheme and help us continue to grant wishes for kids dealing with these medical setbacks, whether it's sending them to Hawaii, hiking the Grand Canyon, or getting a computer to stay connected with their friends. Whatever they want, they should get." In conjunction with the All-Star paint scheme, TDJF is ramping up fundraising initiatives and calling on fans to raise awareness and money for Make-A-Wish Foundation. The Dale Jr. Foundation will make a donation to the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Central and Western North Carolina from its sale of the 2010 NASCAR Day pins, as well as from sales of the 1:25 scale die-casts and T-shirts of the All-Star paint scheme. Additionally, The Dale Jr. Foundation is honoring the 200th Wish celebration by hosting a special All-Star Race hospitality event exclusive to members of the JR Nation Crew, Earnhardt Jr.'s free-of-charge fan club. The hospitality is sponsored by Suave Men and AMP Energy and features a pre-race appearance by Earnhardt Jr. It also includes food, drink, pre-race pit tours, pre-race access to the Creed concert, race tickets in Grand National Tower, souvenir gift bag, and the opportunity to win raffle prizes. The package is valued at $400 but sold exclusively to JR Nation Crew members at $188. Proceeds from the ticket sales will benefit TDJF and Make-A-Wish Foundation of Central and Western North Carolina. To become a member of JR Nation totally free of charge, visit www.jrnation.com. Junior wrecks 1 car, bangs up backup at Darlington Dale Earnhardt Jr. has disliked Darlington Raceway since his 2000 rookie season debut. A good car quickly went bad, Earnhardt crashed, then worried he’d never make a career as a driver if he couldn’t handle NASCAR’s oldest superspeedway. “He’s like all but ready to quit, it’s that bad, it’s like ‘There’s no way I can race here a million times,’ “ crew chief Lance McGrew said Earnhardt told him Friday about that 40th-place debut. When the problem was eventually traced to the car, not the driver, Earnhardt’s spirits lifted. “He was all excited. Here is ready to quit, go get a desk job at a dealership,” McGrew said. Problem is, Earnhardt’s comfort level at the 1.366-mile egg-shaped superspeedway has never been very good and it didn’t change after a rocky pair of practice sessions Friday. NASCAR’s most popular driver wrecked his primary car on the second lap of practice, moved into his backup, then scraped the wall with that Chevrolet. “I’ll probably hit it a bunch more before the weekend is over with,” he grinned. “I don’t know man, this place is probably the catalyst for my retirement one day. I’ll probably come here when I’m 45 and run a race and say, ‘The hell with it.”’ In reality, Darlington isn’t that bad of a track for Earnhardt. He’s got seven top-10 finishes in 15 career starts, and a 15.1 average finish. From 2004 through 2008, his lowest finish was 11th. “He’s got a lot of good finishes here,” McGrew said. “If you really look at it, almost every finish he has is in the top 13. It’s just a place he’s never been comfortable. Some people deal with it, some people don’t.” Earnhardt has to deal with it this weekend, his first race since an awful 32nd-place finish at Richmond last Saturday. It dropped him to 13th in the standings and temporarily out of contention for the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. Earnhardt Jr. brushed off questions about his Richmond struggles, “I’m just the driver. Go in there and talk to Lance,” and said he’d moved on from what turned out to be a disastrous race. McGrew accepted responsibility for poor strategy, but said he’s not that worried about where Earnhardt is in the standings right now. Darlington is the final track where the two have not worked together before—McGrew was named crew chief midway through last season—and he’s got notes to rely on the remainder of the season. Besides, Earnhardt is only four points behind Clint Bowyer for 12th-place in the standings right now. “One race and you could go back to fifth,” McGrew said. “It’s so close right now that the arbitrary 12 number is not really concerning. It’s the total points number that bothers me. If we have a good race here, run in the top 10, it will take care of itself.” One-time deal honors father, family and fans The sun was riding high in a cloudless blue sky, shining down with an intense brightness. But that was not what was causing onlookers to squint and rub their eyes as they arrived Thursday afternoon at the headquarters of JR Motorsports. Nor was it the sharp No. 3 Wrangler-sponsored Chevrolet race car wrapped in yellow-and-blue colors, gleaming in the sunlight. Nope, it was the fact that just a few feet away from the car sat a group of NASCAR luminaries -- and, lo and behold, there sat Teresa Earnhardt and Dale Earnhardt Jr. on stools right next to one another. Sure, it was impressive that to their immediate left also sat car owner Richard Childress and Kelley Earnhardt, who more or less runs JR Motorsports. But once eyes locked on Mother Teresa (we use the term very loosely here) and Junior, former combatants in an ugly split that resulted in Junior driving away from the racing business founded by his legendary father and namesake, it was for at least a moment or two as if nothing else around them even existed. Had they really pushed all differences aside to make this help make this happen? The short answer is yes. The car -- accurately described as "bad-ass" by JR Motorsports public relations man Mike Davis -- is a replica of the No. 3 Wrangler car driven throughout much of the 1980s by the late Dale Earnhardt, Junior's father and a member of the inaugural induction class to the NASCAR Hall of Fame. The idea behind the unique joint venture between JR Motorsports, what remains of Dale Earnhardt Inc., and Richard Childress Racing is to honor the elder Earnhardt's induction into the Hall by running the car in a one-time only deal in the July Nationwide race at Daytona International Speedway. Junior also ran the No. 3 that his father drove at Daytona in February of 2002 -- when he raced it to a Nationwide victory not quite one year after his father's death their during an accident in the 2001 Daytona 500. "The Wrangler car is definitely one of the top 10 coolest cars that have ever been on the race track," Earnhardt Jr. said. "A lot of people identify with it, and I can't think of a better way to celebrate my Dad's induction in the Hall of Fame than to bring the Wrangler colors back with the No. 3 on the side." A little history The ball got rolling on this rare collaborative effort when Junior and sister Kelley sat down and started talking about ways to honor their father's induction in the Hall. They first approached Wrangler about putting their colors on the car for the July Nationwide race in Daytona. About a month later, Junior said he walked back into the office to discover that not only was that deal done, but that Kelley also had involved Teresa Earnhardt, who still sits at the head of DEI; and Richard Childress, who still owns the No. 3 number in NASCAR and has been very guarded, rightly so, about letting folks use it. Soon thereafter, they actually had the car worked up for Earnhardt Jr. to look over. It passed Junior's careful inspection with flying yellow-and-blue colors. "I think it's a neat idea. I really love the car. I love being able to take it to the race track and put it in front of the fans -- for those who recognize it and for those who will see it for the first time. It should be a lot of fun," Earnhardt Jr. said. The elder Earnhardt drove the car from 1981 through 1987, winning two Cup championships in it. Childress was asked Thursday how he came upon pairing Earnhardt up with the "iconic 3," arguably the most famous number in NASCAR history along with the No. 43 run by fellow seven-time champion driver Richard Petty. Childress' answer was not what many in the audience expected. "I always knew it was Dale Earnhardt who made the number famous, and that's the reason it's not going to be run in the Cup Series and I have no plans to run it in the Cup Series -- although you never say never. Maybe one of our grandchildren or something will run it some day," Childress said. "I got the number from [fellow owner] Ray Fox way back when. I wanted a single-digit number. It cost more money to paint two of 'em on the car, so it was cheaper to put the No. 3 on the car. Junior [Johnson] had driven it and [Charlie] Glotzbach, so the number already was fairly well-known. I drove it, too, but I didn't do it justice. We put it on the car with Dale and he made it famous -- and the Wrangler 3 was where we started out." What's next? Now the famous Wrangler 3 will soon be on the track again, although everyone involved stressed this is a one-time deal only. "I do like the way the car looks. I'm going to be excited to be out there on the race track with the car," Earnhardt Jr. said. "I hope the fans really enjoy the moment. Once that weekend is over, we don't really have any plans to do this again. Hopefully it's enjoyable for us, too, as a family and for me as a driver." The family was there in full force Thursday, including the elder Earnhardt's mother and Junior's grandmother, Martha. To say it was all hugs and kisses might be a stretch, but it was at least half-hearted half-hugs and photo opportunities that many assumed might never see the sunlight of day again. Junior posed for several with Teresa Earnhardt, who kept to her usual habit of not having a whole lot to say before taking off back to the refuge of DEI -- where the annual Dale Earnhardt Day was in full celebration on what would have been her husband's 59th birthday. Since the merging of the DEI race team with Chip Ganassi Racing, what's left of DEI is the preservation of Dale Earnhardt's legacy. Teresa tries to manage that through many ways, including lending her husband's famous name -- and nickname -- to a new roller coaster at Carowinds amusement park called "The Intimidator." There also is the Official Dale Earnhardt Fan Club and what DEI is calling "Club E, the ultimate fan experience." And now this, with the Wrangler 3 coming back to the track. Teresa Earnhardt denied that it was a reemergence or reinvention of the famous brand that was her husband. "That's what we do at Dale Earnhardt Inc. We continue Dale's legend through our legacy program, and this is part of the diversification that we've been talking about for years. There are some new things coming," Teresa Earnhardt said. But for all other recent efforts, Teresa did not have to work closely with her stepchildren -- with whom relations have been somewhat frosty, to say the least, in recent years. This time, they put all past differences aside and got something done that was, as Earnhardt Jr. put it, "a pretty cool collaboration." Kelley Earnhardt insisted it wasn't as difficult as some might assume. "Everybody has worked very well together. I think as long as we keep the goal in mind of honoring our Dad, we all tend to overcome whatever we might be holding onto to put this all together," Kelley Earnhardt said. "Everybody is on board with it. "Honoring my Dad is something we can all come together on, and it's important. ... Focusing on the reason we're doing this, and the reason we announced it on Dale Earnhardt Day, that was enough." So come July in Daytona, Dale Earnhardt Jr. will roll out for the Nationwide in the special car -- a Richard Childress Racing entry, but one that was built by Hendrick Motorsports and will have a Hendrick motor in it. And even Teresa Earnhardt, who still doesn't seem to smile very much (at least not during her rare public appearances), should have reason to do so for at least one rare evening. "We're just so fortunate that the timing was what it was, and that we had the sponsorship window for Wrangler to come in like they did," Earnhardt Jr. said. "It doesn't really happen in this day and age of sport, where you have all kinds of high-dollar contracts that stipulate all kinds of guidelines. It's rare that you can patch something together just for kicks. Yet that's what we were able to do." It was for more than kicks, though, and Junior knows so. It was for the memory of a husband and father -- and for all the others in the racing world who adored him. EARNHARDT JR. TO DRIVE REPLICA OF FATHER'S NO. 3 AT DAYTONA Dale Earnhardt Jr. will drive a replica of his father's No. 3 Wrangler Chevrolet in the Nationwide Series race at Daytona in July. The car unveiling was done Thursday at JR Motorsports on what would have been the seven-time NASCAR champion's 59th birthday. He was killed in a 2001 accident at Daytona, and his number has not been used in the Sprint Cup Series since. Earnhardt Jr. drove the No. 3 twice in 2002 in NASCAR's second-tier series, and Richard Childress, who controls the number, is allowing his grandson, Austin, to use it in the Truck Series this season. "This was an idea that came up as a way to pay tribute to my dad," Earnhardt Jr. said. "The Wrangler car is definitely in the top-10 of coolest cars that have ever been on the race track. A lot of people identify with it, and I can't think of a better way to honour my dad and celebrate his induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame than to bring the Wrangler colours back with the No. 3 on the side." Earnhardt will be inducted as part of the inaugural Hall of Fame class on May 23. The idea to bring the No. 3 back was a collaborative effort between Earnhardt Jr., who will use a car from JR Motorsports, Teresa Earnhardt, who controls her late husbands' legacy, and Richard Childress Racing, the team Earnhardt drove for during the bulk of his career. The appearance together Thursday was the first time Earnhardt Jr. has been in public with his stepmother since announcing in 2007 he was leaving Dale Earnhardt Inc., the team his late father started but had been run by Teresa Earnhardt since his death. Asked how things might be different if her father were still alive, Earnhardt's sister, Kelley, said the DEI relationship would still be going on. "If he was here, I'm pretty sure we'd all still be together ... Dale Jr. would have never left DEI," Kelley Earnhardt said. Dale Earnhardt Jr. finding new ways to engage fans on Internet A technophile who spends as much time clicking a mouse as turning a wheel, Dale Earnhardt Jr. didn't need much convincing when his sponsor expanded its fan outreach online. But Earnhardt said it's not solely a love of computers that turned him onto AmpUpThe88.com, which was launched this season as a website designed to connect NASCAR's most popular driver to his legions of fans through video chats and blogs. "Fans like seeing you face to face, but I felt they got more out of the online deal than at autograph sessions," he said. "There, the fan feels a little rushed and shortchanged, and there's a lot less of a personal connection. (The chat) was a lot more relaxed." Earnhardt was candid and comfortable enough to have his dog, Killer, wander in front of the camera during a February chat, and that's not been the only guest. The sessions also have included crew chief Lance McGrew and other team members, such as spotter T.J. Majors (who has a popular Twitter account — @tjmajors). Earnhardt's sister, Kelley (who co-owns his Nationwide team), will be on the site Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. ET, and Sprint Cup team owner Rick Hendrick will be featured May 12. Jeff Filiberto, senior marketing manager for AMP Energy, said the site promotes the sponsor while satisfying the fans' voracious appetite for information about Earnhardt. "If you're a part of Junior Nation, we feel this is the place you have to go each week to be fully up to speed," Filiberto said. "We can take advantage of all the great things the digital age and social media provide. The fans expect you to be there." One of the most notable NASCAR holdouts from Twitter is Earnhardt Jr. But the most popular driver says the success of video-chatting on the AmpUpThe88.com makes it "tempting" to get involved with Twitter. "There's just some barrier there keeping me from doing it at this moment," he said. "I won't say I'll never try it or get into it, but I watch some of these other athletes in other sports, and there is a self-control that you lack. I'm not sure I want to get in there and find out whether I got that or not." During a day of filming last week at his Hammerhead Studios production facility in Mooresville, N.C., Earnhardt discussed social networking and how it relates to his career: Q: So why the worry over being on Twitter? Dale Earnhardt Jr.: It's like when you get out of the car, and you need a moment to get your (stuff) together before you say something into the camera that you shouldn't say. When you've got that cellphone sitting there at any point during the day, Wednesday at 9 p.m. if someone (ticks) you off or you got bad news, it's so easy to jump on there and want to throw a pity party for yourself. You just can get into trouble. There's no tone that comes across in what you're saying. Q: Is it wanting to protect some parts of your life as someone famous? Dale Earnhardt Jr.: I'm not really worried about the privacy part of it. It's just sticking your foot in your mouth and being misconstrued the wrong way. I just feel like knowing myself personally, I might make the mistake of saying something in the heat of the moment or out of that frustration that I regret. Once you do that (on Twitter), there's no taking it back. At the track, it's not too bad. But you have that social networking avenue 24 hours a day, and I'm in front of the computer a lot. It's real easy at the track to handle it yourself. And sometimes you use it as an opportunity, too. You use the media as an opportunity. That's what you guys are there for is for us as drivers to be able to say what we want to say. It's got a time and place, and where it's at right now for me is perfect. Q: Did it take a while to get accustomed you to composing yourself when getting out of a car before you talked to the media? Dale Earnhardt Jr.: I think it's something you learn through trial. I remember when I was in the Busch Series making quotes and comments that were stupid. I look back now and think about how much I've learned. How much you've grown up a little bit. The one time I called Todd Bodine a cue ball-headed fool. That was funny and all, but looking back I didn't really know Todd well enough. He'd been around quite a long time. I look back now and think, 'Hell, I'd only been in the sport for a couple of years and probably should have had a little more respect.' I look back and watch a lot of videos from those races, and I appreciate my energy and excitement for being there, but I was just showing off. I was (ticked) off that we wrecked and he wrecked me, but I was showing off a little bit when I was saying those words. I should have had a little more respect for him. Q: You said the online chats can be a better avenue for interacting with fans than autograph sessions. How has that changed over the course of your career? Dale Earnhardt Jr.: I remember going to a dealership in Virginia when I was racing Late Models at Myrtle Beach, S.C. I sat and signed autographs til the last person left. I think it was seven hours. You just had all the time in the world. I drove myself up there and drove myself home. Back then, even racing the Busch Series, you just had more time to do it. Now you have something going on every day of the week. You feel like you're trying to get through everything. There's a lot less of a connection mentally, and a lot less personal feel to each individual in the line. With the online stuff, it's obviously not a face-to-face meeting but a much more comfortable setting because I'm in a place where I was in my office and felt candid. The fans were watching from their living room. It was a lot more relaxed. Q: Do your crewmembers enjoy having fans get to know them through the chats? Dale Earnhardt Jr.: I think they enjoy it. It's like when I was first doing those things. You always get done and say, 'That was fun. I wish I'd known what it was going to be like, I would have been more candid.' There was an awkwardness at first, and they got more comfortable as it went on. The more you do it, the more comfortable you are. They enjoyed it. I feel like they enjoy somebody hearing their side of it. It's rare they get the opportunity to have a platform to stand on and anybody to listen. Wrong move, wrong time: Dale Earnhardt Jr. finishes 13th On the first attempt at a green-white-checkered finish of the Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Superspeedway, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was in solid position, running fourth. By the time the third green-white-checkered started, the Hendrick Motorsports driver was seventh. And by the end of the race, he was 13th on Sunday afternoon. Losing that many spots late in a restrictor-plate race isn’t typical Earnhardt Jr., but he and Stewart – who had worked so well together to get to the front – didn’t work together over the final laps. “When it counted at the end, we just didn’t make the right moves,” said Earnhardt Jr., who made nearly all the right moves in the Daytona 500 to finish second in the previous restrictor-plate race. “The bottom line didn’t go very good and that last restart cost us a few more spots. “I’m pretty happy to come out of here in one piece with all of those green-white-checkereds. A lot of cars [were] tore up.” Earnhardt Jr. said he took full responsibility for the late-race moves even though he called it a “lottery” when it gets down to the finish. “I was hoping me and Tony Stewart were going to hook up there and get to settle it between ourselves, but we got shuffled around late on a couple of those restarts and split up,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I was wanting to work with him pretty bad because I feel like me and him know what we are doing when we work together we seem to have good results. “Tony went to the outside of the No. 16 [of Greg Biffle] and I didn’t want to go up there, he was running him up the track. So I was like, ‘All right, I’m going through the middle.’ I had pushers pushing me.” But then Earnhardt Jr. got shuffled back and wound up 13th. He dropped a spot to eighth in the Sprint Cup standings and has a 75-point cushion on 13th-place Carl Edwards. “It is a lottery, points racing – racing for a championship shouldn’t be a lottery,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “These races here are lottery picks. You make your own luck. [Kevin] Harvick deserves a lot of credit for doing what they did to win the race. … It is not really about someone’s car handling better or somebody’s motor being better. “The cars might as all be kit cars for these two races.” Earnhardt focused on strong finishes There was once a time when every move Dale Earnhardt Jr. made in a restrictor-plate race was the right one. He could slice his way through the field, drive to the front whenever he wanted, and was always the guy to beat at Daytona and Talladega. That four-year stretch netted Earnhardt seven victories at NASCAR’s two fastest tracks, and gave him a confidence and air of invincibility. It’s been over five years, though, since Earnhardt last won a plate race. And though he’s still considered a contender every time he climbs into his car, he’s rarely called the favorite anymore. Then came the season-opening Daytona 500, when for at least two laps, the old Earnhardt was back. He steamrolled his way from 10th to second with a series of jaw-dropping moves, falling just short of running down winner Jamie McMurray. “At the end of that race, I just made enough of the right decisions,” Earnhardt said Friday. “If I’d made a couple more—maybe I made a few wrong decisions that cost me the win—and maybe if I had done things just a little differently, we’d be holding the trophy at the end of that race.” Earnhardt understands why his Daytona drive received so much attention because just like his ardent fan base, he too saw a flash of how things used to be for NASCAR’s most popular driver. “I did,” he nodded, “I did.” So he’s not surprised at the growing anticipation from a victory-starved Junior Nation that is desperately hoping Sunday’s race at Talladega Superspeedway is going to be another display of, to borrow from Earnhardt’s personal vocabulary, “awesomeness.” Earnhardt, fresh off an eighth-place finish in Monday’s rain-rescheduled race at Texas, is tempering the expectations. Performance is as much about skill as it is the quality of race car, and Earnhardt said the current rules package leaves him at the mercy of his No. 88 Chevrolet. “It’s no disrespect to the cars that I’ve drove in the past, but even people close to me have said I need to be more aggressive,” Earnhardt said of the mantra born out of the Daytona 500 finish. “You can’t be aggressive when you’re going backward. You can’t be aggressive when you’re trying to sitting there trying to hang on. When the car’s good, I can do that, and I’m willing to do that. I get fired up and see opportunities and see the win standing there in front of me, and I can get aggressive. Every driver is that way when they smell that opportunity.” But when the car is only mediocre? “Beating on everybody ain’t going to do nothing but make you a bunch of enemies. So you’ve just go to ride it out,” he said. “When you’re playing offense all day long? It’s easy to look cool and drive on the edge and get everybody up on their feet. But when you’re just hanging on and trying not to wreck and stay out of everybody’s way, it’s difficult to be aggressive and wild and flashy or whatever.” Of course, he’d prefer to run 500 miles at full speed with his eye only on the checkered flag. He can’t do that, though, during what’s considered to be one of the most critical season’s of his career. Earnhardt must rebound from last year’s embarrassing campaign, when he finished 25th in the final standings at the same time his Hendrick Motorsports teammates swept the top three spots. He was winless, had just five top-10s and went into the offseason as the top priority for team owner Rick Hendrick. Now eight races into this year, he’s already grabbed three top-10 finishes and is seventh in the standings. Still, his winless streak has stretched to 65 races, dating back to Michigan in June 2008. He badly needs a win, but isn’t circling Sunday at Talladega, where he’s a five-time Cup winner, as a must-win race. “I am anxious to win wherever we can win,” he said. “I don’t really put more emphasis over Daytona or Talladega or any other track. Wherever we can pick up a win, it will be just as celebrated and appreciated as any other race.” But winning isn’t going to be the primary goal this Sunday or any other race. The big picture right now is making the Chase, and Earnhardt is focused on what he’s got to do to be one of the 12 drivers eligible to race for the Sprint Cup title at the end of the season. “I’ve just really been trying to race every lap and every track with the mindset of trying to gain as many points each week as we can to add to the total and give ourselves that chance to finish in the Chase,” he said. “The race itself is going to be a real hard one to win, but I feel like we can be up there in the mix and if we don’t win, we can at least get a finish that helps us in the points.” Dale Earnhardt Jr.: Things fine with crew chief Lance McGrew A testy exchange between Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Lance McGrew during Monday's Sprint Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway concluded with the driver lightly chiding his crew chief. "Don't take so much offense," Earnhardt said. "Just jot the (stuff) down and be done with it." The short transmission spoke volumes about their relationship. Ranked seventh in points heading into Sunday's Aaron's 499 at Talladega Superspeedway, NASCAR's most popular star says a major key to his rebound from a career-worst 2009 is the realization of separating the professional from the personal. "We don't have to be best friends," Earnhardt said of McGrew. "We actually get along really good. But there's not that urge to be friends first. "With (former crew chief) Tony (Eury) Jr., the No. 1 thing was the personal relationship, way ahead of the crew chief success. That's not there anymore, and I don't have to worry." A good example was Wednesday night. Though McGrew was invited to the grand opening of Earnhardt's new Whisky River bar in Jacksonville, Fla., the crew chief stayed in North Carolina to prepare the No. 88 Chevrolet for next week's race at Richmond. Though they've gone to dinner, McGrew said hanging out isn't necessary to performing well. "That's a lot of extra stress," McGrew said. "It's business. I listen to what he tells me, and I react accordingly. I don't want the fact we're going deer hunting or fishing to cloud that." The partnership with Eury Jr. was different. Earnhardt was in almost daily contact with his cousin (who remains a best friend, confidante and business partner as a co-owner of JR Motorsports), and they shared outside interests (such as attending boxing matches together). With McGrew, who replaced Eury 10 months ago, Earnhardt said "we talk out of necessity" in between being at the track. "That can be it," Earnhardt said. "We don't have to call and see what we thought about the Bobcats in the playoffs, none of that (baloney). It makes it easy." Not that he doesn't enjoy the Baton Rouge, native's company. "I have a lot of fun being around him in the truck and during practices," Earnhardt said. "We get to joking around so (darn) much, that's about all we do. He's never done anything that's gotten under my skin." That might surprise fans who heard him unleash a vulgarity-laden stream of invective at Bristol after McGrew pleaded with his driver "not to lay down." Earnhardt said such a conversation would have taken weeks to heal with Eury. "We would have had to call each other all week to make sure everything was cool," Earnhardt said. "People have to just believe me when I say that things are as good as ever." He knows firsthand because of McGrew's encouragement to take a vested interest in the team's fleet of Impalas. While working with Eury, Earnhardt says he "didn't give a (flip) if a car was new or not. I knew it was going to be great. When that was gone, now I've got to care." Earnhardt recently began e-mailing an evaluation after every race to McGrew, who is building a database his driver can study for each track (a practice embraced by Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson). McGrew said the duo's communication on preparing for a race still needs improvement, but he cited Texas, where Earnhardt led 46 laps and placed eighth, as an example of where Earnhardt's prior input made a difference. Earnhardt, though, gave as much credit to McGrew's offseason restructuring. "He made a lot of tough calls within the shop of moving people around," Earnhardt said. "He's doing everything I could ever ask. I have a ton of respect for that." For Earnhardt, baby steps back to competitiveness It seemed like a club meeting, with one member missing. Hendrick Motorsports didn't win last weekend's race at Phoenix International Raceway, but the finishing order easily reflected the organization's unparalleled depth -- Jeff Gordon in second, Jimmie Johnson in third, Mark Martin in fourth. It wasn't quite a full house, though, not with Dale Earnhardt Jr. coming home in 12th. It was a not-atypical roller coaster of an event for NASCAR's most popular driver, who endured a broken splitter brace and an ill-handling race car, but benefitted from the track position earned by crew chief Lance McGrew's late two-tire call to salvage another top-15 result. And yet, given where he finished relative to his teammates, Phoenix is just the kind of race that leaves the No. 88 faithful shifting restlessly in their seats. The denizens of Junior Nation are very, very tired of seeing their man perform as something as an undercard to Hendrick's three primary title contenders, to the point where you sometimes hear grumbles about favoritism -- the same thing you used to hear about Terry Labonte and Casey Mears, that old canard about how one driver in the Hendrick stable must be getting the worst equipment. Let's step back into the realm of the sane for a moment and realize that in no way would Rick Hendrick submarine his most valuable sponsorship asset, and remember that he restructured the team of Martin -- you know, the guy who finished as championship runner-up last season -- in an attempt to build more strength around Earnhardt. So if you're a fan of Dale Jr., let's dispatch with the half-baked conspiracy theories. Let's deal in reality. And let's do one more thing. Chill out. Yes, Tom Petty knew what he was talking about when he sang about waiting being the hardest part. No question, this now three-year-old Junior reclamation project has worn thin on people who have 88s tattooed on their deltoids. No question, it's been a frustratingly protracted process full of small gains and large setbacks. No question they're running low on options, to the point where even Earnhardt himself said in the preseason that if he can't get it done with this current group, he may not be able to get it done at all. But there's also no question that the corner the No. 88 team needs to turn to become a legitimate championship contender seems tantalizingly close at hand. Stop comparing him to his Hendrick teammates, and compare him to his own past results. Phoenix was Earnhardt's fourth consecutive finish of 15th or better. Take away the broken axel he suffered at Fontana, and he's placed no worse than 16th this year. Seven starts into the season, he's running more toward the front than the back. Thus far he's managed to avoid many of the devastating equipment failures that doomed him last season, likely a direct result of the de facto merger with Martin's program. He's 10th in Sprint Cup points, right in Chase contention, before a race at a Texas track where he scored his first career win. In college football terms, this feels like the 7-5 season between 1-11 and 10-2. The driver's outlook, while perhaps not rosy, isn't exactly bleak, either. "We have got a long way to go, I'll tell you that," he said. "We feel pretty confident about getting better, but we still feel like we have a lot to work and a lot more that we can do better. We definitely can be a much stronger race team. But we are seeing some good signs we are heading in the right direction. I am encouraged." Compare that to where he was a year ago, 16th in points and trending downward, a month away from the crew chief change -- McGrew replacing Tony Eury Jr. -- that would become the defining moment in a long, difficult season. No, he still hasn't won yet. He's still in a 64-race winless drought that followed a 77-race skid, still hasn't really put himself in a position to win since his electrifying final charge in the Daytona 500. But last season, you couldn't even imagine that No. 88 car winning. Victory Lane seemed a foreign concept to a vehicle that was always struggling or breaking down, to a driver that was too often too down on himself, to a team that would wind up 25th in the standings. Today? Seeing Earnhardt cross the finish line first would be far from a surprise. This is a much more cohesive and confident outfit, and the results show it, even if they're not yet the results that so many people want. Yes, it's very hard to get excited about finishing 12th. But if you're a fan of Dale Earnhardt Jr., and you have a memory that goes back beyond just this year's Daytona 500, then a 12th-place result ought to have you doing cartwheels. Because last year, they bust that splitter brace and everything very likely goes to hell. This year, they persevere and salvage a finish that keeps positive momentum intact. Still, prophets of doom abound. When it was revealed that Kasey Kahne would be joining the Hendrick fold beginning with the 2012 season, the kneejerk reaction among many was that Earnhardt would be out -- which isn't, and was never, the case. The inbox still occasionally fills with manifestos ranting on and on about how he isn't his father, and he'll never have the same kind of success that the old man did, and he ought to just go sell insurance or something. Given that only two men in NASCAR's long history have won seven championships, anointing him or anyone as the next Intimidator seemed somewhat of a reach to begin with. Even the well-meaning souls within Junior Nation have their despairing moments. Take, for instance, this Earnhardt fan I know. I don't want to embarrass him by using his name, so we'll just call him "my dad." Well, seeing all those Hendrick cars in the top four and Dale Jr. in 12th last weekend drove "my dad" crazy. He's a kind, sensible man, but he wants Earnhardt to drive an entire race in Johnson's No. 48 car, with Chad Knaus on the pit box, in order to get to the bottom of what's really going on. That seems perfectly reasonable to him. It's indicative of the depths these poor people have sunk to. This is a time for calm. Goodness know, it's tough to be patient, especially in this sport, where someone like Nationwide driver Kelly Bires -- competing for a team Earnhardt owns, ironically -- can get ousted after just five starts. But for Junior fans, patience is exactly what's needed. Twelfth place is a long, long way from the somewhat hopeless results turned in by this No. 88 team last year, where it felt like man would walk on Mars before Earnhardt would return to Victory Lane. Earnhardt is competitive again, something that's reflected in the standings. More importantly, the driver isn't at the end of his rope anymore. His fans shouldn't be, either. Earnhardt defends decision to replace Bires in No. 88 Kelly Bires' recent replacement at JR Motorsports for a Cup driver could have some young drivers slightly on edge about job security. Bires, competing in his fourth year in the series with one full time season in 2008, was released from the No. 88. Team officials cited chemistry problems and chose to put Daytona 500 winner and Cup veteran Jamie McMurray in the car for the next six races. And though he wasn't released, driver John Wes Townley at Richard Childress Racing was relieved of his duties in the No. 21 car now piloted by Cup driver and teammate Clint Bowyer. The lack of development time afforded to younger drivers, coupled with sponsors wanting television time only veterans can garner, can make for a frustrating situation for Nationwide regulars looking for lasting success. "Every driver has a different relationship with their team and their sponsors," James Buescher, who once drove for Braun Racing, a team designed to be a revolving door for Cup drivers, said. Buescher now drives the No. 1 car for James Finch. "So you take it race to race and season to season depending on what your situation is. "We always have an urgency to do good otherwise we wouldn't be all the way up in the Nationwide Series but we need to perform. This is a performance based industry." Dale Earnhardt Jr., owner of JR Motorsports, echoed those sentiments defending his company's decision to release Bires, a decision that came as a surprise to some after Bires was told he would be in the No. 88 for a full season. "A lot of deals in this garage have people going in with the best expectations, so I don't know how it looks any stranger than anything else that has happened in the past," Earnhardt said. "It just didn't work out. I like Kelly [Bires] a lot as a person and I do believe that with the right package and the right people that he could have success. He's shown that." The company-wide decision was made based on future plans for the team. "It just wasn't working out. There was no chemistry, and it was on the verge of going horribly wrong. I know that Bires was not really enjoying it," Earnhardt said. "I felt like where we are with our company, it's real delicate financially and you have to make sure that you make the right calls and you have to do them in a timely matter. We were definitely internally going down the wrong path. "It was unfortunate because like I said, I like Kelly a lot. Our program and him -- we just weren't clicking, we weren't getting along. I don't think you can really point any fingers at anybody, but we don't have the luxury of really being patient in this type of situation. I wish we did. Several years ago we did have the luxury. We were operating in quite a different scene and in a different situation -- you just don't have the luxury today. "We went through a lot of drivers, but we'll produce some good ones hopefully in the future. We're proud of what we've been able to do so far as a company. We're looking for the next Brad Keselowski, the next Jeff Gordon, whatever you want to call it. We're looking for that next guy." In the meantime, Colin Braun in the No. 16 Roush Fenway Ford is doing his best to meet the expectations set for him at Roush. "For us, we just have to finish races. In the first six races we only have one or two good finishes," said Braun, who has yet to campaign a full season of Nationwide racing but has two full Truck Series seasons under his belt. "Certainly in my situation we just have to go finish some races." With the experience Bires had, Earnhardt expected results. "He's been in the series for awhile," Earnhardt said. "It's not really like he needed to learn. We expected to plug him in right away and take off, but that just wasn't happening. He's been in the series for awhile, and he's not like some of these other drivers coming in without any experience whatsoever in the series." Looking to the future, Earnhardt is hoping Landon Cassill, driving the No. 7 in Saturday's race, will better fit the bill -- possibly full time next season in the No. 88. "If he can show us that we can get something going chemistry-wise, which I think they're doing pretty good here this weekend, I really hope Landon works out. There are drivers popping up there all the time," Earnhardt added. Although finding the long-term funding for aspiring drivers is typically the obstacle. "There are a lot of new variables in this environment, and they dictate who gets in and out of the car," Earnhardt said. "We're still trying to give those guys an opportunity and trying to convince who we need to that these guys need to get a chance to get in the car. Hopefully we'll see that happen with the No. 7 car. The perfect story for us would be to find somebody for the No. 7 car and have him in the No. 88 before the year is over, and have a plan to run him full time in the series next year." Charity ride, Earnhardt Jr.'s gift aid Victory Junction On May 1, for the 16th time in 16th years, Kyle Petty will climb on his motorcycle and begin a cross-country journey that, ultimately, will benefit children throughout the United States. Though Petty’s Charity Rides are once-a-year affairs, his commitment and generosity are relentless – and all the more poignant in that the death of his son, Adam, inspired the creation of Victory Junction Gang Camp, which the charity ride has supported since its opening in 2004. Adam Petty was 19 when he was killed in a crash during practice at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on May 12, 2000. Victory Junction, the monument to a vibrant life cut short, has served thousands of children with chronic and terminal illnesses since its opening. The children do not pay for the camp experience. That’s why fundraising is vital to its operation. That’s why Petty and approximately 200 friends and supporters will begin the 16th ride in Indian Wells, Calif., on May 1. That’s also why prominent NASCAR drivers are attracted to the charity. The latest is Dale Earnhardt Jr., who recently pledged $1 million to the camp to build the Dale Jr. Corral and Amphitheater at the camp in Randleman, N.C. “There are many reasons why we wanted to get involved with Victory Junction and build this amphitheatre, and it starts with the tremendous impact the camp has on these kids,” Earnhardt said at the groundbreaking late last month at Victory Junction. “It’s incredible how one week changes lives. Just as important to me is my friendship with Kyle and Pattie Petty, and the memory of my buddy, Adam Petty. “Adam and I met each other at an early age, and from that point on our lives and careers were virtually parallel. He was as genuine as they get and a great friend. If I can play a small part in helping Kyle and Pattie keep his dream alive, it doesn’t require a second thought.” Earnhardt’s gift was welcome news in an economy that has made fundraising more difficult and slowed the construction of a planned second camp in Kansas City, Kan. “When people ask, ‘How has the economy affected camp?’ the easiest answer to that is ‘How has it affected you?’ ” Kyle Petty said. “Most households have had to tighten the belt 10 or 15 percent, some a lot more than that. We’re about in the 15-20 percent range. The economy has slowed us down in Kansas City, because we were in the building stage there, so we really needed to be churning money there.” Accordingly, the importance of this year’s Charity Ride is magnified. Riders will raise awareness of the camp as they travel across the country – with overnight stops scheduled in North Las Vegas, Nev.; Richfield, Utah; Durango, Colo.; Amarillo, Texas; Texarkana, Texas; Choctaw, Miss.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; and Asheville, N.C. The ride will end May 9 in Randleman. “When you catch us on the road, it’s like a parade, with all the support vehicles and everything,” Petty said. “We’ve got two big trucks that haul bikes and a pace car that paces us. It almost looks like a parade coming through town. The only difference is, it’s a parade that goes about 400 miles a day.” The route changes from year to year, with input from the riders. “We know where we’re going to start and stop,” Petty said. “This year we chose to go down to Indian Wells in Southern California. Last year we started just above Portland [Ore.]. Where you start sort of dictates how you get across the country. We’re going up into Utah, because everybody wanted to go up back into Utah, and we’re going over to Durango, because we’ve been there a couple of times, and it’s a cool little city. “We going to haul the mail across North Texas, and then we decided to swing back down south. It’s almost like standing back and throwing darts at a board.” Though the route may change, the purpose remains constant—and that’s what ensures that Petty will keep on riding. For Dale Earnhardt Jr., Phoenix is a 'cool track' with some unique challenges If it’s indeed all about perspective, then Dale Earnhardt Jr. should be pleased with the progress his Hendrick Motorsports team has made during the past year. After all, a year ago Earnhardt Jr. headed to Phoenix International Raceway, site of Saturday night’s Subway Fresh Fit 600, 16th in points and 386 points behind leader Jeff Gordon. And it didn’t get a lot better. This time around, the 35-year-old finds himself 10th in points and just 159 behind championship frontrunner Jimmie Johnson. Earnhardt Jr. has been inside the top 10 in points for two weeks, is heading to a track that he’s won at twice before, and to a track the Hendrick organization has dominated in recent years. Johnson has won four of the last five races at PIR, and combined with wins by Mark Martin and Gordon, Hendrick teams are riding a six-race win streak at the 1-mile oval. It’s a track Earnhardt Jr. said he enjoys, but admits it can be difficult to hit the perfect setup there. “Phoenix is a cool track,” he said. “It’s challenging because both ends of the track are completely different. It’s tough to make a car work good there, but whoever can get through the corners is going to have a good night.” Crew chief Lance McGrew said the fact that the race begins in the afternoon and is run into the evening hours creates a different set of challenges for the crew. “Especially on the right side of the cars,” he said. “It’s harder to see lug nuts, so [crewmen] have gotten pretty inventive with LED lights on their helmets. “It’s a whole different set of challenges, but the good thing about it is that the balance of the car doesn’t change a whole lot from the beginning of the race to the end.” While he’s a two-time winner at Phoenix, those wins came in 2003 and ’04 with Dale Earnhardt Inc. So to say those aren’t relevant would be accurate. But Earnhardt Jr. is coming off a 15th-place finish at Martinsville, which followed a seventh-place run the week before at Bristol. Keeping that momentum going could result in another step forward for the team. McGrew said he likes what he’s seen so far, both from his driver and his crew, but said there are still areas where work needs to be done. “We haven’t been as fast at some tracks as we needed to be,” he said. What they have been able to do, though, is “get decent finishes out of a bad day, which we couldn’t do last year. “I’m not really sure if it’s [through] sheer will. Short of the axle problem we had in California (which left Earnhardt Jr. saddled with a 32nd-place finish), it’s been relatively seamless.” Waltrip: And what about Junior? Finally, Waltrip touched on one of his favorite subjects -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. When Earnhardt first signed with Hendrick Motorsports prior to the 2008 season, Waltrip was first in line to predict great results for the marriage. Waltrip, in fact, unabashedly predicted the day Earnhardt's new No. 88 Chevrolet was unveiled that he believed Earnhardt would win the next Daytona 500 and "at least" six races in 2008. Instead, Earnhardt has won just one in two-plus seasons and recently made news for getting embroiled in a spirited discussion with crew chief Lance McGrew over the radio during a race. In between a bunch of swearing by Earnhardt followed by an awkward silence, McGrew implored Earnhardt "not to lay down on him," which sent Earnhardt into another verbal rage that both he and McGrew later downplayed. Asked about it, Waltrip couldn't help bringing up the other Junior -- as in Johnson -- one more time. "You could be leading a race by a lap and slow down just a little, and Junior Johnson would be on that radio saying, 'Boy, you aren't laying down on me, are you?' Now that was motivation to me," Waltrip said. "It didn't require me coming back and saying, 'What are you talking about? Don't ever say that!' Every mule is different; some of them you got to hit with a stick and kick, and others you got to pat on the back. I guess maybe [Dale] Junior didn't take kindly to that. "Listen, expectations are so high with him that if he's not winning, the world's not right. I think they're taking baby steps to get him back to where he needs to be. I told Rick [Hendrick] this and I honestly believe this: I would run him in some truck races. He needs to get somewhere where he can win. "And I would get him a truck. Not a Nationwide car, a truck. They're fun to drive and you have a good time in the truck series most of the time. I would go talk to [Kevin] Harvick and ask him if I could drive that 2 truck. And then I'd go out and win me a couple races; I think that's what he needs. I think it would really help his confidence, and I think his fans would enjoy seeing him do that. I think it would be a win-win." Earnhardt in the Camping World Truck Series? Are you serious, DW? Yes, he is. "I think we've all been so hard on him and beat him up with those high expectations; we look at him always and see that he's got great teammates performing at a high level and wonder why he's not, and I think it's taken a toll on him," Waltrip said. "That's why I would try to find some positive things for him to do to help him get his spirit up and his confidence up." Asked about this possibility later, Earnhardt first grabbed his forehead as if he was attempting to ward off a wicked migraine. Then he seemed to remember who was suggesting this madness. Good ol' DW. "I like him. It's hard not to," Earnhardt said, who added that he has no intentions of following Waltrip's advice. "I just think he thinks out loud and doesn't have much of a filter. That's just kind of the way it's going to be." Amen, brother. It has been that way for nearly 30 years. 'TV Guide Magazine' offers NASCAR collector's issue TV Guide Magazine has partnered with NASCAR to create the TV Guide Magazine: NASCAR Special Collector’s Issue, the ultimate must-have collector’s guide for every NASCAR fan. The 88-page, special-interest publication will be sold online and on newsstands for two months beginning March 30. Capitalizing on the magazine’s unrivaled 50-plus years of television content, the TV Guide Magazine: NASCAR Special Collector’s Issue will feature unique content from NASCAR journalists, insider access, unparalleled insight, and the latest up-to-the-minute information and news features on NASCAR. Fans can purchase the issue at stores nationwide for $6.99. The guide also is available now on NASCAR.COM’s Superstore for $7.99 or free with a $50.00 purchase. “We are pleased to produce this special issue in association with NASCAR,” said David J. Fishman, TV Guide Magazine. “NASCAR is a strong brand with a loyal and vast community of fans that make the sport the second-highest rated regular-season sport on television. TV Guide Magazine’s latest special-interest publication ensures that all NASCAR enthusiasts are tuned in to the most up-to-date and insider news available.” “Our sport works hard to deliver the very best television programming, production, world-class broadcast partners and resources to best serve our fans, sponsors and continued growth,” said Paul Brooks, NASCAR senior vice president and president of NASCAR Media Group. “As fans ourselves, we know this is all about capturing the amazing racing that NASCAR drivers deliver every week for our fans. This TV Guide Magazine NASCAR issue is a terrific resource for our fans to further enjoy great racing every week, as well as unprecedented hours of programming now available every day of the year. We are proud of our partnership with TV Guide Magazine, who remains a welcome friend and American institution.” TV Guide Magazine: NASCAR Special Collector’s Issue offers fans the latest on the 62nd season, including: • It’s Showtime!—The first behind-the-scenes look at Showtime’s eye-opening new series, Inside NASCAR. The new weekly series delivers fast-paced, inside-the-cockpit commentary from the sleekest set yet. Take a look at what’s in store and meet the all-star talent set for center stage. ? Inside NASCAR: • Get with the program—Season predictions from FOX, ESPN, TNT, SPEED, and BET’s on-air experts. • Catching up with the past—The NASCAR Hall of Fame salutes 60 years of legends, history and spectacular success on a road well-traveled. Get the first detailed look at the soon-to-open NASCAR Hall of Fame. ? Hall of Fame: | • Leaders of the track—Who are the top-25 best Cup Series racers? • Rush to judgment—Get the latest road map to success in the 2010 Chase for the Sprint Cup. A graphic and statistical overview of each of the top-25 drivers in the Sprint Cup Series. • On tracks—Take a look at the venues that power the Cup Series. An overview of each of the NASCAR track venues, with insider map information. • Junior’s season on the brink—Dale Earnhardt Jr. is driving to win again, and putting last year’s struggles in the rearview mirror. An in-depth look at what Dale Jr. and his fans expect this season. • Switching gears—A special look at the debut of Danica Patrick on the stock-car scene. Can the Indy sensation generate the same heat in NASCAR? • Complete racing schedules—Details on all NASCAR television coverage. And much, much more! This collector’s issue is the fourth in a series of comprehensive and definitive single-topic, special-interest publications that TV Guide Magazine creates for fans of era-defining TV shows and events, high-profile actors and actresses, and pop-culture icons. Previous special-interest issues included publications devoted to Michael Jackson, Law & Order, and SpongeBob SquarePants. Junior more than happy to make trip to media center Dale Earnhardt Jr. had to admit it. Even to himself. He was happy to be back in the media center at Martinsville Speedway on Friday, facing a throng of questioners who wanted to glean as much information from him as possible. Heck, it was like old times. When he was reminded a few days earlier that he would be required to visit the media center because he's back in the top 12 in the Sprint Cup point standings, Earnhardt actually grabbed his forehead as if he felt a horrible headache coming on -- but then he pulled back and grinned. "I just got to watch my mouth, I guess," he said. Truth be told, although that is never all that easy for the free-talking Earnhardt, Friday's encounter with the media wasn't all that bad. And Earnhardt, now eighth in points, admitted that he could get used to the idea of being part of the weekly Sprint Cup media show again. His appearance Friday was his first as a member of the top 12 since the final race of the 2008 season, 41 races ago. "Honestly, I try not to say too much when I get in here, which never happens. [That's] 'cause I like to go on the Internet and not read about myself," Earnhardt said. "A couple of years ago, we were in the top 12 all the time and it was frustrating having to sort of [B.S.] your way through a top-12 media session when there was nothing to talk about. "But we would find something. That was what would be all over the news whether it was me talking about it or another driver." One of the hot topics Friday was Earnhardt's seeming resurgence, one he seems a little reluctant to endorse as legitimate at the moment. (He keeps insisting that there is still much work left to be done by his No. 88 Chevrolet team). Jeff Burton, for one, said it was good to see Earnhardt back in the top 12 and doing a regular media availability session. "Junior has a huge following in the sport," said Burton, who is seventh in points. "There are so many people that watch what he's doing. There is no way that having Dale Jr. doing well isn't good for the sport -- and to be honest, more importantly it's good for him. "I like Junior. I think he's a good race car driver who has had a lot of attention put on him over the past couple of years that wasn't good attention. It'd be good to see Junior having fun again, because the way things have been going he hasn't been having fun. Honestly, I think he's fun to talk to and he has a lot of respect for the sport. He's the kind of person that I like to see do well." Four-time defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, Earnhardt's teammate at Hendrick Motorsports, said that he believes Earnhardt is close to turning the corner, if he hasn't already. And he thinks he knows why. "From my perspective, he has always walked into meetings and applied himself and has been in a positive mood," said Johnson, currently third in points. "I tend to hear more outside of our environment about [his] lack of confidence than what I see for myself. I can also say with the changes made and really combining the No. 88 and the No. 5 cars -- the shops, the setups, the cars and all the stuff -- I think it has been good for him to have that mark, literally Mark [Martin], and that car to follow and chase and adapt to, and to come out of his comfort zone in some ways. "I saw where [crew chief] Lance [McGrew] jumped on him in the race last weekend. I think he is letting people push him and he is pushing himself in areas that are not comfortable and that's helping him a lot this year." Johnson reiterated what Earnhardt and McGrew already had emphatically stated -- that what went on between Earnhardt and McGrew during last Sunday's race at Bristol was not all that uncommon. Johnson said it was no different than the ways he sometimes exchanges race-day radio barbs with his own crew chief, Chad Knaus. Well, except for maybe several more swear words thrown in there by Earnhardt. But like many others in sports, that's simply his way of expressing himself in the heat of the moment. "I think it is good to be pushed and Chad does it to me," Johnson said. "He'll drive me freakin' crazy telling me to let off; I'm using the brakes too much. Do this, do that. As much as it annoys me and I hate to hear it, it is good to have that pressure. "I think that this year [Earnhardt] has put more pressure on himself. The fact that the two cars [the 88 and Martin's No. 5] are the same now, there is more inherent pressure through that and I think Lance is also applying more pressure. It is helping him continue down the road and develop and fall into our system better." Earnhardt said plainly that he is willing to do whatever it takes to sustain the success he's enjoying thus far this season -- and to start winning races again. He has won only one since joining Hendrick amid much fanfare prior to the 2008 season, and that was now 62 races ago in June '08 at Michigan. On Friday, Earnhardt admitted that he got a chuckle out of the media feeding frenzy that developed following Carl Edwards' recent deliberate wrecking of Brad Keselowski at Atlanta, and that he enjoyed watching it sort of from a detached distance. But then he admitted that he's happy to be back in the media fray, as long as that equates to his own team doing better. "I enjoyed last week and everything that went on with you guys. I was watching it from [afar], but I am glad to be in the top 12, so I will come in here every damn week if I have to," a laughing Earnhardt told the packed Martinsville media center. "As long as I can stay in the top 12. I remember that first year, I complained a lot to [public relations man] Mike Davis about having to do the top-12 media every week. But after this spell I have been in, I will put up with it." Earnhardt downplays Bristol radio rant Dale Earnhardt Jr. blamed his profanity-laced rant at Bristol Motor Speedway on frustration from a a speeding penalty. And being mad in the car, he figured, is a good thing. “You’re going to have days where you get a little hot on the radio and I haven’t really been hot on the radio in a long, long time,” Earnhardt said Tuesday during a test session at Charlotte Motor Speedway. “And we ain’t run worth a (crap) in a while, either. There ain’t been no reason to bitch and complain when you’re running like (crap).” Earnhardt, in the midst of a 62-race winless streak, had just cracked the top five in Sunday’s race when NASCAR flagged him for speeding on pit road. He vented over his radio for several minutes, and snapped at crew chief Lance McGrew’s attempt to calm him down. Some die-hard listeners to Earnhardt’s in-race radio speculated that Earnhardt was angry over McGrew, who at one point urged Earnhardt not to “lay down” the rest of the race—instructions that infuriated NASCAR’s most popular driver. Earnhardt quickly dismissed a potential driver-crew chief rift. “When we’re running pretty good and you can almost reach that top-five, or see yourself almost in a position to get a win, and it gets snapped away from you that quick, man, it’s hard to bite your tongue,” Earnhardt said. “Running my mouth, that’s my pop-off valve. It gives me a little bit of relief so I could get back to what I was doing. It’s open for interpretation, I guess. “Lance handled it pretty good. I was at no point mad at him. We haven’t really gotten into it since we started working together over anything. So we’ve got a pretty good balance between our personalities to keep us from doing that.” The penalty dropped Earnhardt to 26th, but he rallied to finish seventh and moved up five spots in the standings. Although Earnhardt was second in the standings after the season-opening Daytona 500, his current points position is the highest he’s been after consecutive races since he was eighth after Kansas in Oct., 2008. Team owner Rick Hendrick said following Sunday’s race he’s pleased with Earnhardt and the No. 88 team’s progress, and Earnhardt agreed that he likes the current direction. “I’m happy with how things are going in a positive manner and we’re doing better,” he said. “But we’re still real thirsty to get better. We had a top-five car Sunday, but we want to be better than that.” Frustration for Earnhardt The good news for Dale Earnhardt Jr. was that the driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet rescued a seventh-place finish after NASCAR sent him to the back of the field for speeding on pit road under caution on Lap 324 of 500. The better news is that the finish left Earnhardt, who missed the last year, eighth in the standings after five races. The heat of the battle and the frustration of the penalty, however, evoked a testy exchange between Earnhardt and crew chief Lance McGrew. "Don't you lay down on me, bud," McGrew insisted, after Earnhardt complained about the speeding call and told his crew chief the car was "pushing like a truck." "I can't lay down here -- this is Bristol," Earnhardt retorted. "I don't EVER [expletive] lay down. Don't say that ever again on the radio. Don't need the whole world hearing that." There was humor, however, to offset the occasional rancor. After a pit stop during which the jack wasn't dropped with customary speed, Earnhardt radioed to McGrew: "I felt like I was on a lift at a dealership when it was coming down on the left side -- it was so slow." If the song fits ... All 43 drivers chose songs to accompany their pre-race introductions. Perhaps most appropriate was Brad Keselowski's choice of I Won't Back Down by Tom Petty. Keselowski strode down the gangway to a waiting pickup truck to the lyrics "I'll keep this world from draggin' me down; gonna stand my ground." Carl Edwards, who wrecked Keselowski March 7 at Atlanta, got a mixed reception from fans when he was introduced to Ram Jam's Black Betty. Not unexpectedly, Earnhardt evoked the loudest response as he entered the speedway to Van Halen's Runnin' with the Devil. Earnhardt visits `Handy Manny' prime-time special The children's animated TV series "Handy Manny Big Race" is going prime time Saturday night with Dale Earnhardt Jr. NASCAR star Earnhardt voices the character of Chase Davis, who steps in to help Manny compete in the Wood Valley 500 auto race. The special, debuting at 7 p.m. EDT Saturday on the Disney Channel, stars Wilmer Valderrama as the voice of Manny. Earnhardt says he decided to participate in "Handy Manny" because his 4-year-old niece is a fan of the show. The Disney Channel series is designed to teach preschoolers about working together and problem-solving. The "Handy Manny" special also features a new song performed by Lance Bass, who voices the character of Elliot. Junior continues to be fast; Biffle forced to backup The good times kept rolling for Dale Earnhardt Jr. during Saturday's final practice session for Sunday's Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. One day after admittedly spending most of his practice time in qualifying trim and having that pay off with his first pole since April of 2008 -- 68 races ago -- Earnhardt remained wicked fast during Happy Hour with a top lap of 185.517 mph at the 1.54-mile track. The only one faster during the final tune-up session was Mark Martin, Earnhardt's Hendrick Motorsports teammate who posted the fastest lap of the day at 185.524 mph, making the circuit in 29.883 seconds -- just .001 quicker than Earnhardt's top lap. Rounding out the top 10 on the Happy Hour speed chart were Martin Truex Jr. (185.300 mph, 29.919); Paul Menard (185.232, 29.930); David Ragan (185.226, 29.931); Jeff Burton (185.158, 29.942); Marcos Ambrose (184.560, 30.039), Brian Vickers (184.542, 30.042); Clint Bowyer (184.517, 30.046) and defending race champion Kurt Busch (184.076, 30.118). It was Earnhardt, however, who turned the most heads in his No. 88 Chevrolet -- backing up his qualifying run with laps in race trim that indicate he likely will be a force Sunday. He is hoping to break a 60-race winless streak. Earnhardt's capturing of the pole Friday seemed even more remarkable in light of the fact that he struggled in qualifying at AMS last season, when he started 20th and 31st, respectively, in the two races at the venue. He finished 11th and 17th in those events. "A lot of things can change over a period of time and we've seen race teams completely change their identity almost in offseasons before," Earnhardt said. "I hope that's what we've been able to do." While Earnhardt was pleased with his qualifying and final practice effort, driver Greg Biffle had to overcome some adversity in his No. 16 Ford after slapping the wall during the last practice and being forced to go to his backup car. Biffle had qualified 13th for Sunday's race, but now will have to start at the rear of the 43-car field because of the change in cars. "I just got a little bit loose running the top," Biffle said. "The back end touched the wall and sucked the nose over right where they stopped the SAFER barrier. I hit right in the worst spot, where the wall was kinked out. I touched and it turned the car into where I hit the part of the wall that was jutting out and it just killed the car." The good news, according to Biffle, was that he was able to get out for the last portion of practice in his backup car and that he actually preferred the way that one drove over how his primary car had been handling. "Yeah, I'm really happy," he said. "To be honest with you, it couldn't have gone better. I got out with six minutes to go. The car drove really, really well and it drove better than my old car for that short run. I think we're gonna be pretty good." He is not alone. Earnhardt, among others, is very excited about his prospects in Sunday's race at a track where he has won previously. He won the spring race at AMS in 2004. Now he is aiming to corral another victory, which would be his first since capturing the June race at Michigan in 2008. He said he heads into the Kobalt Tools 500 not only at the front of the field, but also armed with an extra shot of confidence because of his pole-winning run in qualifying. "It builds a lot of confidence and I'm just hoping to see this type of difference over on the car Sunday," Earnhardt said. "I think it's just a matter of time. If we keep performing like this, it should start leaking over to our performance on Sundays -- and we can get to where we want to be as a race team." Earnhardt zooms to Atlanta pole; Busch on outside Hanging on to his car for dear life on one breathtaking lap, Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the pole for Sunday's Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway with the fastest lap in NASCAR's new car since its introduction in 2007. Earnhardt paced Friday's qualifying session at the 1.54-mile race track with a lap at 192.716 mph, good enough to edge 2008 race winner Kyle Busch (192.280 mph) for the top spot. Juan Montoya (192.106 mph) qualified third, followed by Mark Martin (191.814 mph) and Jeff Gordon (191.774 mph). The pole was Earnhardt's second at Atlanta, the ninth of his career, his first since April 2008 at Texas and his third since September 2002 at Kansas. Tempering his elation at qualifying first, however, was the knowledge that Earnhardt is suffering through a winless streak that reached 60 races last week at Las Vegas. "We're just hungry, so hungry to do much better on Sunday," said Earnhardt, who hasn't won since June 2008 at Michigan. "We qualified well in Vegas [fourth], and we were pretty happy to put ourselves in the middle of the company; we were around up there in the top 10. "To be able to do what we did [Friday night] means a lot to us, but we're starving for a good finish and something like this to happen on Sunday for us -- and that's really all we can think about." Kasey Kahne, Ryan Newman, Elliott Sadler, David Reutimann and Carl Edwards were sixth through 10th, respectively, in Friday's time trials. Busch, the 13th driver to attempt a qualifying run, was pleased with his lap and thought he had a chance at the pole, but Earnhardt went out four cars later and grabbed the top starting spot. "Pick your favorite off-ramp -- one of those round ones -- and drive it as hard as you can and see if it sticks," Busch said in describing a qualifying lap at the lightning-fast, bumpy speedway. "Here at Atlanta, after about 40 laps, it's like doing that off-ramp while it's raining. Good luck!" Four-time defending series champion Jimmie Johnson, who has won the past two Cup races, starts 16th. Notes-n-Nuggets • Dale Earnhardt Jr. posted his ninth career pole in 364th race. His last pole came 68 races ago at Texas in April 2008. • Dale Eanrhardt Jr. scored his second pole at Atlanta (November 2001) and his sixth on a 1.5 mile track. • Dale Earnhardt Jr. practiced 10th with a time of 29.471 seconds (188.117 mph), picking up more than seven-tenths of a second in time trials. • Dale Earnhardt Jr. has never won from the pole. • Hendrick Motorsports earned its fifth pole at Atlanta, with four different drivers. • Hendrick Motorsports earned its second pole of 2010; it led all teams with 12 in 2009. Earnhardt donates $1 million to Victory Junction Dale Earnhardt Jr. has donated $1 million to the Victory Junction camp for children with serious illnesses. The donation will be used to build The Dale Jr. Corral and Amphitheater at the camp that honors the late Adam Petty. Earnhardt made it to kick off Victory Junction’s “Keeping the Dream Alive” campaign. Petty was killed in 2000 during a practice session at New Hampshire International Speedway. He had a passion for trying to help seriously ill children, and his parents started the camp in his memory. Earnhardt says the donation was in memory of “my buddy, Adam Petty,” whom he called genuine and a great friend. Junior's gains Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s 16th-place finish wasn't very pretty considering his three Hendrick Motorsports teammates were inside the top five. But team owner Rick Hendrick was pleased with the progress from the No. 88 team, which is currently 15th in the standings. "We had a couple of bobbles in the pits with the pit crew," Hendrick said. "It seems like every time the car is good, the pit crew screws up. If the pit crew is on, the car, something breaks. So I feel they've made a ton of improvement. I think we're going to have a really good year. I'm looking forward to Atlanta." Earnhardt is coming off a horrendous 2009 season that saw him go winless and finish 25th in the final standings. Hendrick made an offseason commitment to get Earnhardt on pace with the other HMS cars, and Hendrick doesn't think the early results are indicative of how much progress has been made. Earnhardt broke an axle last week at Fontana and finished 32nd. Junior's momentum slowed by mechanical snag Mechanical problems relegated Dale Earnhardt Jr. to a 32nd-place finish in Sunday's Auto Club 500, breaking the momentum of his second-place run in the season-opening Daytona 500. Earnhardt finished 12 laps down after stopping for extensive repairs on Lap 183. "We tore up an axle or a drive plate -- one of the two happened first," Earnhardt said. "Down in the center of [Turns] 1 and 2, I just got back to the gas, and the car felt like it had a flat tire. I don't know. Something's going on there where we're chewing that stuff up and tearing it up. We've got to figure out why that's happening. They think it's a material issue, so we'll just have to see." Asked whether his team was sharing information with those of Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jimmie Johnson (Sunday's race winner), Mark Martin (fourth) and Jeff Gordon (20th), Earnhardt replied, "Of course we are. I can't build the cars. What do you want me to do? I just drive them." Earnhardt's winless streak reached 59 races since June 2008, his first season with Hendrick Motorsports. He has only one win the last 136 races. "Looking at the guys around the top 10, we should have been around that No. 16 car [Greg Biffle, who finished 10th] I think," Earnhardt said. "It was a tough day." Earnhardt knows 1 near-win only a good start Dale Earnhardt Jr. isn’t getting too excited about his late charge to a surprise second-place finish at Daytona. While Earnhardt admittedly enjoyed the ride—and the reminder of “what success or what doing something good feels like”—he knows a near-win one race into the season at a track where he’s been good before isn’t a sure indication that everything is right again. The No. 88 team needs more good finishes, and the next chance is Sunday at California. “I know I wouldn’t be able to really convince anybody that we were back or we are a strong team or had fixed anything until we come to these kind of tracks and run good at them,” Earnhardt said. After the season-opening Daytona 500, the restrictor plates are off and it’s time to get on the kind of tracks that dominate the 36-race championship season. First comes the 2-mile speedway at California, then the 1 1/2 -mile Las Vegas track next weekend. “Everybody in the garage kind of feels like this is the start of the regular season. Daytona is so different than every other kind of racing that we do and of course it’s the Daytona 500,” said Jimmie Johnson, the four-time Sprint Cup champion and California native who has won four times at his home track. “Everybody is really interested and anxious to understand where we are with the cars.” Jamie McMurray followed up his whirlwind week of interviews and appearances as the Daytona 500 champion by qualifying on the pole, giving Earnhardt Ganassi Racing a front-row sweep. Juan Pablo Montoya starts alongside McMurray after qualifying second, with Clint Bowyer and Kasey Kahne in the second row. Earnhardt starts 27th at Auto Club Speedway, where his best finish in 16 races was runner-up to Kahne in September 2006. At Daytona, Earnhardt came out of nowhere to almost steal the win during NASCAR’s version of overtime. He was 22nd on the first attempt at a green-white-checker finish and moved into 10th place before another caution set up another restart, and he charged to McMurray’s bumper. “Things just kind of worked out. All the runs and all the pushes and all the holes just worked out and lined up perfectly for us,” Earnhardt said. “I got more text messages and phone calls about those last few laps than I did when I won the damn race. I really enjoyed that.” Earnhardt, the 2004 Daytona 500 champion and a winner there in July 2001, still has a 58-race winless streak and has won just once his last 135 races. That win was in June 2008 during his first season with the Hendrick Motorsports team that also includes Johnson and Jeff Gordon, who knows it’s good for NASCAR when Earnhardt is running well. “It’s absolutely important and anybody out here that feels like that’s a joke is only kidding themselves,” Gordon said. “When he’s doing well and the spotlight’s on him, it brings more attention to the sport and it helps and benefits all of us, no doubt about it. “ Earnhardt said he feels good about his team and crew chief Lance McGrew, who is starting his first full season after replacing Tony Eury Jr. last May and having the interim tag removed by Hendrick in late October. That gave them a whole offseason together to get ready for 2010. “We built a lot of new cars. We did a lot of hard work, Lance especially, during the offseason to put us in a position to bring better cars to this race and to Vegas and so forth,” Earnhardt said. “Just give me a good car and I can run real good.” The No. 88 car will have a different look at California, an orange-and-white scheme promoting a new juice drink being made by car sponsor Amp Energy. “I’m not a coffee drinker so this is going to be quite popular in my refrigerator,” Earnhardt said.d Likely not as popular as Earnhardt still is to the legions of fans who have kept cheering him on and got quite a boost from his performance at Daytona. “It helps him, for sure. It gives his fans something really exciting to talk about,” Johnson said. “So it’s a step in the right direction and it helps and it’s great for everyone. But he’s real focused on making sure he runs well” at California and beyond. Hendrick has won eight races at California, the most by any team—but only one more than Roush Fenway Racing. Roush has won the last five February races at Auto Club Speedway. Matt Kenseth won three of the last four, while Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle also won during that span. “It’s fun to race out here. I’m from the West Coast, so it kind of feels like coming home,” said Biffle, who finished third at Daytona. “Last week was really how well the guys did over the winter on the restrictor plate cars and how well we were prepared for Daytona. This race is really how we’re prepared for the rest of the season.” Junior's electrifying charge salvages a Daytona fiasco It had become nothing short of a fiasco, with a pothole in the track surface leaving the grandstands half-empty, and multiple green-white-checkered attempts leaving race cars fully wrecked. After nearly six hours, with spectators shivering in a cold and dark they had not expected, it was drawing comparisons to the tire debacle that had plagued Indianapolis Motor Speedway two years ago. It was difficult to find anyone outside of a driver suit who wasn't prepared to label the Daytona 500 as a disaster. And who could argue with them? Twice the race had to be halted under a red flag because of a hole that developed from unseasonably cold temperatures, a fissure in the low groove of Turn 2 that likely chewed up one of Jimmie Johnson's tires and later took a bite out of Clint Bowyer's front splitter. Fans began to stream out of the gates long before the event finally ended. Drivers cursed over the radio and sparks flew as cars bottomed out trying to a avoid a spackle-colored patch. All the momentum NASCAR had built over the last two weeks, with the furious finishes in the qualifying races and the mania over Danica Patrick, seemed swallowed by a football-shaped gap in the asphalt. And then came Junior. He came out of nowhere, literally, wedged way back in a hornet's nest of stock cars as the field took the green flag for the final time. The No. 88 car had endured a problematic day, getting snookered on an early pit stop and struggling to find the right adjustments and seemingly destined for another disappointing finish. Dale Earnhardt Jr. had never really been a factor Sunday, and with a little over a lap remaining he appeared trapped deep on the high side as the contenders streaked to the front at the bottom. But suddenly, as the cars passed under the white flag, something stupendous happened, something that reminded everyone of what Earnhardt is capable of, something that harkened back to the days early last decade when Junior owned Daytona International Speedway as if he had a deed to the place. He muscled past Carl Edwards. He blew by David Reutimann. He charged by Martin Truex Jr. And then, like a fullback barreling through the tackles with his head down and his elbows out, he wedged himself in between Greg Biffle and Clint Bowyer. Cars wiggled. Mouths dropped. And then he was clear, past them all, with only Jamie McMurray between him and an unthinkable second victory in the Daytona 500. "I saw the 88," McMurray said later, "and I was like, 'Crap.' " He was in the minority. It was one of those moments only Earnhardt can create, the kind that galvanized fans remaining in the grandstand and brought them whooping to their feet, and likely made those who left early second-guess their decision. The Daytona 500 was extended to 208 laps under NASCAR's revised green-white-checkered rule, and had it gone to 209, Earnhardt would almost certainly have won. Ultimately, he ran out of room -- off the final corner Earnhardt pulled to within a car length of McMurray, now driving a car co-owned by Earnhardt's stepmother Teresa, but never had a real chance of getting around. But it in a way, it didn't matter. It had been a brief but electrifying charge that for a moment made everyone forget about the delays and the red flags and that one damned pothole, an instance that for the first time in a long time showed everyone the real power of Junior, a 10th-to-second bailout of the Daytona 500 like many hope a revived Earnhardt can do for the sport. Oh, no question, it didn't soothe over everything -- it didn't make up for all the people who got fed up and walked out, it didn't absolve the speedway for struggling to find an efficient method of patching the hole in the track surface, it didn't change the fact that many left NASCAR's biggest race grumbling and unhappy. While it lasted, though, it was spectacular. And in a very small way, it allowed NASCAR and the speedway to salvage something out of a very long and difficult day. "I have no clue how he did it," crew chief Lance McGrew said. "Still don't know. Somehow he managed to find a hole where there wasn't a hole, and we wound up passing nine cars in two laps to finish second. Pretty impressive." The view from the driver's seat? "It was all a blur," said Earnhardt, who admitted he didn't remember much about it. " I was just going wherever they weren't. I really don't enjoy being that aggressive. But if there was enough room for the radiator to fit, you just kind of held the gas down and prayed for the best. It was a lot of fun." Foe the speedway it was a godsend, particularly considering the events that had preceded it. The first sign of a problem with the race track came just past the halfway mark, when Johnson shredded a tire for what appeared to be mysterious reasons. "We may have a red flag here," he told his crew over the radio, as he came to pit road for repairs. "Looks like a big piece of the track came up." Indeed it had, a chunk that speedway president Robin Braig said was 9 inches wide by 15 inches long by 2 inches deep, and had evidently been carved out of the 31-year-old surface by colder-than-normal temperatures. Many immediately recalled the 2004 incident at Martinsville Speedway, when a chunk of the track that punched a hole in Jeff Gordon's radiator required an hour and 15 minutes to repair. This one, though, would prove considerably more difficult to fix. Daytona's engineers tried three different compounds until they found one they thought would work, toiling in a shaded, colder portion of the race track as cars sat idle under a red flag. After an hour and 40 minutes, the vehicles began rolling again. The remedy worked -- for about 40 laps. "It's wide open again," Kevin Harvick screamed over the radio. "Everything they put in it is out." The hole hadn't only hollowed out again, but had increased in size. Officials went through the garage area rummaging for Bondo, a putty that hardens when it comes in contact with the air, and is typically used by fabricators to repair body damage on race cars. They used jet dryers and acetylene torches to try and warm the area so the filler would take. After 45 minutes, Daytona's asphalt specialists finally had a remedy that would last until the end of race. But many in the estimated crowd of 175,000 didn't stick around to see it. "We take full responsibility," said Braig, who added that his staff walked the track prior to the event, and discovered no problems with the surface. "We've got to get better at doing our patchwork. If we have to do it again, we have to figure out the compounds. We've really got to understand the temperature and the heat of the pavement. We just couldn't get it to bond." What they did get was a finish that rekindled moments of Junior past, that rendered the pothole forgettable for a little while, that almost made sitting through this day-to-night Daytona 500 feel worth it. "He's still got it," Earnhardt's public relations man, Mike Davis, exhorted on Twitter. Everyone finally got that one little glimpse they've been waiting for, even if Earnhardt didn't win, even if it took six hours and two red flags and umpteen pounds of crushed sheet metal to see it. "Normally, you just can't make moves like that and make it work," McGrew said. "Somehow, someway, Dale made it work." McMurray holds off Junior to win the Daytona 500 On Sunday afternoon -- and evening -- Jamie McMurray won the 52nd running of the Daytona 500: The Stock-Car Racing Miniseries in three parts. The adrenaline rush of the final two laps -- the second attempt at a green-white-checkered-flag finish under rules implemented by NASCAR before Thursday's Gatorade Duels -- all but erased the frustration of almost 2½ hours of stoppages as track workers at Daytona International Speedway repaired potholes in the asphalt between Turns 1 and 2. McMurray, celebrating his reunion with owner Chip Ganassi with a victory in the first race of their second tenure together, crossed the finish line .119 seconds ahead of Dale Earnhardt Jr., who surged from the pack to chase McMurray to the stripe on Lap 208, eight laps beyond the scheduled distance. McMurray spun his tires on the restart on Lap 207 but got a push down the frontstretch and through the first turn from third-place finisher Greg Biffle. Securing the top spot from Kevin Harvick on the backstretch, McMurray led the final two laps. Those were the only laps he led, the lowest total for a Daytona 500 winner. "Oh, my God!" McMurray screamed after taking the checkered flag. "I can't freaking believe it right now. Thank you so much. I can't believe we just won the Daytona 500." Later, in Victory Lane, McMurray fought back tears. Though he won one race last season at Roush Fenway Racing, he struggled in his final year there and was the odd man out from his team's NASCAR-mandated reduction from five teams to four. "It's a dream -- it really is," he said. "To be where I was last year, and for Johnny Morris [owner of sponsor Bass Pro Shops], Chip and [co-owner] Felix (Sabates) to take a chance on me and let me come back -- what a way to pay them back." Clint Bowyer, who led 37 laps, finished fourth, followed by David Reutimann. Martin Truex Jr., Harvick, 2009 winner Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards and Juan Montoya completed the top 10. An accident on Lap 194 involving Elliott Sadler, Ryan Newman and Travis Kvapil, set up a succession of three two-lap dashes. Caution interrupted the first on Lap 199 when Bill Elliott, Joey Logano and Boris Said crashed in Turn 3, with Biffle less than a mile from what would have been his first Daytona 500 victory. NASCAR's rules require the race leader take the white flag and start the final lap under green before the race can end -- unless three attempts at a green-white-checkered-flag finish are exhausted. The field failed to make it to the white flag under green on a restart on Lap 203, because NASCAR called a caution for a wreck off Turn 2 involving Kasey Kahne, Tony Stewart, Robert Richardson and Jeff Gordon. By then, McMurray had rocketed to second position behind Harvick and restarted next to Harvick on Lap 207. The push from Biffle gave him the edge he needed to win the race. Not that McMurray didn't have a moment of panic. When he saw Earnhardt in his mirror in Turn 3 of the final lap, McMurray said, "No!" But Earnhardt didn't have time to make a move for the win. "It was all a blur -- I was just going wherever they weren't," Earnhardt said of the closing laps. "I really don't enjoy being that aggressive. But if there was enough room for the radiator to fit, you just kind of held the gas down and prayed for the best. "It was a lot of fun. It went by so fast, I couldn't really tell you the process. But I just remember going down the back straightaway and getting in between Greg and I don't remember who was on the outside of me. We all kind of wiggled through that whole deal. Jamie got away from us. "I didn't even know where I was. Then we got into [Turn] 3. I was counting in my head how many laps we ran. I knew we were coming to the checkered; I was running second. This is awesome -- but it kind of sucks at the same time. "It was frustrating to come that close. But, hell, we were running 22nd at the first green-white-checkered." Dale Earnhardt Jr. (2nd) posted his first top-10 finish in the past 13 races; his last top-10 came at Bristol in August (ninth). This marked his best finish since he finished second at Talladega in April. Earnhardt Jr. wins first iRacing.com WCS event A late race crash gave fuel-short race leader Dale Earnhardt Jr. just the breathing room he needed to win the inaugural NASCAR iRacing.com World Championship Series race. The yellow flag flew with just two laps remaining in the 100-lap race at Daytona International Speedway, just as Earnhardt was about to pit for a quick splash of fuel. Instead, with his virtual Chevy Impala SS coughing as the fuel began to run out, Earnhardt swept under the checkered flag for the victory. "Coming through Turns 3-4 with two laps left I had to prepare for a pit stop for a little gas," Earnhardt said. "I looked in the mirror and saw an accident and the yellow came out. At this point I had exactly three-tenths of a gallon left and sputtered across the line to take the yellow. After two more laps of sputtering I took the checkered and that was that. You can't get any luckier than that." Earnhardt, who had problems with the steering wheel in his racing simulator during qualifying, started 19th in the 37-car field and methodically made his way toward the front. "I knew I had a quick car and made a couple moves up the middle throughout the first run and got all the way up to third," he said. While Earnhardt took the strategy of going to the front as quickly as possible, others took the opposite approach. Jesse Atchison, Robert Hall, and John Prather all lay back expecting a big wreck. Atchison, who drove through the field at the end to finish eighth, said "I went to the back because Earnhardt, Fogel and [Jordan] Erickson were all going up the middle three wide, and I wasn't sure of if the people around them could hold it. It turns out that they did and that may have cost me a chance to win due to being so far back when I pitted." Pole-winner Josh Parker dominated the first half of the race, which went caution free until the end, when a miscue by Erickson set off the sort of chain reaction wreck that often happens on superspeedways like Daytona. But leading the race cost Parker fuel mileage and he was forced to pit for gas on Lap 47, three laps before the half-way point -- and then was penalized for speeding on pit road. Pit road saw as much excitement as the track itself. Front-row starter Jim Caudill Jr. also was caught speeding, and other drivers had miscues getting into the pits, damaging their chances to win. It was savvy pitwork on Earnhardt's part that put him in the lead. "I guess I had a hell of a good stop 'cause when the cycle was over I was leading," he said. "I was happy about this but then came to the realization that I wouldn't make it to the end on fuel." But then came Erickson's wreck. "After five to go, it was just balls to the wall," he said. "I saw a gap in the middle and threw it in there and started to make up a few spots to hopefully break into the top-10. But it didn't last too long -- I got squeezed up into the high line, wrecked and ended a lot of people's race. Either way, I'd make that same move again." Earnhardt Jr. reloaded: Pivotal season looming One year later, he still can't believe it happened. For a driver it should have been instinctive, as involuntary as a heartbeat, as natural as pressing the accelerator to pick up speed. For someone with 18 victories and hundreds of starts on NASCAR's highest level, it should have been as routine as a walk to the mailbox. For Dale Earnhardt Jr., one of his sport's best restrictor-plate racers, hitting a pit stall at Daytona International Speedway should have been something he could do in his sleep. And yet, it wasn't. At least not 60 laps into last year's Daytona 500, when he ducked onto pit road in third place and near the front of a long line of cars, and went to turn into his stall just past the start-finish line -- and suddenly he was past it, and he had to quickly straighten out his green and white No. 88 Chevrolet, and he had to go all the way around the 2.5-mile track again. He lost a lap, but he lost so much more. His 500 was effectively finished. And like a loose thread pulled on a sweater, his 2009 season began to unravel. "Missing my stall shocked the s--t out of me at Daytona. I was pretty upset about that," Earnhardt said. "... Nothing's easy, but coming down pit road and getting in your stall is like breathing. It's like shifting. You don't even think about doing it, you do it. So it made me start thinking about it. It really made me backtrack. I didn't progress and fix it. I got a complex about it, and became definitely non-confident about doing it. "Who knew," he added, "that would be the straw that broke the camel's back?" The slow start, the change of crew chief, the plummet in points, the eventual 25th-place finish in the standings, the now 65-race winless streak -- can it all be traced back to a single pit-road miscue early in last year's Daytona 500? While that may be oversimplifying things, there's no question that one instance put Earnhardt in a funk. There would be another pit-road mistake later in that race, others throughout the year, most of them rookie-level screw-ups that left onlookers shaking their heads. Earnhardt and former crew chief Tony Eury Jr. even designed a massive pink pit board to try and remedy the situation. Nothing worked. Earnhardt's confidence waned, the pressure built, problems in one area begat problems in others, and NASCAR's most popular driver slowly sank into the worst season of his career. "The first four or five races, I just felt disoriented," he said. "I definitely didn't feel like I was sharp, missing my pit stall and sliding through pit stalls and doing all those good things like we were doing at the beginning of the season. Then it gave me a complex, so all the rest of the year, as soon as we hit pit road, I was like a fiend looking for my pit stall. Once I lost my confidence when I was making those mistakes, it just made the process worse. It made it more difficult." Perhaps not coincidentally, his shortcomings in 2009 were followed by an almost monastic winter -- no vacations, a trip to his sister's house for Christmas, a night at his bar for New Year's. Yes, there are plenty of off-track interests, ranging from a JR Motorsports operation that will field the Nationwide Series car of Danica Patrick, to his Whisky River honky-tonk joint, which plans to expand from its original Charlotte location into Jacksonville, Fla. But he has people to run those endeavors, and says fans would be amazed at how limited his day-to-day involvement is. He spent most evenings playing online racing simulator games. "Every damn day I'm home I'm on that thing," said Earnhardt, who added he's won about 180 events in iRacing, the series he plays most. "I take a break for 30 minutes to play 'Call of Duty' and shoot some people." These days Earnhardt seems hopeful and cheery, with optimism brewing beneath the mountain-man beard he sported for most of the offseason. No question, last year was a brutal one, with his massive popularity and lack of production serving as a giant target for people to take shots at. And yet emotionally, he appears to have come a long way from the "end of my rope" comments he made last fall. He's exercising more, working on his communication with his race team. His No. 88 squad has been revamped, with owner Rick Hendrick attempting to merge it with Mark Martin's No. 5 and create the kind of seamless operation that has benefited Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon. So many within NASCAR, from souvenir salesmen to television executives to the series brass in Daytona Beach, watch and wait and hope for a revival that would provide a flagging sport with a spark it sorely needs. It all begins at Daytona, the source of Earnhardt's greatest professional triumph, and yet the same place he took those first steps into free fall last year. He knows what happened in 2009, isn't trying to hide from it or make excuses for it. But clearly, he's ready to move on, to reload, to strap back into that No. 88 and try and leave all that pain and disappointment behind. So much, from his psyche to the structure of his race team, has been tinkered with or refined. Now comes a season that will present his best opportunity to reach his potential at Hendrick Motorsports. "I hate talking about last year. It was miserable," Earnhardt said. "I knew I'd have to answer some questions about what did I do to get better, what did last year make me feel like. But you know, that was how I ran. I have to own up to all that stuff. I'm looking forward to getting to the race track. I miss the track, I miss the car. I miss the environment, all the people. I feel fortunate every time I get to go back, every year I get to go back. We did make some changes, and I feel pretty good about them. ... We have to rebound, you know?" Under pressure It's never been easy being an Earnhardt. Oh, sure, daddy was an icon who made millions on the race track. But he was also a polarizing figure who was hated as much as he was loved -- even among schoolchildren. Dale Jr. and his sister Kelley remember being called names, being branded as snobs, walking down the hallway with their faces turned away after their father was involved in a particularly controversial accident. The day after Bobby Allison blew a tire and flew into the fence at Talladega? Sure enough, somebody was in Dale Jr.'s face at school, blaming it all on No. 3. "My dad was running behind Bobby, about five car lengths, when it happened, and the next day at school some kid was trying to tell me how my dad had almost killed somebody. That was his exact quote. But that's no excuse, you know? That to me was normal. I don't look back on that and go, 'all that stuff was abnormal, or that made me tougher, or woe is me for being a damn Earnhardt.' That was normal. That was life," Earnhardt said. "I never complained about it. I never made it an excuse. I definitely wouldn't trade nothing for having to not hear those things. When you're young, they don't kind of roll off your back like they do when you're older. I guess I was lucky I wasn't that impressionable back then, and that kind of stuff didn't sink in and bother me all the way to the house, and turn me into some kid who dwelled in his bedroom all night." And yet, a story like that one shows that the flak Earnhardt has taken over this past year is nothing new to him. In the fan base and the media, he's often hammered for his lack of production. People openly question why he's so popular. Wrestling legend Ric Flair made an appearance in Charlotte on the recent NASCAR preseason media tour, and joked that Earnhardt was building a big new house, amazing for someone who couldn't win a race. To the Earnhardt kids, that kind of stuff isn't unusual. Their last name and their father's status cast a shadow that would have fallen upon them even if they had chosen another career. For Earnhardt Jr. today, win or lose, the criticisms never cease. If he does well, the conspiracy theorists spin stories that it was all fait accompli. If he struggles, he's a driver who doesn't work hard enough, or doesn't have his priorities in order, or just isn't good enough. "If your last name is Earnhardt," Kelley said, "people form immediate opinions about you the moment you walk into a room. "We went to high school and middle school with all kinds of different criticisms along the way -- your dad is, this, your dad is that. You either loved him or hated him. We mentally were prepared for that continuing with Dale Jr. or whatever that may be. It's difficult for me because we're very close, and I don't like to see him down and out and not having a good season. But at the same time, I'm the one he looks at for support, so I can't get too involved in the negative side of it. I try to stay positive and try to find ways to get him to look at the situation differently," said Kelley, the general manger of JR Motorsports. "You know, it's really tough being an Earnhardt. It's really tough being in our position. I'm learning it more and more, being out in the limelight, being a team owner and the general manager of JR Motorsports. There are a lot of people tugging on you, there are a lot of people wanting things from you. So to be him tenfold, I've been able to wrap my mind around that in a much bigger way the last couple of years. And it's something that's hard for people to understand unless you're inside that life." And yet that's the only life Earnhardt Jr. has ever known, and to him it feels -- well, normal. The insatiable interest people have in him, his career, his interests, his facial hair, his love life? He struggles to fathom it. The most popular driver in NASCAR seems baffled by his own popularity. That's one reason he likes online gaming, because his competitors see him just as another name on a screen, even if they know who he is. "To me, I feel completely, utterly normal," Earnhardt said. "I do everything everybody else does. The things I'm interested in are the same things everybody my age are interested in. I sat on the computer and played 'Call of Duty' until 2 in the morning last night, with who knows who, all over the country, and six of these other buddies of mine I know over the Internet, just from playing video games. They know who I am, and they don't give me no s--t about it. They don't ask me if I'm ready for next year. To me, this is just normal. I don't know what the fascination is, personally." But it's unquestionably there, and it brings with it a level of attention and expectation that no other driver faces. Some are of the opinion that's what's needed to rescue NASCAR from its current trough of down ratings and down attendance isn't a revamped car, or relaxed rules, but Junior, winning again and galvanizing that army of his. That's a lot to heap on one person, but he lives with it every day. "There's more pressure on him than he deserves," Hendrick said. Even Kelley, who sees it firsthand, sometimes just shakes her head at it all. "It's like when we announced Danica, and they said, 'How can you put that much on one person?' But it is," she said. "He has by far the largest fan base. It just is. I wish it wasn't that way. I don't know to make other drivers more exciting and compelling so that people want to support them and do what they do with Dale. You can't create that. It just happens. People have to come along to do that." So no, it's never easy being an Earnhardt. He's rich and polarizing now, just as his father once was. Now he's the one prompting school-hall arguments, maybe over his involvement in an accident, or whether he'll ever be as good as his old man. Things have changed, and yet they've always been the same. Now comes another season, perhaps the most pivotal of his career, with a team that's been revamped in the name of making him better. The pressure is on. It always has been. "I asked to be in this position," Earnhardt said. "I wanted to be a race car driver, and I have a famous last name. That goes with the territory." Culture change To hear Rick Hendrick tell it, the problem was partly one of location. The program that became Earnhardt's No. 88 began life as the No. 25, Hendrick Motorsports' original team, housed in the organization's original building. After years of expansion and growth, the outfit eventually found itself housed along with the No. 5 team in a new facility on Hendrick's sprawling campus. Yet they were stepchildren forced to live together, programs that shared no common blood, staffed by men with separate loyalties. The ideal was right next door, in the building housing the teams of Gordon and Johnson, two programs that work together so seamlessly that the lines between them have become blurred, if they even still exist at all. Perhaps not coincidentally, the place is also home to eight NASCAR championships. Yet theirs is a relationship that developed organically, with Johnson's team literally springing from Gordon's, to the point where the current champion started out driving the old cars of the former one. There was little of that natural progression in the other building, which now houses the teams of Earnhardt and Mark Martin. There was too much turnover, too many drivers or crew chiefs coming and going, to build any kind of cohesiveness. They were teammates, sure, and mechanics wore shirts with both numbers on the front, but there were still 5 guys and 88 guys, and -- as last season so clearly evidenced -- the two camps could still vary wildly in terms of performance. "The culture of the 48 shop is one that was created from the 24 team," said Lance McGrew, Earnhardt's crew chief. "It's not like the 48 was in a different building, and they showed up and they were in the same building. That's how the 5 and 88 were. They weren't even on the same side of the complex, and next thing you know, they're sharing a building. Well, they're just sharing a building. It's just space." To fix Earnhardt's program, Hendrick reasoned, he had to change the culture within the shop, and meld the 88 and 5 teams into an entity as unified and productive as the one next door. After Johnson's record-breaking fourth consecutive title was virtually assured, that project became the car owner's top priority. The process began with three races remaining last season, while Martin was still technically in the championship hunt. Hendrick called in McGrew and Alan Gustafson, Martin's crew chief, laid out his plan, and told them to make it happen. "What we did was say we wanted one team. We take the best we've got, and we structure it this way, and we race two cars," said Hendrick, who has won nine championships in NASCAR's premier division, and 12 in the three national series combined. "And if I want to swap the numbers on Sunday morning, or swap the seats, then I want to be able to do that. That's how I want it to work together to make it better. I was blown away by how much Alan and Lance had gone to work on that before we went to Homestead." The goal is a simple one -- make both programs better, solidifying Martin's position as a championship contender, and raising Earnhardt's performance as a result. The process, though, was far from easy. On the 5 side particularly, there were men who believed they had worked hard to build Martin's program into one of the best in NASCAR, and didn't immediately embrace the idea of being assimilated into a larger group. "It was hard, because there were plenty of guys in the shop on both sides who I swear, if you cut them, would bleed sponsor colors, or little 5 platelets would fly out of them, because they've been so in tune and with those guys for so long," McGrew said. "But to a man, one at a time, they'd come up and say, 'This is best. this is what we need to do. This will make us stronger as a team, this will make us stronger as a company.' And ultimately, everybody here is so grateful for all the things that Mr. Hendrick has done for us in our lives, and the last thing we want to do is disappoint him. That's underlying everything. that's what we're trying to do." Was there initial resistance? That word might be a little strong, Gustafson said. "I would say there was some apprehension," he added. "I think some guys said, 'We've got a core group of 5 guys that have worked hard to carve out our niche and get our team running to the point it is.' And when Mr. Hendrick asked us to share that information and that knowledge and that personnel, the first thing you say is, 'Man, how are we going to do this and not hurt our team?' I worked through it with Mr. Hendrick, and worked through it with Lance, and mulled ideas over and said ... OK, this looks good, this sounds good. Once they start to see the structured change and the end result and the potential of it, then guys who were maybe a little apprehensive have seen the opportunity and the potential for what it can be, and that went away." After last season ended, McGrew and Gustafson met individually with each employee in the 88/5 shop -- roughly 85 of them -- and explained that the two operations would henceforth function as a single entity rather than two separate units. McGrew worked to make Earnhardt's No. 88 cars more similar to Martin's, refining assembly procedures, and even changing things like wire routing in an attempt to prevent some of the mechanical issues that tended to plague Earnhardt last year. Chris Heroy, the former lead engineer on Martin's car, was assigned to Earnhardt. And although still crew chief on the 5 car, Gustafson is now heavily involved with both vehicles. "We've combined so many efforts that it's one and the same," he said. "So I have a lot more involvement, a lot more understanding of what they've got going on, a lot more influence, as does Lance on my car. When you combine efforts and you combine philosophies, you're one and the same." McGrew believes the benefits of this consolidation will be immediate. Martin said he can already see them. "We were working on that as well last year, and started that really through the season," said last year's series runner-up. "But once you have a chance to stop and break and restructure and move some things around, you're able to gain a little bit more momentum in that. It's our expectation to bring the performance up for both cars." Gustafson, though, knows that the toughest times are still ahead. It's one thing to ask two teams to operate as a single unit in the shop. It's quite another to make that request at the race track, in the heat of competition, when old loyalties are most prone to boil to the surface. That's where the success or failure of Hendrick's bold plan to rebuild the No. 88 team will ultimately be decided. "That's when it's going to be the toughest time," Gustafson said, "when something happens, or one guy says, 'I need this,' or, 'I can't do that because I'm doing this.' That's when it gets a little harder. That's when all four teams are going to be tested. But I know we can make it. It's not easy, but we'll make it." Ripples in a pond So what happens if it all comes together? It's well within the realm of possibility, given Earnhardt's historic strength at Daytona -- last year's miscues notwithstanding -- and the proven power of Hendrick Motorsports. The Las Vegas Hilton gives him 12-to-1 odds of winning the 500, placing Earnhardt in a pack of drivers in second behind favorite Kyle Busch. So what happens if he hoists the Harley J. Earl trophy over his head Sunday afternoon? What happens if he wins multiple races for the first time since 2004? What happens if he emerges as a legitimate championship contender for the first time since sliding into that No. 88 car? Bruton Smith minces no words. "You would feel it overnight," said the chairman of Speedway Motorsports Inc., which owns six Sprint Cup tracks. "It's kind of a mystery that he has so doggone many fans. You talk about stick-to-ism? Those fans, I mean they've stuck with him through a bad, bad year and they're still fans of Dale Jr. If he started winning, oh, it would be awesome. Ticket sales would go up, souvenir sales. His souvenir sales would double overnight." It's all easier said than done, of course. Earnhardt's struggles of 2009 were only the low point of what is really a prolonged slump, one that's seen him win a single race since the spring of 2006. His fuel-mileage victory at Michigan in the summer of 2008 was preceded by a 77-race winless streak, and followed by his current 65-race skid. Although he made the Chase in 2008, finishing 12th, it's been four years since he was in the title picture going down to the final weeks. That's nearly twice as long as the length of the current economic recession, which according to the National Board of Economic Research began in December of 2007, and has clearly affected NASCAR in terms of attendance. There are some who believe that any NASCAR turnaround would begin with a recharged and more successful Earnhardt, reviving his fan base, stoking new outside interest, bringing more people to the race track and more eyes to the TV. And no one argues that wouldn't happen, to a degree, if the No. 88 car suddenly started to win. The question is whether NASCAR's most popular driver has the power to reverse all these downward trends all by himself. "You're putting too much pressure on one guy," said former driver and current television analyst Kyle Petty. "If our sport depends on Dale Jr., then this sport is hurting, period. That's not a knock on Dale Jr. If the NFL depends on Peyton Manning performing on Sundays, then the NFL is in trouble. They need to rethink their business plan. Will he help ratings? I don't know. If I'm a Dale Jr. fan, I'm already tuning in watching him. Is he going to create new fans because he runs good? I don't know. I can't answer that question. You can't answer the question of, has his fan base maxed out? There are still a lot of people that are adamant that Junior is the man. That's good, because they're the people that are tuning in, they're the people that are coming to the race track. But I don't think you can put that much pressure on one man." Humpy Wheeler seems to agree. The consultant and longtime race track promoter doesn't believe Earnhardt winning again would be enough to foster a NASCAR revival by itself. "It's going to take more than that," he said. "If Earnhardt Jr. could win a couple of races and battle maybe [Juan] Montoya, and trade some paint doing it, and let Tony Stewart get in the mix too, that's what's going to pep things up and move the needle and get the phones to ring. Junior by himself winning a race passively -- by passively, I mean fuel mileage or something like that -- that's not going to click the meter." So maybe multiple trips to Victory Lane by the No. 88 car wouldn't be enough to raise NASCAR back to its early-2000s height. But clearly, they wouldn't hurt. Anyone who has ever been to a race track when Earnhardt takes the lead has heard the roar, powerful enough to be noticed over the sound of 43 engines. So a complete turnaround? No, maybe that's too much to ask of Earnhardt. But a spark? That's something else altogether. "I think Dale Earnhardt's lack of winning the last two years have really hurt the sport overall, because everyone expected him to be the leader," said Felix Sabates, minority owner of the Earnhardt Ganassi cars of Montoya and Jamie McMurray. "He has not been the leader. I hope he wins a bunch of races [in 2010] because if he wins a bunch of races, he'll bring fans back to the race track. He's good for everybody. I hope we win our fare share, but I want Junior to win a bunch of races. I really do." Jeff Behnke, executive producer and senior vice president at Turner Sports -- the parent company of NASCAR broadcast partner TNT, and, in the interest of full disclosure, NASCAR.COM -- believes an Earnhardt comeback would also be reflected in television ratings. "I think that there are a few teams and a few individuals that move the dial. The Yankees move the dial. The Cowboys move the dial. And Dale Jr. moves the dial," Behnke said. "I think the ratings would go up. Our job is to talk about all 43 drivers, which we do. But the answer is, yeah, he's been the most popular driver for however many years running now, and there are reasons for that. You just see it when he takes the lead in a race. You see the grandstands, and they go berserk." Even NASCAR's chairman admits that a winning Earnhardt would be good for the sport. "He's like the Lakers or the Boston Celtics. He is one of the major franchises in sports," Brian France said. "But what happens is, when he's been struggling, it does allow other people to kind emerge themselves -- Denny Hamlin and Juan Pablo and others are kind of filling some voids. Look, nobody wants to get back to where he was as a very, very high-performing driver more than Dale Jr. I met with him [in January], and he wants to return and so does Rick Hendrick, and if it does, it will help NASCAR, no question about that. But that's sports. We'll have to let it play out." For all his popularity, Earnhardt is still just one man. Victories by the No. 88 car would not be a panacea for all that ails NASCAR -- they wouldn't put money back into the pockets of former ticket-holders who lost jobs, or make up for the layoffs that continue to plague the industry, or magically make sponsorship money appear. Even someone of his status has a relatively limited reach. It's likely a gross overstatement to say that a revival of Dale Earnhardt Jr. would translate into a revival for NASCAR itself. And yet, like ripples in a pond, a successful 2010 campaign by Earnhardt would clearly have ramifications well beyond his race team. In some ways, the Dale Jr. approaching this season is much like NASCAR -- both have been refined, retooled, and arrive at Daytona with something to prove to critics who believe their best days are behind them. "I get a really good feeling from Dale Jr. this year. I really do, no joke," said Petty, who spoke with Earnhardt at the recent Sound and Speed Festival in Nashville, Tenn. "I think he's excited about this year. He's excited like he was when he was 16 and going to run Caraway and going to run Concord. He has a little of that spark when you talk to him. If he turns it around, it's going to be huge for the sport. It's going to be big for his fans, it's going to be big for the sport, it's going to be big for everybody, because the tide will rise and the ships will float with him." Return to form for Earnhardt Jr. could rev NASCAR's fortunes The most popular driver seven years running in the Sprint Cup Series hasn't won a race or pole position in nearly two years. Last season, he was 25th in points with two top-five finishes and three top-10s, all career worsts. Does Dale Earnhardt Jr. need to perform well to be the face of NASCAR? "Apparently not," Earnhardt deadpanned. The answer drew guffaws from a throng around him on Daytona 500 media day last week. But 2010 could be a watershed — or washout — season for the son of a seven-time champion whose iconic personality (and 2001 death during its marquee event) helped NASCAR mushroom from regional to mainstream in the 1990s. After four consecutive seasons of sagging TV ratings and flat or declining attendance at nearly every track, many are pointing to a breakout year by Earnhardt as a panacea. NASCAR chairman Brian France says Earnhardt is "like the Lakers or Celtics. He is the major franchise, and if he returns … to that high level, it'll help." Earnhardt got off to a good start in qualifying for Sunday's 52nd running of the "Great American Race." He will start second, alongside pole-sitter and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Mark Martin, who says, "Dale Jr. is due for some good days" after a year of tough-luck accidents, mechanical failures and pit miscues. Says Fox analyst Darrell Waltrip: "The one thing that could make a difference this year would be him winning the Daytona 500 and being a contender. It would energize the sport." Yet beyond NASCAR's reputation, there might be even more at stake for the image of Earnhardt, 35. The most miserable season of a 10-year, 18-victory career coincided with Hendrick becoming the first team to finish 1-2-3 in the standings with Jimmie Johnson, Martin and Jeff Gordon. A shake-up of the No. 88 Chevrolet's crew is targeted at improving results, but it also might buoy Earnhardt's marketability, which seemingly is showing erosion. In polling of fans in November, Earnhardt ranked behind Tony Stewart and Martin among NASCAR drivers in the Davie-Brown Index, which measures an athlete's relevance to consumer behavior across 10 categories. It's the first time Earnhardt wasn't first since the Motorsports DBI began in 2008 (last year he led by a wide margin). "That surprised us, because the previous two studies, there was Junior and then everybody else," says Mike Mooney, vice president of motor sports for Millsport, the Charlotte-based marketing agency that compiles the DBI. "Stewart and Martin had a great combo of story lines with new teams and being competitive. It drives home that performance is king in the minds of the fan." Earnhardt's slump has opened the door for emerging Cup stars such as Denny Hamlin and Juan Pablo Montoya. Mooney, though, says there "is no question NASCAR feels the impact of the Junior tide, up or down" with Earnhardt, recently 45th on BusinessWeek's 100 most marketable athletes and eighth in 2009 on the Harris Interactive list of America's top 10 favorite athletes, a list that included LeBron James, Derek Jeter and Peyton Manning. And with NASCAR having announced a host of changes — from standardized start times to the return of a spoiler — intended to appease its fan base, an Earnhardt return to victory lane Sunday at Daytona, where he won in February 2004, would dovetail nicely with the sport's efforts to regain its lost buzz. "You would feel it overnight," says Bruton Smith, chairman of Speedway Motorsports Inc., which owns seven Cup tracks. "If he started winning, it would be awesome. His souvenir sales would double." If Earnhardt doesn't rebound, though, the downside could be as damaging, according to some such as Earnhardt Ganassi Racing minority owner Felix Sabates, who says Earnhardt's "lack of winning the last two years have hurt the sport because everyone expected him to be the leader. "He has not been the leader," Sabates says. "If he wants to be his father, he has to act like his father. If he doesn't, he needs to be a rock star and go pick a guitar somewhere and quit driving." Vow of aggression Somewhat reminiscent of his father's trademark bushy moustache, Earnhardt enters 2010 with a Paul Bunyan-esque beard ("just got tired of shaving") and an Intimidator-esque vow to be "ruthless from the first lap to the last" by being more aggressive and proactive making sure his car is capable of winning. "I feel a lot of pressure from (the news media) or the public," he says. "You get headlines every offseason about what everybody expects you to do. Most of the time the headlines sting a little." There were few such expectations when Earnhardt transitioned virtually overnight from making $180 a week as a mechanic at one of his father's Chevy dealerships to driving in the Nationwide Series for Dale Earnhardt Inc. He won championships in his first two full seasons (1998 and 1999) despite being "clueless about what the hell was going on. I was at the circus every day. It was awesome. I had no worries." The comfort zone remained when he rose to Cup with DEI. He missed the Chase in two of its first four years, but the scrutiny wasn't as withering because, Earnhardt says, he "had plenty of excuses" as the most decorated driver on a midlevel team that never won a title. It has changed since his 2008 arrival at Hendrick Motorsports, NASCAR's all-time winningest team with 12 championships and 188 victories. Exacerbating the struggles was that Martin, whose No. 5 Impalas were built alongside Earnhardt's No. 88 by the same crewmen in the same building, had a career year. Hendrick's two four-time champions, Gordon and Johnson, worked harmoniously under one roof with crews that shared information and equally prepared cars. That philosophy now is applied with greater force to Earnhardt, who has been reassigned the lead engineer from Martin's team in a personnel shuffle aimed at erasing dividing lines. Crew chiefs Alan Gustafson (Martin) and Lance McGrew (who replaced Tony Eury Jr. as Earnhardt's team leader in June) were tasked by owner Rick Hendrick with infusing their shop with symbiosis. "I want to be able to walk into the pits on Sunday morning, call an audible and say, 'Take the seat out of Mark's car and put it in Junior's,' " Hendrick says. "That's how seamless I want this. This is going to work or I'm going to die trying. I fear failure more than I want to win. I never want the fans or Dale thinking I didn't do everything I could." Enjoying comforts of life Nurturing suits Earnhardt, an introvert who admits to playing Call of Duty with online buddies frequently until 2 a.m. and jokes he could live happily in a tent if connected to a T1 line and a computer. At DEI, he was backed by men and women he had known since childhood and who were friends as well as co-workers. It has been challenging to form the same bonds at Hendrick, a company of 500-plus employees. "Dale's definitely a person of comfort," says his older sister, Kelley. "He thrives most when he's in a situation of familiarity." That familial atmosphere permeates JR Motorsports, the Nationwide Series team co-owned by Earnhardt, his cousin Eury Jr. and Kelley Earnhardt. Among the 85 staffers, a dozen (including Earnhardt's mother, Brenda) are related to management. Though their father had plans to bequeath DEI to them (ownership instead passed to his widow, Teresa), the siblings created their own organization four years ago that could be elevated to Sprint Cup in the near future. Earnhardt says he's committed to driving for Hendrick through the end of his contract in 2012, but Waltrip believes Earnhardt eventually might drive for himself at JRM and perhaps switch to the No. 3 that his father made famous. Waltrip says either move would provide a necessary spark. "He's in a rut, professionally and personally," he says. "He doesn't have the same assertiveness that his dad had. That's no knock on him. He just needs a swift kick in the pants to say, 'Come on, dude. Let's go.' " But how much of a jolt might his success deliver NASCAR? Longtime promoter H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler says the recent relaxing of rules, including allowing drivers greater latitude in banging fenders without penalty, might be as important as a resurgence because if Earnhardt "wins five races, and they're dull, it won't do anything. … But (the rule changes) also might help put him in the winner's circle again." Regardless, Earnhardt's slump hasn't curtailed his plans to race until 50 while seeking the unique opportunities that bring NASCAR to the masses. He was the first driver to be featured in Rolling Stone and on MTV's Cribs. "I would like to think I've put this sport in front of a lot of people that would have never seen it," he says. "Once my career is finished, there'll be enough statistics on paper for people to be pleased or satisfied. "I hope that my impact was felt far more in other areas." Dale Earnhardt Jr. lends voice to Disney Channel's 'Handy Manny' special Dale Earnhardt Jr. steps out of the race car and into the world of animation next month with the premier of Playhouse Disney’s “Handy Manny” primetime special. Earnhardt Jr., NASCAR’s most popular drivers, lends his voice to “Handy Manny Big Race,” which will debut March 18 on Disney Channel. He is the voice of Chase Crawford, one of the central characters in the children’s program. “It was really interesting to do the voiceover for Chase; he’s a driver sort of parallel with my own my life,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I really enjoyed the experience a lot. My 4-year-old niece is a fan [of the program], and I did the show with her in mind. But I really enjoyed the experience and being a part of the show. It was something new, and I enjoyed every bit of it. “I did something similar to that before, but not on the same level. I had a large piece in this show. It was great for me, and fun to be a part of Handy Manny’s success.” Wilmer Valderamma, perhaps best know for his portrayal of the character Fez in “That ’70s Show,” is the voice of Handy Manny. “Dale obviously is an amazing driver and [it’s great] to have him be a part of the Handy Manny family now,” Valderrama said. “We like to touch on things that are family-oriented, things that are part of our culture. And NASCAR is just as much a part of that culture as the next sport. It’s very exciting to incorporate it within our show and to show kids early on, as young as preschoolers, how exciting this sport really is. “For us, it’s exciting to work with them and inspiring a young generation to embrace a different platform, a different type of sport. Putting this on the radar that early, who knows, you might get a few drivers of tomorrow.” So how would Valderamma grade Earnhardt Jr.’s performance? “This is the deal – actors want to be athletes and athletes want to be some kind of performer, whether it’s a singer or actor,” he said. “There’s a mutual appreciation for the sport. Some of us should understand that we shouldn’t cross that line, but you know what, athletes have such a great persona as it is; there are some great personalities. If they were to embrace them, they could pull it off. “I think Dale did a fantastic job on the show, very natural. … He wouldn’t have a tough time, I don’t think.” Martin earns Daytona 500 pole; Junior on front row Three weeks ago, at a Fan Fest appearance at Daytona International Speedway, Dale Earnhardt Jr. spoke of a renewed spirit of cooperation at the Hendrick Motorsports shop shared by the No. 5 and No. 88 teams. What Earnhardt termed a "change in culture" spurred by personnel moves within the shop was in full flower Saturday at Daytona. Mark Martin, who led the Sprint Cup Series with seven poles last year, added another to his resume, putting his No. 5 Chevy in the top starting spot for the Feb. 14 season-opening Daytona 500. Navigating the 2.5-mile superspeedway in 47.074 seconds (191.188 mph), Martin edged Earnhardt (190.913 mph) for the pole. Those two drivers, who will start first and second in the 52nd running of NASCAR's most prestigious race, are the only two who know their positions on the grid for the Valentine's Day event. The starting order for the rest of the 43-car field won't be determined until Thursday, with the running of the two Gatorade Duel 150-mile qualifying races. Team owner Rick Hendrick lavished praise on crew chiefs Alan Gustafson (Martin) and Lance McGrew (Earnhardt). "The challenge was to run one team with two cars, and then to have those two cars down here that ran almost identical times ...," Hendrick said. "I know this is just one race, but no one here, and no one outside our company will know the effort Alan and Lance put into this team and these two cars, and I'm really proud of them." Martin, who won his first Daytona 500 pole and the 49th of his career, tying Bobby Isaac for eighth all time, echoed those sentiments. "This is such a great accomplishment for the 5 and 88 teams," Martin said. "That was not an accomplishment of mine. It is one of all our guys on this team. To have Dale Jr. on the outside of the front row, locked in, just means that we are doing stuff right." Ryan Newman (190.577 mph) was third quickest in Saturday's time trials, followed by Wood Brothers Ford driver Bill Elliott (190.573 mph), the fastest of the 19 drivers required to make the field on speed. Elliott, Scott Speed (13th) and Joe Nemechek (16th) -- the three quickest in the go-or-go-home group -- all know they'll start the race, but won't know their starting positions until the Duels are run. The other 16 drivers whose cars are not locked into the field by virtue of top-35 owners' points in 2009 must try to race their way into the 500 on Thursday. Bobby Labonte, however, is guaranteed a place in the field as the most recent past Cup champion not already exempt, regardless of his finish in the Duels. Juan Montoya was fifth fastest, as Chevrolet claimed four of the top five positions and seven of the top 10. Seventh place Kurt Busch led the Dodge contingent, and ninth place Kyle Busch paced the Toyota entries. Martin will lead the field to the green flag in the first of Thursday's Duels, with Earnhardt pacing the second. "I'm real proud to be on the front row with my teammate, in Hendrick cars, and it's a testament to the engine shop and the fabricators," said Earnhardt, who took a positive step toward rebounding from a career-worst, 25th-place points finish in 2009. "Those guys really make the biggest difference at Daytona. We obviously have got great individuals piecing the cars themselves together and making sure they're going to do all things we need to do in qualifying." Notes: The last driver to win the Daytona 500 from the pole was Dale Jarrett in 2000. The last driver to win the Daytona 500 from the second starting position was Jarrett in 1993. ... Martin's pole-winning speed was the fastest for the 500 since Jeff Gordon took the top spot in 1999 at 195.067 mph. ... At 51, Martin is the oldest Daytona 500 pole winner. Dale Jr Takes a Hands off Approach to Danica Patrick's ARCA Racing Series Debut Dale Earnhardt, Jr. says that he is refraining from giving driver Danica Patrick too much advice heading into her stock car debut in Saturday's Lucas Oil Slick Mist 200 ARCA Racing Series presented by RE/MAX and Menards race, allowing the IZOD INDY Car Series veteran to make her own race day game plan. "I really don't have the urge to give her a bunch of advice," said Earnhardt, Jr. "I'm just curious as to how she is enjoying her experience and what she thinks about her opportunity today and how things have went as far as the chemistry goes and when today is over what we can do differently to make it smoother and to make it a more consistent weekend. And to find out if there are any speed bumps or whatever that she saw but otherwise she doesn't need too many people barking in her ear about what she needs to do. She's a smart racecar driver and probably has a great game plan already built up in her head. She doesn't need to have people telling her what to do so that she starts second-guessing herself." The comments were made during a Hot Wheels Press Conference in the Daytona Int'l Speedway Infield Media Center on Saturday afternoon, just hours before the Lucas Oil Slick Mist 200 ARCA season-opener at Daytona. Earnhardt, Jr., Patrick and JR Motorsports Team Owner/General Manager Kelly Earnhardt were among the participants in the press conference. Patrick starts 12th in Saturday's Lucas Oil Slick Mist 200 ARCA race, live on SPEED beginning at 4:30 p.m. Eastern. Earnhardt out front again and wants to stay there Here’s something you haven’t read in a while: Dale Earnhardt Jr. is in first place. OK, so it was only two laps. And it was a rain-shortened practice at Daytona International Speedway—the place where Earnhardt is, well, kind of good. Still, in a season in which Earnhardt is facing a new round of intensifying questions about his lack of on-track success, it’s better to be fast than slow even if it doesn’t count toward anything. Earnhardt led two of his Hendrick Motorsports teammates to the top of the speed chart in Friday’s abbreviated practice session, and it could be the first sign that he’s back on the right track after the worst season of his career. “His heart really, really, really is in it,” said teammate Mark Martin. “He’s incredibly driven to have the success, and his team is behind it. I think you’ll see a spectacular year for him.” Boy, does he need one. NASCAR’s most popular driver had his confidence shattered in a winless 2009 season. He failed to make the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship, his crew chief was fired midseason and he managed just five top-10 finishes all year. His teammates, meanwhile, combined for 13 victories and swept the top three spots in the final season standings. The lack of production increased the already-bright spotlight on Earnhardt, who found there was little escape from the scrutiny on his lack of performance. At the halfway point of the season, he revealed a fear of not being strong enough to handle the strain of another trying season. “I can’t have another year like this. I can’t mentally. I can’t physically. I don’t want to put the people around me through this,” Earnhardt admitted. “When we were really, really struggling, everybody in the family was upset. Crying and carrying on. All the women were crying, the men we’re cussing. I’m serious. “We can’t put anybody through this (stuff) again. We’ve got to get this right.” Team owner Rick Hendrick agreed, and made fixing Earnhardt’s No. 88 team the top offseason priority at Hendrick Motorsports. It became all hands on deck as Hendrick leaned on Martin crew chief Alan Gustafson to help Earnhardt’s team. Gustafson allowed two of his crew members— including his lead race engineer—to move over to the No. 88, and he agreed to work with Earnhardt crew chief Lance McGrew to create a partnership similar to the one Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon have used with smashing success. Johnson, who displays the trophies from his four consecutive championships in his office above the shop floor where Earnhardt’s cars are built, believes Hendrick has executed the best possible plan for Earnhardt to succeed. “It’s been tough on him. I think his confidence has been beat down some, and I think the unification between the 88 and the 5 is very good for him,” Johnson said. “He looks up to Mark. He seems to respond very well to folks that have been around the sport for a long time. Mark is more than willing, especially if Junior engages himself and asks the right questions.” But, Johnson cautioned, it’s going to take a willingness for Earnhardt to open up more to his teammates. “He can’t do it on his own. He’s been more internal and to himself on cars, setups, kind of been on his own little island,” Johnson said. “If he really embraces the teammate standpoint and is right there alongside with Mark day in and day out, they’ll get it figured out. “It may take changes in driving style, a lot of things that aren’t familiar to him, but he’s gonna have every opportunity and we’re making sure he does.” Earnhardt disagreed with Johnson’s assessment. “You know, I think I’m kind of shy at times, but I’ve never really been against really working together and trying to take two teams and be stronger,” he said. His first chance to prove it comes Saturday night in the exhibition Budweiser Shootout, a race he’s won twice before, including in his 2008 debut with Hendrick Motorsports. He followed that win with a victory five days later in one of Daytona’s twin qualifying races, setting the stage for a potential sweep with a win in the 500. He came up short with a ninth-place finish, but it raised expectations for the pairing of the popular driver with NASCAR’s most successful team. It never happened. Earnhardt won just once that season—his only points-race victory since joining HMS—and hit a slump when the Chase began. He never contended for the championship and finished last in the 12-driver field. It only got worse last season, when he opened the year with a sub-par showing at Daytona, where he’s won 12 races spanning NASCAR’s top two series. He wants to be back out front again, badly. He was for two laps Friday, and hopes to parlay that into a lot more. “I’d like to be able to get back out there and start doing some of the things I should be doing and should have done last year. Should have done the year before,” he said. “Win some races, be a prominent fixture in the top five every week. Win some more races.” Hendrick makes rebuilding Junior's team a priority The phone conversation between NASCAR team owner Rick Hendrick and crew chief Alan Gustafson was short and to the point. “‘Hey man,”’ Gustafson said Hendrick told him, “‘the 88 has got to run good, capiche?”’ Sure thing, boss. Hendrick Motorsports, currently the most successful team in NASCAR, ended last season with a serious organizational problem. Jimmie Johnson, Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon swept the top three spots in the final standings, but superstar Dale Earnhardt Jr. was a distant 25th. Earnhardt, NASCAR’s most popular driver, went winless in his heavily sponsored No. 88 Chevrolet. He notched just five top-10 finishes, had his crew chief - who is also his cousin - fired midway through the season, and suffered through the most confidence-rattling season of his 10-year Cup career. It was clear that getting Earnhardt’s team back on pace with the other HMS drivers needed to be the top priority of the offseason. Although it’s a companywide effort, the task of making it happen primarily falls to Earnhardt crew chief Lance McGrew and Gustafson, who led Martin to five wins last season and a runner-up finish to Johnson in the standings. But Martin, Gustafson and the No. 5 team are already at the top of the sport, perhaps just a step or two away from winning the coveted Sprint Cup. So why in the world would they agree to help McGrew and Earnhardt rebuild a team that seemed lost so many times last season? The move required a total restructuring of shop practices, and the shifting of Gustafson’s lead race engineer and a key mechanic over to McGrew’s team. “This is something that’s near and dear to Mr. Hendrick’s heart, and these two cars have to perform. It’s his responsibility, and it’s my responsibility,” Gustafson said, motioning to McGrew. “If that 88 car doesn’t succeed this year, then the 5 is not going to succeed, either.” Because the layout at Hendrick’s sprawling motorsports campus differs from many other organizations, his race teams aren’t all housed in the same shop. Johnson and Gordon are in one building, and the two teams established a system of efficiency and sharing from the very first day. Since Johnson’s No. 48 team made its debut in 2002, Johnson and Gordon have combined to win 71 races and the last four Cup titles. The routine has never been disturbed, even during the teammates’ thrilling 2007 championship race that saw Johnson edge Gordon for the title. Things were never as smooth, though, after Hendrick merged his other two teams into a second building. The drivers changed, the crew chiefs changed and it was difficult to re-create the chemistry of the more successful 24/48 shop. Hendrick wanted the two shops to operate the same way when Earnhardt came to the team in 2008, but crew chief Tony Eury Jr. came with him, as did several of their team members. Eury and his crew had their own way of doing things, and even though they were willing to adapt to the Hendrick systems, not everything fell into place with Gustafson’s practices. So when the wheels nearly fell off last season, Hendrick knew he had to demand that the 5/88 shop fall into place once and for all. Neither team needed convincing. “I have never in my career, in business or racing, challenged two guys and had them jump like Lance and Alan have done,” Hendrick said. “I want to have one team with two cars, and Alan was in agreement and ready to do it two races before the end of last year. I can not tell you how proud I am of that, and for Lance for not wanting to build his own deal, and instead saying ‘I’m not going to do anything if Alan doesn’t sign off.’ “It’s amazing to watch these two guys work on this together, and I guarantee you they are going to have their stuff together this season.” If there wasn’t enough pressure already, the two teams have a daily reminder looming above them every day they are at the shop. Johnson’s office, oddly, is not located in his shop, but instead in a long hallway above the shop floor of the 5/88 building. On display in the windows are his four consecutive championship trophies, and if the light hits them just right, the glare can be enough to make one turn away. The crews see the trophies from the shop floor, and the shiny hardware is visible over McGrew and Gustafson’s shoulders as they sit at their desks. Nobody seems bothered, though, by what some could be perceived as an in-your-face display of success. “That’s just motivation,” McGrew shrugged. “Motivation can be a very positive thing.” The two crew chiefs are now approaching this season as if they were one team, using plans and procedures as if everything and everyone were interchangeable. Both drivers are on board, which clearly helps in executing the new structure. Martin, who came close to his first championship last season and has everything to lose in this venture, has been gracious in answering Hendrick’s call for help. “Our communication will be whatever level Junior wants it to be,” Martin said. “Our goal is to elevate the performance of two cars, and it will not fail. I am old, I have been doing this a long time and I know what I know: It will not fail. If it was doomed to fail, it would have been met with some resistance and we would have pleaded our case. “But it will work, and I guarantee you it will work.” Earnhardt, with nothing to lose, has no choice but to buy into the new plans. There’s nowhere but up for him to go, and he’s putting faith in McGrew that his crew chief will have it turned around by the time the season opens next month at Daytona. “We cannot go back to the track and perform like we did last year,” he said. “I was embarrassed, the team was embarrassed and none of us want to go through that again. I think that willpower alone and our determination will not let that happen again.” Earnhardt approaching 2010 with optimism Dale Earnhardt Jr. says he has noticed a change in the culture at the Hendrick Motorsports race shop his No. 88 team shares with the No. 5 of Mark Martin -- and that may bode well for improved performance in 2010. From Earnhardt's point of view, the catalyst for the change was the naming of Lance McGrew as his full-time crew chief at the end of the 2009 season. In May, McGrew had replaced Earnhardt's cousin, Tony Eury Jr., as interim crew chief. "When he [McGrew] was able to solidify his position, and we could move forward knowing this was the deal -- this is how it is -- everybody sort of wrapped their minds and beliefs and trusts into that and around that, and we could sort of build back some confidence and some trust and belief in the team," Earnhardt said Friday night at the Preseason Thunder Fan Fest at Daytona International Speedway. A shifting of in-shop personnel has created a greater sense of cooperation between the two teams. "When I say the culture, that's kind of what I mean, in the two cars and the people that are really intertwined between the two teams -- kind of getting them all working and believing again in the No. 88 is what I think has changed a lot," Earnhardt said. Martin, who finished second to Jimmie Johnson in the NASCAR Sprint Cup championship standings last year, doesn't think Earnhardt's performance needs to improve that much, if he can reverse the ill fortune that derailed promising runs in a number of races last year. "If they only make minor progress in the performance side, and they have the opposite kind of racing luck that they had, they will have a Chase-making and very, very, very respectable season," Martin said. "In other words, they don't have to make a huge jump in performance, if they can just get that monkey off their back. "They ran better than the 5 car in numerous races, but nobody really noticed, because they got wrecked, or something broke... They had a lot of things happen and go wrong for them when they were faster than we were in the 5 car." Teammate Jeff Gordon believes confidence is the key to a turnaround for Earnhardt, who enters the season on a 57-race winless streak. "It doesn't take much to get off track," Gordon said. "I mean, it's so competitive out there. And I know that sometimes it looks like they're way off, but I don't think they're off as far as people think. ... I think it just is going to a take a fresh start -- a few things. "The organization puts so much effort into every team and every car that the ingredients are certainly there. I think that probably what's left is just to get that confidence up. It happens with everybody. If the driver is confident, then the crew chief is confident, and if the crew chief is confident, the pit crew is confident. It just trickles all the way down. "Hopefully, all the hard work they're putting in over the offseason will help them get started off in the right foot and be able to not break the confidence down too early -- because once you get it broke down, it's hard to get it back." Earnhardt understands how important it is to his fans for him to make the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. In three of the last five seasons, he has fallen short of that goal. "When I miss the Chase... I feel like I've let them down," Earnhardt said. "They put up a fight with you all year long. They fight every week right there with you. They argue their way through every day of work with somebody who's pulling against you. So they fight their own battles just like I do out on the racetrack. "So, yeah, you feel like you have let them down when you don't make the Chase at least. I mean -- damn! -- you hope to make the Chase. That's not really asking a terrible amount from your drivers. So you feel pretty bad. I think that's the thing that bothers me the most out of having a disappointing year." Driver lineup announced for '10 Preseason Thunder Daytona 500 champions Matt Kenseth, Ryan Newman, Kevin Harvick, Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. are among the drivers that will appear at NASCAR Preseason Thunder Fan Fests at historic Daytona International Speedway on Friday, Jan. 15 and Saturday, Jan. 16. Race fans can get their sneak peek of Speedweeks 2010 with numerous activities with their favorite drivers from the Cup Series, Nationwide Series and Truck Series in the Sprint FANZONE located in the heart of the "World Center of Racing." Among the activities planned for both days include: • Interactive fan forums • Autograph sessions • Show cars, displays, music • Online auction • Blood drive • Richard Petty Driving Experience Drivers currently scheduled to make appearances on Friday, Jan. 15 beginning at 6 p.m. ET are 2009 Daytona 500 champion Kenseth, Earnhardt Jr., Gordon, Newman, Mark Martin, Jeff Burton, Joey Logano, Paul Menard, Travis Kvapil and A.J. Allmendinger. Scheduled to appear on Saturday, Jan. 16 during the noon - 4 p.m. session are Harvick, Clint Bowyer, Martin Truex Jr., David Reutimann, Morgan Shepherd, Michael Annett, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Colin Braun. In the 4 p.m. -- 8 p.m., drivers scheduled to appear are Kurt Busch, Brad Keselowski, Todd Bodine and Sam Hornish Jr. Tickets, which are available for $15, are on sale now at 1-800-PITSHOP or online at www.daytonainternationalspeedway.com with autograph session availability limited to 250 people per driver in advance. To request access to the special autograph sessions, race fans can call 1-800-PITSHOP or visit the Daytona International Speedway ticket office beginning on Monday, Jan. 4 at 9 a.m. The only drivers with advance reservations for the driver autograph sessions will be Earnhardt Jr., Newman, Kenseth, Busch, Gordon, Harvick and Martin. The remainder of the driver autograph sessions will be done by a first-come basis. Additional drivers and more details about the NASCAR Preseason Thunder Fan Fests will be released in the coming weeks. '10 Budweiser Shootout features new entry criteria NASCAR announced Wednesday a revision to the 2010 Budweiser Shootout at Daytona format that provides fans with a strong lineup of drivers highlighted by last year's top performers and a collection of previous winners at the sport's most-storied race track. The 32nd annual season-opening event launches Speedweeks at Daytona on Feb. 6. Green flag is set for 8:10 p.m. ET. The new criteria are based upon the following qualifications, with eligibility based on a driver having competed in the Cup Series within the past two seasons: • The 12 drivers that qualified for the 2009 Chase • Past Cup Series champions • Past Budweiser Shootout champions • Past Daytona points race winners • The reigning rookie of the year "We're always looking at ways to make this event bigger and better for our fans and we believe the new format for the Budweiser Shootout puts together an exceptionally strong lineup of our top drivers," said Robin Pemberton, NASCAR vice president of competition. "In our discussions with the track, we thought by placing an additional emphasis on the drivers who had performed well at Daytona over the years would create an even more compelling element for the fans to get excited about at the beginning of the season." The race distance remains 75 laps in segments of 25 and 50 laps. Both green-flag laps and caution laps will count. Between segments there will be a 10-minute pit stop allowing teams to pit and change tires, add fuel and make normal chassis adjustments. Starting positions will again be determined by a blind-draw at the annual Budweiser Shootout draw party on Feb. 4 on the SPEED stage in the Midway, outside Turn 4. The Budweiser Shootout -- a "non-points" event for Cup competitors -- was first held in 1979, originally known as the Busch Clash. Kevin Harvick won last year's event. 2010 Budweiser Shootout Eligible drivers: Driver Filled Criteria John Andretti July race winner Greg Biffle 2009 Chase Geoff Bodine Daytona 500, Shootout winner Jeff Burton July race winner Kurt Busch 2009 Chase Kyle Busch July race winner Derrike Cope Daytona 500 winner Dale Earnhardt Jr. Daytona 500, July race, Shootout winner Carl Edwards 2009 Chase Bill Elliott Series champion, Daytona 500, July race, Shootout winner Jeff Gordon 2009 Chase Denny Hamlin 2009 Chase Kevin Harvick Daytona 500, Shootout winner Jimmie Johnson 2009 Chase Kasey Kahne 2009 Chase Matt Kenseth Series champion, Daytona 500 winner Bobby Labonte Series champion Terry Labonte Series champion, Shootout winner Joey Logano Reigning Raybestos rookie of the year Sterling Marlin Daytona 500, July race winner Mark Martin 2009 Chase Jamie McMurray July race winner Juan Montoya 2009 Chase Ryan Newman 2009 Chase Ken Schrader Shootout winner Tony Stewart 2009 Chase Brian Vickers 2009 Chase Michael Waltrip Daytona 500, July race winner IMG looks to double down with Danica and Dale Jr. Danica Patrick's representatives at IMG soon will be talking to the brands endorsed by Dale Earnhardt Jr. as both camps seek opportunities to combine the star power of the two drivers. Even though Patrick's move to NASCAR has been in the works since the summer, she just last week signed to drive a dozen or so Nationwide Series races for Earnhardt's JR Motorsports, a team he co-owns with Rick Hendrick. She'll continue to drive a full IndyCar Series schedule for Andretti Autosport. "Now that there's something real to talk about, we can sit with [Earnhardt's] partners to find the right opportunities for both of them," said Mark Dyer, senior vice president, strategic planning and development at IMG, the agency that represents Patrick and engineered her move to NASCAR. Dyer is part of an IMG team that includes Alan Zucker, Patrick's agent from the client representation group; Tom Worcester from business development; and Tom Knox from motorsports business development. GoDaddy.com will be the primary sponsor on Patrick's No. 7 Chevrolet at JRM, and two other associate sponsorships are close. Primary, full-season sponsorships in the Nationwide Series run anywhere from $5 million to $7 million a year for the top teams. Go Daddy also sponsors Patrick in IndyCar, so the potential for sponsor conflict has been limited so far. IndyCar primary sponsorships run about the same as Nationwide team deals, in the mid-to-high seven figures. Additionally, Go Daddy is spending well into eight figures to sponsor Mark Martin's No. 5 Sprint Cup car for a majority of the 36 races next year, bringing the total sponsorship spend for the domain name provider to more than $20 million. That doesn't include Go Daddy's significant media buy, which will include two spots for Patrick ads in the Super Bowl. Go Daddy also sponsored a JRM car last season and is expected to have a relationship with Earnhardt this season. As IMG and JRM work together to fill out the sponsorship on her Nationwide Series car, the more compelling possibilities are how Patrick might work together with Earnhardt, NASCAR's most popular driver for seven straight seasons. Earnhardt's co-primary sponsors are Pepsi's Amp Energy and National Guard, while he also endorses Nationwide Insurance, the title sponsor of NASCAR's No. 2 series. John Aman, associate vice president of sponsorships for Nationwide, has said the insurance giant is studying endorsement opportunities, which could play off Patrick's participation in the series or her ties with Earnhardt. "Absolutely" there will be opportunities, Dyer said, for Patrick and Earnhardt to work together. "There are a lot of brands within Pepsi, and Dale has his own affiliation with Go Daddy and Nationwide as well." Just as interesting is the potential for a brand to pair Patrick and Earnhardt's sister, Kelley, the president of JRM who negotiated the deal with IMG to bring Patrick to the team. Kelley Earnhardt, like Patrick, is blazing trails as a woman in a profession dominated by men. "There are some great story lines there about Danica coming to NASCAR and the female executive who helped bring her into the sport," Dyer said. Other entities can't wait to put Patrick's star power to use as well, given her perceived ability to drive ticket sales and TV ratings, two areas that have slumped in recent years. Chris Powell, president of Las Vegas Motor Speedway, is already devising promotional possibilities that would incorporate Patrick in a ticket-selling plan. Patrick has not yet committed to a race schedule, but with the Feb. 27 Las Vegas race the third event on the Nationwide Series schedule -- well before the March 14 season opener in IndyCar -- she is expected to include Vegas on her calendar.,P>"It's a breath of fresh air for the sport," Powell said. "We're hoping to create a promotion around her appearance that will be exciting for fans and potentially rewarding. What we hope is that a fan or fans will win something based on where Danica finishes. Ever since there's been talk about her coming into NASCAR, we've been talking about ways to leverage her presence and profile." Patrick, likewise, will figure heavily into ESPN's promotion of the Nationwide Series, which typically begins with a brand campaign around late January, about three weeks before the start of the season. ESPN2 carries most of the Nationwide Series races, with some bouncing over to ESPN or ABC. Viewership for NASCAR's No. 2 series was down 12.7 percent in 2009, averaging 1.8 million viewers for 35 races. "Danica is one of the drivers who has proven she can move the meter," said Julie Sobieski, ESPN's vice president, programming and acquisitions. "In 2005, we saw significant increases in the Indy 500 when she was a rookie. She's a story that transcends the sport and has the power to bring in different viewers. Casual fans will gravitate to this story line. We see advantages across both of the series, Nationwide and IndyCar." Dyer said the strategy with Patrick has been to position her as a NASCAR driver, not solely a Nationwide Series driver. And despite her partial schedule in NASCAR as she continues to compete full time in IndyCar, "there will be the ability to market with her yearlong," Dyer said. It remains to be seen where Peak, one of Danica's longest-running partners, will fit in on her Nationwide or IndyCar car, but that relationship is expected to continue. Popularity, responsibility go hand-in-hand for Junior It would have been difficult to blame Dale Earnhardt Jr. if had he not shown up. He could have kicked back in his new house, hung out with family and friends, and had somebody else accept his seventh consecutive most popular driver trophy for him. It almost would have been understandable -- what driver would want to jet all the way across the country for one day, receive an award unrelated to performance, and face another round of questions about what it's going to take to turn his program around? No, it wouldn't exactly have been proper, but after his miserable, snake-bitten 2009 season, it would have been easy to fathom why the guy might have wanted to steer clear of this Champion's Week altogether. And for an instant there was the question of whether he had, after his name was announced during Thursday's Myers Brothers award ceremony, and a few long seconds passed without any sign of Junior in the showroom of the Venetian hotel. But then there he was, picking his way past all those Chase drivers and their entourages and making a long walk toward the stage. "They stuck me up there in the top row," he joked. Well, when you're in a room full of title contenders and you finish 25th in final points, that tends to happen. This was a quick Las Vegas trip for Earnhardt, who was heading home right after the event. No craps, no poker, no regaling in the festivities surrounding teammate Jimmie Johnson's fourth consecutive title in NASCAR's premier division. But he had to make an appearance. Four years ago, after the first time he missed the Chase, he sent a videotaped message of thanks to New York. He won't make that mistake again. "I learned my lesson," he said. "If the fans are going to go through the trouble of clicking online every day to get this award for you, to get you to win it, to hope you win it, I understand how important it is for me to accept it in person." Make no mistake about it, Earnhardt understands and appreciates the meaning behind the most popular driver award. Only three men have won it seven or more times, and the other two are Bill Elliott and Richard Petty. In his speech in the Venetian showroom, he used words like "honor" and "pride." Junior is a driver who well understands his sport and his place in it, and realizes that a large degree of responsibility goes along with his fame -- hence, a 3,000-mile trip to Las Vegas for roughly 30 seconds on stage and 20 minutes with the media. "There's a big sense of, did I earn this? Did I deserve it, because of my family name?" he said. "My father gave me a hell of a gift in popularity. My job has been to try and be an asset to the sport. To try and maintain that gift, and its integrity, and the name my father has built, the respect that it has, the Earnhardt name and all that. There are a lot of emotions that kind of run through when I accept the award." Earnhardt's appearance was but a small part of a larger program that honored award recipients who would otherwise get lost in the pomp and circumstance of the formal Cup banquet. There was Joey Logano, accepting his rookie of the year trophy, and giving thanks to mentor Mark Martin. "I only hope I can wheel a car like him when I'm his age in 2040," the 19-year old said. There was radio broadcaster Barney Hall, receiving the Myers Brothers award for lifetime achievement. There was championship crew chief Dale Inman, receiving the Buddy Shuman award for significant contributions to NASCAR. There were sponsor-driven awards that led to some rather curious winners, like Juan Montoya as driver of the year and Darian Grubb as crew chief of the year and Jack Roush as problem-solver of the year. "As part of the management team at Roush Fenway [Racing], I feel somewhat complicit in the problems we had to overcome," quipped Roush, who had three of his five drivers go winless on the season. Johnson, as expected, backed up the truck, receiving a slew of honors and the check-filled envelopes that go with them. Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong sent a videotaped tribute. "You just have three more to go," the cycling legend said. "Good luck." Johnson seemed more concerned with how cold it was in the theatre, and used some of his rarely-seen championship muscle to get a stern message across. "The temperature in here is unacceptable," he said. Johnson would have another issue later in the day, when his No. 48 show car somehow conked out during the "Victory Lap" parade down Las Vegas Boulevard, and he rode to the finish sitting on the rear wing of a pace car while a wrecker tended to his vehicle. "He finally broke down!" one fan in Earnhardt Jr. gear exclaimed. For the rest of the field, though, the failure came much too late. For Earnhardt, the work is well under way to get him back to Las Vegas next December for reasons that have nothing to do with his popularity. Car owner Rick Hendrick has already made changes, moving the former lead engineer of Mark Martin's No. 5 car to Earnhardt's team, and tasking Alan Gustafson and Lance McGrew -- the respective crew chiefs of the 5 and 88 cars, which are housed in the same facility -- with merging those operations to the same seamless level of the 48 and 24 programs of Johnson and Jeff Gordon. "That's my focus for next year," Hendrick said. "I'm committed to that 88 car. The other guys are running well and they know the things they've been doing. I've met with Lance and Alan and Junior, and you're going to see a big difference in that team next year." Earnhardt certainly hopes so, especially after an awful 2009 campaign full of failures and breakdowns and shortcomings. Before, Hendrick said, Gustafson had his guys in the 5 outfit, and Tony Eury Jr., Earnhardt's former crew chief, had his guys on the 88. They were two separate teams under the same roof. "Now, we're swapping guys around," Hendrick said. "We're trying to make one big team with two cars." That means Gustafson, who helped Martin to a second-place points finish this year, will play a role on the 88. There are other changes, too, in areas like shocks and engineering. Thursday, at least, Earnhardt sounded optimistic. "I hope it makes us better," he said of the changes. "It should make us better. I feel good about it. I think that as an entire unit the 88 car could have been stronger. We had the resources. There was a broken link here and there. Hopefully we've got that fixed and we'll see the results on the race track." What that link specifically was, he wouldn't say. "I don't want to bring a lot of light to them," Earnhardt said. "They're commonplace changes, but anytime we do anything with our team it really puts everybody in a spotlight, and these are individuals that work in the sport that don't care to be in the spotlight. I really don't want to do that to any of the guys I've been working with in the past that I won't work with in the future. Because they're good guys." Earnhardt knows a little something about living in the spotlight, and truth be told handles it better than many others would in his situation. Even Hendrick will admit that Earnhardt's enormous popularity puts pressure on everyone associated with him, a nine-time championship car owner included. "I knew that when he came, that I'd be answering more questions about what's wrong if he wasn't successful," Hendrick said. "That's just kind of part of the deal. But I have a very good relationship with him, and I really admire the guy that lives inside that wants to please a lot of people but carries a tremendous burden on his shoulders. It's not one I would want." And yet, Junior hoists that burden onto his shoulders every time he walks out his front door. Which is why he knows better than anyone that he needs to reach a point where his production and his popularity are more in line. Which is why he came to Las Vegas for a few hours to accept an award that had nothing to do with success or failure on the race track. Which is why leaving the frustration of 2009 behind must be as easy as flipping a page on a calendar. "It's going to have to be," he said. "It's basically the only option I've got." Earnhardt again wins most popular award Dale Earnhardt Jr. is NASCAR’s most popular driver for the seventh consecutive year. Earnhardt’s win keeps him at third on the career list behind Bill Elliott’s record 16 times selected as the most popular driver, and Richard Petty, who won the award nine times. The award, which is sponsored by Chex and presented by the National Motorsports Press Association, has been given since 1965 and voted on by fans. Earnhardt, who is not part of the 12 drivers being celebrated this weekend in Las Vegas, took some time to get to the stage during Thursday’s awards ceremony. “They nearly stuck me up there in the top row,” he said after finally getting to the podium. “I take a lot of honor in (the award) it and a lot of pride. I know it’s kind of a cliche, but I just wanted to be a race-car driver, wanted to be able to make a living showing up, driving cars every week. Having the fan support like I have has been an incredible bonus for me. “I can’t thank them enough, so I guess I’ll just keep showing up.” Earnhardt, in his second season with Hendrick Motorsports, finished 25th in the standings. His Hendrick teammates went 1-2-3, as Jimmie Johnson won his fourth straight championship to lead the sweep. Earnhardt flew to Las Vegas just in time to accept the award, and planned to leave immediately after. Because of his hectic travel schedule, he said he’s trying to have a quiet offseason with friends and family and enjoy the new home he built and moved into about two weeks ago. But he didn’t consider skipping the ceremony—something he did several years ago when he accepted the award via taped message. Earnhardt said he “learned my lesson” after receiving a good bit of backlash for not showing up in person. “I understand how important it is to accept it in person,” he said. “There’s a big sense of that I earned this, that I deserve this because of my family name. My father, he gave me a hell of a gift in popularity, so my job has been to try to be an asset to the sport and to maintain that gift and it’s integrity. The name that my father has built, the Earnhardt name, and the respect that it has. “So there’s a lot of emotions that run through when I accept the award.” Earnhardt says Danica talks still ongoing Negotiations to bring Danica Patrick to NASCAR are ongoing with Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s race team, but the driver said he has not participated in the talks and isn’t certain she will drive for his Nationwide Series team. JR Motorsports is co-owned by Earnhardt and Rick Hendrick, and both said the Patrick talks are being handled by Earnhardt’s sister, Kelley. Earnhardt announced Thursday that Kelley Earnhardt and his cousin, Tony Eury Jr., have been given ownership stakes in the organization. Kelley Earnhardt has been the driving force in the team’s bid to bring Patrick to a part-time NASCAR ride. “It’s still sort of in the negotiation stages,” he said. “Her and my sister are, I guess, managing that entirely. I have not been in any way, shape, or form involved.” Asked what the odds are of Patrick signing a deal, Earnhardt didn’t pick a number. “She’s going to drive stock cars for somebody, someday,” Earnhardt said. “It’s just too much of a—look at all the Formula One guys over here checking (NASCAR) out—the writing is on the wall for her and several other guys. I think it’s exciting. She would be great for our sport. She wants to see what’s up.” Patrick earlier this week announced a three-year contract extension with Andretti Autosport, and that was believed to be the final hurdle for her to finalize any NASCAR plans. Earnhardt wasn’t sure, though, that Patrick will be in NASCAR next season. “It’s going to happen when she wants it to happen,” he said. “Whatever happens. Y’all know who has interest, and she has talked to our company and her and my sister are the only ones who have any dialogue.” One looming issue with JR Motorsports, though, is that the organization is still searching for full sponsorship for its flagship No. 88 car. Funding was pieced together this season, but a large chunk of money was lost when GoDaddy.com decided to move to the Sprint Cup Series as full sponsor for Mark Martin at Hendrick Motorsports. Earnhardt on Thursday called the sponsorship search “a dire situation” and said it’s likely new driver Kelly Bires will only be able to run half of the season. Earnhardt does not run JR Motorsports for profit, but instead created the organization as a way to help employee many of his family members. He said he expects Eury Jr. to be the crew chief for the team next season. Eury was fired as Earnhardt’s crew chief at Hendrick in June. Focus turns to Junior Getting Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s team back on track is Rick Hendrick's top priority now that Jimmie Johnson has his record fourth consecutive NASCAR championship. The owner of Hendrick Motorsports says Earnhardt's team will be the organization's primary focus this off-season. Johnson gave Hendrick his record 12th championship in Sunday's season finale, and Hendrick drivers swept the top three spots in the standings. But Earnhardt finished a distant 25th after one of the worst seasons of his career. Hendrick says he wants all four of his drivers in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship next season. Earnhardt Jr. strikes a hopeful tone in Q&A Q: How were the Country Music Awards? A: Oh, it was fun. Dreaded every moment up until it started happening. Of course when you get in the middle of it, it's pretty interesting. I sit there and from the moment I said I'd do it, which was about a month and a half before, to the moment when I got there, I was thinking, 'What did I do this for?' I was thinking that the whole time. I sat down, and the first performance went off. I was sitting there thinking, 'Man, I'm going to see a concert with some of the greatest of today's stars. This is pretty cool.' The more it got going, the more I got into it. I knew that would happen. It's just angst and nervousness leading up to it. Q: Just outside your comfort zone? A: Way outside. Way outside. Q: Even after all the stuff you do? A: I know! You never get used to it. I don't. I'm always just a nervous wreck. It's terrifying getting up in front of them people and trying to because it's not a NASCAR race. It's nothing I do for a living. I'm so comfortable in this world but don't know to do that, but I guess we did OK. Q: Did you have a script? A: Yeah. I went to the rehearsals, and 65% of the people presenting skipped the rehearsals, which I don't blame them. But I went anyway to try it out. That was pretty fun. I think the best part about it is meeting the stars. I'm as starstruck as everybody else, so walking the red carpet, you see a lot of different people. You see Reba McEntire, whom my sister is a huge fan of, and I wanted to get my picture with Reba for my sister, but I didn't have the nerve to ask her. I was in the green room with Kris Kristofferson for probably two hours, and Mike Davis got to talk with him. Mike Davis and him had a conversation about North Carolina. I was just happy for Mike to have a conversation with a guy like that, and me being able to meet him and tell him how much a fan I was. Stuff like that was really cool. He was a highwayman, you know? That makes it pretty tough. Q: You said during an interview at the CMAs that you don't want the season to end? A: Well, I have, uh. It's been a really (lousy) season, but we're starting to run a little bit better. And I really enjoy working with Lance, and the offseason is the beginning of a lot of hard work. A lot of you get a little break in December, but before you know it, the offseason is here and gone. There's a lot of hard work in January. A lot of photo shoots and testing. So I'm just trying to put off the inevitable. Speedweeks is hell, kind of leading up to that and getting to the Daytona 500. All those things, they'll be here like that (snaps fingers), you know? And so, I'm just trying to slow everything down. I was real happy with how we ran last week (at Texas). I was upset about how we decided to finish the race, but I'm enjoying Lance a lot. I enjoy the guys. And more so, how me and Lance are getting along makes me feel like racing and not sitting around in December. Q: Your stats seem bizarre, because since Lance has been on the team, you've run better, but the results are worse. What do you have to fix? Is it just turning the page on the calendar? A: I don't know if it's that easy. Yeah, I don't know if it's that easy. As a driver, I wouldn't call myself conservative, because I ran really hard last week. But I don't go looking for problems on the track. We just, I don't know, man. It's like ... it's our problem, too, to fix. To figure out. But I will say this, that team is under a microscope, and it's hard to perform when all eyes are on you. But the best people in every brand of sports step up and get it done. I don't really know where to put the responsibility for why our finishes look like they do, 'cause they're horrible. But we can look back and see more than half of them weren't our doing. We got taken out, a couple of failures here and there, but last week we run ourselves slap out of gas. We knew we had to pit. We weren't trying to make it. We knew we had to pit. We still run ourselves out of gas. That's unacceptable entirely, for any team. That was frustrating. We can chalk that up as our own doing. A lot of other times, we've just been taken out or something silly has happened. Q: A lot of people who look at your record might say it's just bad luck. But are you a guy who believes you make your own luck? A: If you want to find yourself mixed up in a bunch of wrecks, you run around at the back of the pack. So in that example, I feel like you made your own luck. If you hang out with pigs, you're going to get (dirt) on you. You make your own luck in that sense, but you can't say when a part falls off the car that you really could have avoided that because it would have taken a psychic. It depends. You definitely are in control of your fate when driving. And your crew chief is in control of your fate with the pit strategy and all those things. Everybody has a hand in the failure or success. Q: Do you anticipate personnel changes for next year? A: I feel I'm happy with my team. I feel everybody on that team is really good at their job and good enough to be in that position. We get along. I'm sure Lance will look at that, and he and (team manager) Brian Whitesell will look at that and sort of mull over what improvements we can make in every area during the offseason. That's no different than what every team does every offseason. Chad (Knaus, Jimmie Johnson's crew chief) does the same thing, even though they win championships, they may change one guy or move somebody around. Q: Tony Gibson, your former crew chief, made some comments to ESPN.com recently in which he implied there were people at Hendrick who didn't believe in you. Do you agree with that? A: I don't think that was really true. Gibson's a good guy, and we have a great relationship. He's a great friend of mine. I'm working with this team, and I've got to believe in this 88 team. It's impossible for me to agree with them comments when I've got to work with this team and believe in this team and expect them to believe in me. And I do. I expect us to show up every week with their belief in me. I know that Lance does. Me and Lance have had some conversations when we've laid it out on the line, and I know when he's genuine. I think I'm a good judge of character of when people are telling the truth or blowing smoke. I feel he's genuine about his belief in me. He'll rally the right people around us to make it happen. He doesn't want to go down the road with somebody whose heart's not in it. And if somebody on the team turns out to have a change of heart or difference of opinion about our ability to run good, it's probably better for everybody if we weren't working together. But I don't really feel that way about the team now. Gibson's a good guy. It was a hard to deal with that because it hurt Rick's feelings a lot because Rick takes the switch from (former crew chief) Tony (Eury) Jr. to Lance, he takes the responsibility for that. So it hurt his feelings a little bit. I think Tony Jr. is in a better place personally. I think me and him have a better relationship. I love working with him, and I'm going to work with him again one day. It might be in the Nationwide Series next year. It might be in Cup 10 years from now. Who knows? I like working with him. He's my family, and I will work with him. But right now with our program and our team, it's not the direction we're going, and I feel good about Lance. I like Lance. Every car I've drove of his that he's built I've liked, it's worked, and we've been fast. So that's working. That program is going in this direction, and the rest of it is in a better place, too. Tony Jr. was pretty beat down and had a hard time with it. I feel like the position he's in now (in Hendrick's R&D department) is one he can enjoy and grow, but I want him close because I love him so much, and he's so much fun to work with and just a hell of a guy. And he's great at his job. Q: And you don't want him taking that knowledge to another organization? A: It ain't that. If he wants to go work somewhere else, I want him to be happy. That has nothing to do with it. I love him because he's my cousin, and I want him around me because we like to be around each other. I told Tony Jr. you do what you need to do to be happy. I want you to be happy. If you want to go crew chief someone else in the Cup series, go do that. But I have this other plan, and if that looks fun, let's do that. It's up to him. I don't care about what he does with his knowledge or if it falls into someone else's hand. He's a great guy, and he's going to do good things no matter where he's at, but I like working with him. I'd rather me and him have involvement in something in our lives, because when we're 50, 60, 70 years old, those are the things that we're going to have the most fondest memories and be the proudest of. We don't want to get apart and try to reconnect down the road. Q: The professional relationship with Tony grew to where you didn't talk to one another. Is communication with Lance now more important? For example, does he fall on his sword after a situation like running out of gas at Texas? A: He will to an extent. I don't want Lance to fall on his sword entirely, because the team has to respect him and his decisions, and we have to back him. We can't go to the next race and go, 'Now you know what happened last week. Are you sure about this? None of us believe what you're saying.' I've been driving for a while, and I've got my opinions on his strategy, and we're going to have disagreements, but we had some phone conversations up until 3 o'clock in the morning after that Texas race just to get it behind us and start thinking about Phoenix. I like that about Lance. I like being able to go ahead and get that (stuff) out of the way. If it's 3 o'clock in the morning on Sunday night. We were both heartbroken. I couldn't go after him or point my finger at him because he was feeling bad enough as it was about it. So I just hope that we can learn from it. That was a race we should have finished in the top five if we had done what everyone else around us was doing. We just learn from it and move on, and hopefully the next time in that position, we do as the Romans do. Q: It's kind of a tightrope for you because at Kansas, the same thing happened. A car that should have finished in the top five, and because of the crew, it doesn't. On one hand, you want to believe in those guys, but I assume you want to kick them in the pants, too? A: Crews are going to make mistakes, even the best crews are going to with lug nuts and stuff like that. But what happens when I think about those things, when you put it that way. Right or wrong, what my instinct is to do is to say, from the top down: Rick and (Hendrick vice president) Doug Duchardt, all those guys are acutely aware of every step we take wrong and right. They put Lance in charge of the team for a reason, so from the top down, they'll evaluate and fix whatever these problems are that we have where we're stumbling within the crew. We've made a lot of changes on our pit crew to be better through the Kansas deal. We were interchanging guys back and forth for several weeks, and I feel like the crew is doing great. You can't have loose lug nuts, and everyone knows it's bound to happen here or there, but you can't have them frequently. When you think about Lance's experience, he hasn't really called a 500-mile race but a couple of times in the last several years, doing the R&D deal with Brad (Keselowski). He really hasn't been in the week-to-week deal calling a 500-mile race since working with the 25 team. So I cut him a break there on what he chose to do last weekend, and I hope that when we get put in those situations again — it's easy to have hindsight and say you should have done this — but hopefully we'll make the better, safer decision then. Q: So your sense now, you guys should have these fixed for next season? A: Absolutely, yeah. ... It'll be hell. We can't do this (season) again. If we start struggling right out of the box (in 2010), we won't hit the panic button, but I'll sit down with Rick, which he'll be willing to do, and we'll sit down with Lance, and we'll figure out what the problem is and what to fix. We're to the point now where we show up and we're fast and competitive. In races, we're running good. From now to February, we should have figured out what the hell the other problems are that are keeping us from finishing the deal. Q: Your demeanor, you seem a lot more confident and relaxed than when Lance was announced as your permanent crew chief at Talladega? A: Yeah, yeah. I just didn't feel like doing a press conference. I was just tired of the media publicity of everything that's went on this year. And I was exhausted of having to sort of get in front of you guys with every move we made and try to explain to you all what my feelings were. I was confident then about the choice, but just having to get up in front of everybody and make it. Hell, maybe Lance feels the same way, but I feel like we could have done without the whole press conference and just went ahead and done it. Made the decision to do it, made that known and if anyone wanted one on ones or some questions, they could have came to us. I qualified like (crap) at Charlotte, and had that deal where I was upset and talked to you guys (the next day after a press conference). It kind of bit me in the tail a little bit and got me in the (National) Enquirer, which was fun. I thought that was a compliment. Q: Have you checked who those unnamed sources were in that story? A: No, I guess it means you're relevant. I need to hold my tongue a lot of times. It's been a real frustrating year, and you've got to give me a little credit, because I've been pretty good about controlling my mouth. I don't want to insult Rick. He's given me everything. He hasn't short-handed me. A lot of fans may have the impression he's not as focused on us because we're not in the Chase now, and he's got to think about the other three guys. But he's done everything I've ever asked and more. I don't want to say anything derogatory about him or the guys, and it's hard to make any comment about the team without really thinking hard whether they're going to be insulted at all. I've got to be more careful around my emotions and stuff. I do feel more confident today. (Texas) was just a good week, and it helped me. I'm sort of living and dying by the result of every day. If we struggle in practice, my emotions and feelings and my gut are on a roller coaster trying to finish the season out. With every day and practice, the car's tight, the car's loose, it's just a roller coaster on how I feel about things. But the best thing I can do is really settle down and believe in Lance and believe that Rick is doing everything he can do. And believe in my guys, my car chief. Believe in any new guy that I'm working with. I've got to get faith in it. I just haven't really been concentrating on doing that, but I should be because I owe it to those guys if they're going to believe in me. Tony Stewart clarifies harsh comments about Dale Earnhardt Jr. over team radio Tony Stewart clarified the critical remarks he made about Dale Earnhardt Jr. over the team radio last week at Phoenix International Raceway, saying it was in the “heat of the moment.” Stewart, after being caught up in a wreck caused by Earnhardt Jr.’s spin, cursed on the team radio and said, “Dale Jr., that no-talent son of a b----.” The comments received airplay on ESPN’s “NASCAR Now” program and made the rounds on YouTube throughout the week. Stewart has been known as an ally of Earnhardt Jr.’s, which is why the remarks surprised many fans – especially during a season in which Earnhardt Jr. has struggled. Saturday, Stewart addressed the comments by saying although he had yet to speak with Earnhardt Jr. about the remarks, “everybody knows we’re in the heat of the moment.” “It doesn’t matter who it was, I would have said the same thing,” Stewart said. “It was being upset because we’re running for all the points we can get right now and we took a hit in the points last week because of that incident. “It doesn’t matter who it was – that’s heat of the moment.” Stewart was relegated to a 25th-place finish as a result of the wreck, his second poor finish in three weeks. The points leader heading into the Chase For The Sprint Cup, Stewart is fifth in points with only Sunday’s race at Homestead-Miami Speedway remaining. Junior still tabloid fodder After his qualifying laps Friday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Dale Earnhardt Jr. made light of a recent story in the tabloid National Enquirer, which described him as a "train wreck" headed for an emotional breakdown. "I got all tore up about how we qualified [Oct. 15] in Charlotte, and I got in front of [the media] and sort of really just said how I feel," Earnhardt explained. "But a couple of the metaphors I used, such as 'end of my rope,' kind of put me within range of those guys [the Enquirer], and they kind of played target practice on that. "I actually researched online how many people had sued the Enquirer and how many people had won, but, reading through my article, they sort of twist the words to where you can't ... they sort of twist the sentences around to where they're not really calling you out hard. They're worded so that you can't really go after it. I don't know. It really doesn't bother me that much. A lot of people say any publicity is good publicity. "We're 25th in points, and we're still relevant for the National Enquirer, so..." Admittedly, Earnhardt hasn't had the kind of season he had expected in his second year at Hendrick Motorsports, but he has seen positive signs with the addition of crew chief Lance McGrew. With only Sunday's Ford 400 left before the series adjourns for the winter, Earnhardt isn't ready for the season to end. "We don't need to say, 'All right, let's get this year over with and get ready for next year,'" he said. "We need to race some more. So I wish this year wasn't over. But unfortunately it is, and we have to try during the offseason to fix what we can, without being able to go to the race track and seeing if that's working. "Hopefully, when we show up at Daytona, we've made the right calls. It's going to be a challenge for us, but I feel real, real confident in Lance, and I feel good about my guys -- and I hope that the racing gods are kind to us when next year comes around." Earnhardt's crew uninjured in traffic crash near PIR In a season in which far more has gone wrong than right for Dale Earnhardt Jr., several members of his over-the-wall crew luckily escaped injury Sunday morning in a traffic accident outside Phoenix International Raceway. According to a Hendrick Motorsports team representative, three members of Earnhardt's pit crew and two pit support members were on Avondale Boulevard, attempting to make a left turn onto the access road to the infield tunnel when their van was rear-ended by another vehicle at about 8 a.m. local time. The van's occupants, catch-can man Jason Dalrymple of Concord, N.C.; front-tire carrier Ben Fischbeck of Waynesville, Mo.; rear-tire carrier Matt Myers of Ford City, Pa.; and pit-support crewmen Bailey Walker and Mark Jacobs went to the track's infield care center, where they were examined and released. Hendrick spokesperson Laura Scott said, "They were just a little shaken up, more than anything. Once the adrenalin wears off they might be a little sore, but it's not expected to affect their race-day duties." The crew members had arrived in Phoenix on Saturday and were driving from their hotel when the accident occurred. Dale Jr.: Nothing new, but Patrick good for NASCAR Dale Earnhardt Jr. says Danica Patrick would be good for NASCAR, but there’s nothing new to report on the IndyCar star joining his team. Earnhardt told The Associated Press on Friday that other teams were still in the mix for Patrick’s services. He said the talks were still in their early stages. His comments came after ESPN reported that a deal could be in place soon between Patrick and Earnhardt’s Nationwide Series team, JR Motorsports. Patrick would run a partial Nationwide schedule while running full-time in the IRL. “She will be good for NASCAR, whoever gets her,” Earnhardt said. That’s what all his fellow drivers were saying, too. Talk of Patrick’s jump to NASCAR has percolated for weeks, even amid reports that she has agreed to a three-year contract extension with Andretti Green Racing that would keep her in the IndyCar series through 2012. The open-wheel season is much shorter and has more gaps than NASCAR’s No. 2 circuit, making it possible for Patrick to do both. Patrick is the only woman to win an IndyCar race, and her crossover appeal is a huge attraction for sponsors. “The fans would love it, so I think the better she does over here—barring running in front of me—the better it is for the sport and I think that’s good,” Carl Edwards said. Edwards and others offered the usual warnings of how much different—some say more difficult—the NASCAR circuit is. While Tony Stewart has enjoyed plenty of Sprint Cup success after an IndyCar career, Sam Hornish Jr. hasn’t sniffed a Sprint Cup victory after dominating the IndyCar circuit. “She’s never going to know what it’s like to drive one of these cars until she gets out and does it in competition,” four-time Sprint Cup series champion Jeff Gordon said. “I give her credit for trying. You can only wait and see how it goes, and I don’t like commenting any farther on rumors until they make an announcement.” Earnhardt’s point exactly. Dale Earnhardt Jr. says NASCAR needs new approach to Talladega Hendrick Motorsports driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. said Sunday that NASCAR Sprint Cup teams have gotten too smart and too fast for Talladega Superspeedway. Earnhardt Jr. led five times for nine laps and finished 11th in the Amp Energy 500 for his best result since a ninth at Bristol in August. After the race, he talked about how Cup teams have “out-engineered” the 2.66-mile superspeedway. “You know what I mean?” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We over-engineered, and the technology has sort of passed what they were trying to accomplish here when they built this place. But what we are doing now is OK, but I don't think it is the best solution.” After a race that saw two cars flip in the final six laps, Earnhardt Jr. suggested that NASCAR is doing the opposite of what it should be doing to the cars at restrictor-plate tracks. "If they have to slow us down and run around these tracks at slower speeds, they have to make a smaller motor, make us run a smaller motor, but be able to open it up so there is throttle response,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Then slow the cars down with a little more drag or something. Them old cars in the '80s didn't cut the wind like these things do. “We have got them in [the] ground and everything else aero-wise to make it smooth and sleek, and now we are having to trim the motors back to make the cars slower. It is probably the opposite of what needs to be going on. Probably need to open the motors back up and slow the cars down with the air.” Earnhardt Jr. said Sunday’s race was typical of Talladega events of late: Relatively calm racing until the closing laps. “The race is pretty safe up until the end,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “You knew that. I don't think anybody wants to be out there and involved in what happens at the end: Dodging cars, seeing people flip upside down. Obviously there is something else that needs to be thought about. I am sure NASCAR will figure it out. They are pretty hard-headed over there, don't like to admit they [are] wrong sometimes." HMS: McGrew to return as crew chief for No. 88 in '10 Hendrick Motorsports owner Rick Hendrick has named Lance McGrew the full-time crew chief of the No. 88 Chevrolet driven by Dale Earnhardt Jr. McGrew, 41, assumed the role May 28 on an interim basis. "I have total faith in Lance and what he's capable of accomplishing with Dale Jr.," Hendrick said. "There was a lot of pressure with how he came into this deal, and the way he's handled it has been extremely impressive. Lance is confident in himself and in his decisions, and all the outside distractions aren't going to faze him. He's a strong-willed guy who will keep his eye on the ball and not settle." McGrew will complete the final four races of the 2009 schedule, beginning with this weekend's AMP Energy 500 at Talladega, Ala., and return in 2010, which will mark the 11th full-time Sprint Cup season for Earnhardt. "Lance has been part of the solution, not the problem," said Earnhardt, an 18-time winner in the Cup Series. "He's tough, which is what I need, and we've really clicked in a short period of time. The communication has gotten better every practice and every race, and I know that's going to keep improving. Having this decision behind us is really important, and now we can focus on the future instead of the past." As a crew chief, McGrew earned the 2003 Nationwide Series championship with driver Brian Vickers and has posted victories in all three of NASCAR's national touring series. In addition to Vickers, he has won races with drivers Kyle Busch, Jeff Gordon, Ricky Hendrick, Mark Martin and Tony Stewart. "The communication between Dale Jr. and I continues to improve every single week," said McGrew, a native of Baton Rouge, La. "Both of us are 110-percent committed to the success of this team, and we're going to do everything necessary to get the job done for Hendrick Motorsports, our sponsors and Dale's fans." Dale Earnhardt Jr. to Bring NASCAR to CMA Awards Dale Earnhardt Jr. will make a pit stop with country's finest when he appears as a presenter at the Nov. 11 Country Music Awards, the Nashville-based CMA tells PEOPLE. Earnhardt is part of a round of presenters announced by the CMA for ceremony, which will air on ABC. Others include LeAnn Rimes, Kellie Pickler, Julianne Hough, and nominees Randy Houser (for new artist and video of the year) and Jake Owen (for new artist), along with the network's Robin Roberts and the stars of ABC's Wednesday night comedy The Middle, Patricia Heaton and Neil Flynn. They join the previously announced performers, who include Taylor Swift, Keith Urban, Dave Matthews (with Kenny Chesney), Tim McGraw, Reba McEntire, Sugarland, George Strait, Zac Brown Band and rockers Daughtry (with Vince Gill). The show will be co-hosted for the second consecutive year by Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood, both of whom are also set to perform. Response to adversity will define Earnhardt's career No question, being Dale Earnhardt Jr. has its advantages. Enough energy drinks and beer to keep a refrigerator stocked for life. Enough cash to fill a starting field's worth of Brinks trucks. No problems getting dates on Friday nights during off weekends. That cool Western village in the backyard. Instant access to all the best simulator racing leagues. No wait for a table at any Charlotte-area TGI Friday's. A brand-spanking-new Camaro (we hope) sitting in the driveway -- in fire-engine red, of course. But would anybody trade places with the guy right now? These days, the answer to that question isn't quite the automatic affirmative it once was. These are dark times for NASCAR's most popular driver, as evidenced by his downright despondent comments last week. He's weary of struggling on the race track, and it shows. Earnhardt has always been smarter and savvier than many people give him credit; his upbringing as the son of a seven-time champion, his personal endorsement deals, and his own successful Nationwide operation have helped him learn the business inside and out. So for him to basically throw up his hands and say something like "put the damn team together" seems an almost unmitigated act of surrender. It's not, of course -- Earnhardt will be right back in that No. 88 car Sunday at Martinsville, fighting the same battle all over again. He really has no other choice. The profession he's chosen is a public and unforgiving one, and Earnhardt knows that. If he really does feel he belongs "in the upper percentage of our sport," as he said earlier this month at Kansas, the only way out is to get through it. Jeff Gordon did it, fighting through an 88-race winless streak that had people questioning whether he could still compete. Dale Earnhardt the elder did it, fighting through a 59-race skid that had people questioning whether the sport had passed him by. So many of the great drivers in NASCAR have faced tests that left them doubting their confidence and ability, and yet found ways to persevere. Darrell Waltrip endured a winless 1990 season that left him 20th in points, yet came back to reach Victory Lane five more times in his career. Jeff Burton appeared all but finished after four winless seasons, the last of which included his departure from Roush Racing, but has since won four times in Richard Childress cars. Bobby Allison went winless for more than two years, yet came back to claim a championship. Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth and Kevin Harvick -- the latter of whom is trapped in a free fall every bit as trying as Earnhardt's -- have all missed the Chase. Viewed in that context, Earnhardt's struggles of late don't seem all that unusual. Even Jimmie Johnson's charmed career will one day be put to the test. The cyclical nature of the sport all but guarantees it. "Every driver that I've had drive for me has had a period somewhere in that stretch where their confidence is shaken," said Rick Hendrick, Earnhardt's car owner. "That's just normal. I mean, I feel the same way about trying to know what to do to fix things sometimes. It's like, maybe I need to ask somebody else. But nothing will help a driver's confidence any more than a couple of back-to-back runs and good finishes. He knows he can do it, and we know he can do it. It's just frustration, and it's just [him] beginning to doubt. Everybody doubts everything, and that's just normal." And really, Junior's troubles are magnified by his popularity, which during this kind of season can become an irritating and ill-fitting yoke. The guy won a race last year. He made the Chase last year. Is he yet to live up to the true potential of his union with Hendrick Motorsports? No question. Is he enduring a terrible season fraught with pit-road mistakes, mechanical troubles, and poor efforts on the race track? Absolutely. But people act like he's in the midst of a 10-year losing streak or something. He's won more recently than Harvick, than Clint Bowyer, than Juan Montoya, than Ryan Newman. So let's not quite label the guy as finished just yet. Even so, this season, which began with a wreck in the Daytona 500 and never really got any better, has been a particularly brutal one. Last year's Chase crater job was supposed to be the low point, but it wasn't. Neither was the inevitable separation with cousin and crew chief Tony Eury Jr. The bad runs are just awful. The good runs -- like his effort at Kansas, where he might have had a shot to win had he been around at the end -- get ruined by things like dropped lug nuts and snapped engine belts. It's been 52 races since Earnhardt last won, but it seems like 500. No wonder he's "at the end of his rope," as he said last week. Given the spotlight he's always in, and the pressure he always feels, and the expectations he always shoulders, who wouldn't be? "Sometimes when you feel like you're snake-bit, it's hard to show up and try to pretend that everything is great," Hendrick said. "But I can tell you this ... we're all committed to each other, and we're just going to keep digging. I told them, 'This can't last.' We've got too many smart people over there to not fix it. We've been right on the edge of it. If we could have finished two or three of those races and not have been swept up in a wreck, we wouldn't be really talking about it. "But it's just so much pressure when these guys are running like they're running and you've got three cars that are in the [Chase]. And we don't hide from it, we just know we've just got to work harder, and we've got to. I think what Dale was saying was sometimes people doubt his commitment, and it's eating him up. But we're going to get it. I just hope it's soon." There's plenty of work to be completed first, like figuring out the crew chief situation on the No. 88 car for next season. But given the success of his three Hendrick teammates, the pieces seem to be in place. For all he's done -- and 18 Cup wins and a pair of championships on the then-Busch circuit are nothing to dismiss -- how Earnhardt responds to this period of adversity will ultimately define his career. It will break him, and he'll wind up reunited with his old Earnhardt team or driving for his own JR Motorsports operation. Or, he will work harder than ever before and once again unleash the championship contender so many people believe he has within him. Men like Gordon, Allison and Earnhardt the senior once faced similar forks in their respective career paths, and we all know how things worked out for them. If Dale Earnhardt Jr. truly believes he belongs in the upper echelon of NASCAR drivers, then there's only one real alternative. The time for despondency is over. His legacy is on the line. Junior's struggles mount as life now immitates art Art does immitate life. That doesn't mean that NASCAR's most popular driver buys into immitation being the sincerest form of flattery. Cue Days of Thunder ... Dale Earnhardt Jr. admits he's at the end of his rope. His career is as off course as Lindsay Lohan's. Thing is, he has recognized this and has accepted the fact changes need to be made, which is more than can be said for his beloved Redskins. "I've been riding it out. There comes a point though when you don't want to ride it out anymore," Earnhardt said Friday at Charlotte. "You just have had enough, you know? It's been a long year. I really don't want the year to be over with, because I like going to the race track every week and racing. But the last several ... well, all year, it's been so ... low. "The highs have been not very high and the lows have been terribly low. It's hard to want to get back up and try again the next week when you take such a beating. But I don't know what else to do." The impetus is now on Rick Hendrick, who made the decision in 2007 to bring Junior into the HMS fold. Hendrick seemingly has the golden touch in regards to teaming crew chiefs and drivers -- Ray Evernham and Jeff Gordon, Chad Knaus and Jimmie Johnson -- but Earnhardt's career now hangs in the balance. After Tony Eury Jr. and Lance McGrew, maybe a third crew chief will prove to be the charm. No matter who the crew chief is, he's got his work cut out for him. In Earnhardt's words, "Whoever I work with needs to be a dictator." Hendrick should spare no expense when it comes to identifying that person, considering the money invested in Earnhardt. (Not to mention the revenue stream from Junior merchandise.) Maybe in December 2006 Teresa Earnhardt was, in fact, ahead of the curve: "Right now the ball's in his court to decide on whether he wants to be a NASCAR driver or whether he wants to be a public personality." When Earnhardt's separation from DEI was imminent in 2007, longtime race promoter and former Lowe's Motor Speedway president Humpy Wheeler noted, "He's got three years. You just don't start winning prolifically after you're 36 years old or so." The success of Mark Martin aside, the Sprint Cup Series is a young man's game. The grueling schedule, the marketing / sponsorship aspect for the drivers, it's the epitome of what-have-you-done-lately. In Earnhardt's case, that's not much -- which is why it is imperative for Hendrick to make the right call during the offseason, if not sooner. Two years into the gig with Hendrick, Earnhardt has one victory, 12 top-five finishes and 21 top-10s in 67 races. He had better season totals in 2003 (2-13-21). Obviously something ain't right. He didn't get dumber behind the wheel. He doesn't have worse equipment. Earnhardt has the talent and the marketability to be both a NASCAR driver and a public personality, but he cannot do it alone. However, time and the in-house competition at Hendrick -- not to mention the series as a whole (he's 22nd in points, after all) -- is not on his side. If the winds of change are to blow through the No. 88 garage, it needs to happen now. "There are a lot of smart people around here," Earnhardt said. "I'm just wanting on somebody to make the call. Put the damn team together and say, 'This is what you've got, and this is what you're going to do next year.' I'm just kind of waiting on that to happen." Mr. H, channel your inner Tim Daland. Harry Hogge (and a real-life Cole Trickle) awaits your call. Not to mention Junior Nation ... Earnhardt has "had enough" with frustrating year Dale Earnhardt Jr. says he’s “had enough” as he rides out the worst season of his NASCAR career. Earnhardt is stuck in a 51-race winless streak dating back to 2008, his first season with Hendrick Motorsports. He heads into Saturday night’s race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway ranked 22nd in the standings and has just five top-10s this season. He says he’s been trying to ride out the season, but “there comes a point where you don’t want to ride it out no more. You’ve just had enough.” Earnhardt says he has no answers on how to lift his slumping No. 88 team. He’ll start 39th in Saturday night’s race. Hall of fame inductee: Dale Earnhardt drew love and ire of fans in legendary career It was getting late on Saturday night at Bristol and the crowd had already whipped itself into a frenzy. Terry Labonte had eased into the lead and appeared to be on his way to another short-track victory. But all eyes were on one car and one man – the black No. 3 driven by Dale Earnhardt. Old “Ironhead” had been downright bull-headed on this night, pushing and shoving his way to the front on more than one occasion. Now he was morphing into his other personality – “The Intimidator” – and the crowd could sense it. Labonte appeared to have the checkered flag in sight, but Earnhardt’s menacing black No. 3 was bearing down on him fast. As Labonte took the white flag, the crowd rose to its feet. More than 150,000 fans knew what was coming. They had seen it before. As Labonte charged into Turns 1 and 2, Earnhardt slammed into his bumper, sending Labonte spinning and crashing down the backstretch. As drivers all around slammed on the brakes and swerved left and right, Earnhardt darted around Labonte and sped away to take the checkered flag. The crowd erupted, first in cheers and then in angry boos when it became apparent that Earnhardt had intentionally wrecked Labonte to win the race. As Earnhardt grinned sheepishly in victory lane and uttered one of his most famous lines – “I didn’t mean to turn him around; I meant to rattle his cage, though” – the crowd showered him with boos and threw beer cans, coolers and seat cushions onto the track. Even fans draped in black Earnhardt T-shirts suddenly turned on him, booing the injustice by “The Man in Black.” A week later, after both Labonte and NASCAR Nation had cooled down, Earnhardt was surprisingly cheered as he was introduced at Darlington Raceway, his legion of fans forgiving him and throwing their support back in his corner. In one week he had gone from hero to villain to hero again, a transformation that marked his whole career. Though Earnhardt won 76 NASCAR Cup races, none defined his career more than his last victory at Bristol, a track that seemed built for his hard-nosed, aggressive style. The controversial win over Labonte – arguably his most famous victory, even surpassing, perhaps, his lone Daytona 500 win in 1998 – illustrated the type of rough-and-tumble, take-no-prisoners approach that made Earnhardt one of the most revered drivers in NASCAR history. Though his 76 wins and a record-tying seven championships made him a shoo-in for NASCAR’s first hall of fame class, it was his image and style that left an indelible mark on the sport. No one raced harder. No one wanted to win more, and no one could stir a crowd quite like he could. And no one in the 1980s and ’90s played a bigger role in the growth of the sport than the man known simply as Earnhardt. Right up to the very end, Earnhardt was still awing fans and competitors alike with his superior talent and amazing feats, adding to his still-growing legend. He won just three more races after his last Bristol victory, and all three came in spectacular fashion. Two months later, he took the lead with four laps to go and held off Dale Jarrett by .144 second to win at Talladega. He started 27th that day, the farthest back anyone had ever started and won for the ninth time on one of NASCAR’s scariest and hairiest tracks. The following year, he won just two races, but both were in dramatic fashion. In March, he beat Bobby Labonte at Atlanta by .1 second in one of the closest finishes in history. Later that year, he charged from 18th to fourth in the final four laps to win again at Talladega, making his final victory one of his most memorable. Even in his final race, Earnhardt was racing hard and fighting tooth-and-nail for every position he could get when his fatal crash occurred on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. NASCAR lost its biggest star that day, but no one knew how big he really was until he was gone. He was larger than life and an American icon, one popular enough to have his funeral broadcast to the nation. Though Earnhardt’s talent and determination made him one of NASCAR’s most successful drivers, it was his image and his off-track demeanor that made him one of the most popular drivers and polarizing figures in the history of the sport. The son of a successful short-track racer, Earnhardt grew up in a mill village in Kannapolis, N.C., scraping and scrapping for everything he could get to put into his own race cars and his fledgling career. He even dropped out of school to pursue the one passion that drove him – racing. Once he got his big break, landing a Cup ride with car owner Rod Osterlund in 1979, he wasted no time making his mark, winning rookie-of-the-year honors in ’79 and then his first Cup title a year later, the only driver to do that in back-to-back seasons. Though he won races over the next few years, it wasn’t until he joined Richard Childress in 1984 that the Earnhardt legend was born. Two years later, he won his second Cup championship and began to dominate the sport. He won six championships over the next 10 years and became the intimidating, intriguing character that fans came to both love and hate. He endeared himself to die-hard fans who could relate to his small-town roots and blue-collar work ethic. At the same time, he riled others with his roughhouse, fender-banging style. As his mystique grew, Earnhardt parlayed his success and reputation into a marketing machine, capitalizing on his image as “The Intimidator” and “The Man in Black.” As his fan base grew, he sold more T-shirts and merchandise than any other driver, building a business empire off the track. Though Earnhardt sometimes got caught up in his black-hat role, often going out of his way to be the surly character that fit his mystique, deep down he was a down-to-earth man known for helping others, from the aspiring young racer to the church down the road that needed its parking lot repaved. But the thing that always seemed to be foremost in his mind was winning – winning the next race and the next championship (he finished second in points in his final full season). In a way, Earnhardt was NASCAR. He raced hard and he raced to win, and he was always looking to put on a show and excite the fans. That’s what made his 1999 victory at Bristol so captivating. One minute he was the consummate villain, the driver everyone loved to hate. And the next, he was the driver with the loudest fans, and the one everyone wanted to see. An hour after his bizarre victory lane celebration at Bristol, he was still being booed as he made his way to the Bristol Motor Speedway press box. As an elevator door closed, separating him from fans screaming at him and hurling insults, Earnhardt grinned again. “Man, I love this sh--,” he said. That was Earnhardt. He loved to win, he loved to put on a show and he loved to strike a nerve with fans. And he did it with a flare and style that made him one of the sport’s most important figures. 35 going on .? Dale Earnhardt Jr. has to work on his birthday Dale Earnhardt Jr. will spend his 35th birthday practicing his NASCAR Sprint Cup car, working on trying to get the Hendrick Motorsports No. 88 Chevrolet better than its 37th starting spot for the Pepsi 500 on Sunday at Auto Club Speedway in California. With more than 10 years in the Cup series, Earnhardt Jr. has 356 career starts and 18 career wins but is riding a 50-race winless streak and is trying to build momentum to get back in the Chase For The Sprint Cup next year. As the son of a seven-time Cup champion, Earnhardt Jr. has had celebrity status since entering the sport. While his name has been around for so long, it’s also a little hard to envision “Junior” as being 35. “Another year older,” Earnhardt Jr. said at Auto Club Speedway in California. “I feel pretty good about what I’ve been able to do and it sure has gone by pretty fast.” Although Earnhardt Jr. likely will be done with his racing duties by 2 p.m. California time Saturday, it didn’t sound like he had any big plans for a 35th birthday celebration. “I’m not doing much,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Maybe when I get home [Sunday night], I’ll have dinner with my family or something.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. says he believes talks with Danica still in early stages Dale Earnhardt Jr. says he hasn’t been involved in the conversations to have Danica Patrick drive select races for his JR Motorsports team next season, but he would welcome her in one of his cars. JR Motorsports general manager Kelley Earnhardt, the sister of Earnhardt Jr., has handled the negotiations with the popular IndyCar Series driver. Patrick is expected to re-sign in the next few weeks to drive for car owner Michael Andretti in the IndyCar Series full time but also is expected to begin testing the waters in NASCAR. Earnhardt Jr. said he believes the negotiations are in the early stages. His team is still looking for sponsorship for new driver Kelly Bires next year as well as a program for a second car, which would include Earnhardt Jr. and others, perhaps including Patrick. “Kelley has been managing the conversations between Danica and our team solely, entirely on her own,” said Earnhardt Jr., who has been more focused on his Sprint Cup effort at Hendrick Motorsports. “That’s in the early stages, I would suppose. I haven’t really gotten in the middle of it yet. We’ve been on the road and working like hell all of this month and next month [on my Cup car]. I’m not involved in it as much as I would like to be and I have to call and get updates on what the heck is going on with our sponsor searches and all our other things. “So it’s pretty frustrating. I’ve got good people in the right places to handle all of that stuff. Kelley is going to do a good job and always has, so I can focus on what I’ve got going on with this car here.” Earnhardt Jr. and Patrick share a sponsor in GoDaddy.com, and he said she has been impressed with her attitude as well as her skills. “I like Danica a lot,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I consider myself friends with her and it’s interesting to see her interest in NASCAR. It’s interesting for all of us, everybody. If we’re a piece of that, if we play a part in that, we’ll see down the road. “Right now, it’s just Kelley and her having phone conversations about it and it really hasn’t gotten any further than that as far as I know.” Patrick has won one IndyCar race in her career, winning in Japan last year. She is fifth in the current IndyCar standings going into the season finale this weekend. “She’s made it to the top level of motorsports in open-wheel in North America and any driver in that position has talent,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “She’s very competitive, has an extremely competitive side to her around the race track and in and around her program, she’s really dedicated to it. “She’s dedicated to keeping herself in shape and having every personal advantage she can have. She has high expectations of herself and she has a lot of those intangible values in a race-car driver that are really important that you don’t learn. You learn how to drive cars, you learn how to go around race tracks, but there’s a lot of things inside when it comes to initiative and will power and just passion that … you either have it or you don’t have it.” Strong start, bad finish for Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Kansas Dale Earnhardt Jr. enjoyed a strong start to Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Kansas Speedway. But he sure didn't have a good finish. The Hendrick Motorsports driver led a double-digit number of laps for the first time since Talladega in April. He's only led laps in one race since that time, and that came in August at Michigan. Sunday, though, he was out front early, leading 41 laps before setbacks began to haunt his effort. First he had a lug nut missing on a rear tire and had to come back in after a stop, losing a lap. Then he pitted under green-flag conditions during a subsequent stop and watched the caution come out shortly after, costing him a second lap. And then he suffered an engine failure. It was a catastrophic series of events for the driver and interim crew chief Lance McGrew, ones that left them 36th in the race and 22nd in the standings. “It’s frustrating," Earnhardt Jr. said. "We had a real fast car. … We had a fast enough car to finish top-12. We were running as fast as the leaders. We just needed track position. We had a good car.” In the end, a lost belt would sideline his effort and end his day early. "Oil pump belt flew off and [seized] the motor up a little bit," he said. "Hopefully they can find out what has caused it, what happened first." For Earnhardt, slow pace of improvement continues For Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kansas Speedway brought a small step forward in a long, lost season. It won't help him in the point standings, and it won't snap a winless streak that now stands at 49 races. But for one afternoon, it felt good just to be one of the fastest drivers on the board. "We've been waiting a while for the [No. 88] team to do something like this," he said after securing the second starting spot for Sunday's Cup event on the 1.5-mile track. It was Earnhardt's best qualifying position of the season, bettering a third-place effort at Indianapolis more than two months ago. These days, Earnhardt will take the positives wherever he can find them. NASCAR's most popular driver is well outside the spotlight of the Chase, working to make improvement as his three Hendrick Motorsports teammates vie for the series title. It's a shoulder-to-the-grindstone kind of process full of advances and setbacks, like his back-to-back top-10s at Michigan and Bristol followed by his current streak of four consecutive finishes of 17th or worse. Yet Earnhardt continues to build on his relationship with crew chief Lance McGrew, and manages to keep his perspective intact. "I've always felt like I belong in the upper percentage of our sport, and when you don't perform that way, it's definitely tough on you," he said. "But I've maintained my confidence, and I've maintained good confidence in my team and in Lance, and I just feel like the more we work together, the better we understand each other and the better our opportunity is to do something like we did [Friday]. But we looked at the rest of the season as any time we can get on the race track to try to prove ourselves and prove our worth to the rest of the sport, that's what we'll do for the rest of the year." The crew chief change that much of Junior Nation demanded earlier this year hasn't produced the magic turnaround that green-clad fans of the No. 88 car had hoped for; in fact, Earnhardt has actually dropped four positions in points since owner Rick Hendrick appointed McGrew to succeed Tony Eury Jr. prior to the first Dover race. But Earnhardt has had nothing but positive things to say about McGrew, who was named crew chief on an interim basis in June, and has clearly had an effect on his driver's demeanor and professionalism. Will McGrew be back in the same role in 2010? Earnhardt sounds as if he'd like to see that happen. But ultimately, it's not his decision. "I just want to make it clear, I guess, that the decision is Rick's and his management team. I like working with Lance. I get along great with Lance. We have had some great runs, and I feel like I can build on that type of success and have it happen more often, more consistently with Lance. And I hope that we're successful the rest of the year and that we go into next season with the same group of guys," he said. "But the decision isn't mine, and never will be mine. So I hope that we'll have more success and continue to give Rick and the people that do make those types of decisions good reason to keep us as a team and keep us working together, because I really do enjoy working with him. I feel like I'm a different race car driver than I've been the last several years, just my temperament and my disposition throughout the races and the weekend. "I still have to check myself every once in a while. I get a little angry, but just during practice and stuff when something you do to these cars can frustrate you. But for the most part, Lance is really great at controlling the situation and controlling our team and directing our team throughout the weekend and the races themselves. I've enjoyed the experience working with him." At Hendrick, rebuilding Earnhardt's team has proven an organization-wide effort. McGrew has dedicated engineers and team executives at his disposal. Earnhardt and his crew chief have been studying the characteristics of the cars of teammates Jimmie Johnson, Mark Martin, and Jeff Gordon -- all of whom are in the Chase -- trying to figure out what makes them fast and how to apply that to the No. 88. Ideally, it would be Earnhardt providing his title-hunting teammates with help to win the championship. But given the size of the mountain he's trying to climb, the flow of information has mostly been in the other direction. "You'd love to be able to go out on the race track and be quick and provide them with ideas, because they're trying to win a championship. And if I could help them on any given weekend, that would be one of the better accomplishments to these last 10 races for our team, aside from winning," he said. "But we're still sort of trying to find speed, so we're still leaning on them quite a bit as we have been the last several months trying to get our program to where it's more consistent. And we have yet to really improve on anything they've been doing, we've just been trying to get that in itself to provide us with some more consistency and better performance." Hendrick screens documentary of 25 years in NASCAR Rick Hendrick is owner of the most successful organization in NASCAR. He has 185 victories, 12 championships and three drivers in title contention this season. Things have never been better. And still, he’s been an emotional wreck the past few weeks. In honor of his 25th anniversary in NASCAR, Hendrick opened up his life— warts and all—for a feature-length documentary about his climb to the top. He screened it Tuesday night for 1,300 family, friends and employees, and the anxiety leading into the evening was overwhelming. “I sweated going up there tonight more than anything I’ve done in a long, long time,” he admitted after sitting through “Together: The Hendrick Motorsports Story.” It was an emotional evening for Hendrick and his family, who allowed the NASCAR Media Group to tell their story. Through interviews, archival footage, racing sequences and family photographs, it covers his humble beginnings as the son of a tobacco farmer in Virginia. The only thing he knew was that he didn’t want to follow his father into that business. “Pop knew (Hendrick) wasn’t going to be a farmer,” longtime friend Frank Edwards says early in the film. “He left him something to do on the farm one day, and when he got home, (Hendrick) had paid somebody to do it.” Hendrick’s early love was cars, and he figured out quickly that selling them was a lot more lucrative than fixing them. The film details his growth into one of the nation’s largest car dealers who then branched out into NASCAR with very limited beginnings. His first team, All-Star Racing, barely made it to the 1984 season-opener and then struggled to stay afloat. Facing a win-or-fold situation in the sixth race of the season, Geoff Bodine gave Hendrick the victory that allowed him to continue racing. Yes, the film covers his 1997 guilty plea to mail fraud for his role in the American Honda Motor Company bribery scandal. Yes, his near-fatal fight with leukemia is included. And the 2004 crash that killed 10, including Hendrick’s son, brother, twin nieces and several key employees is heavily documented through emotional interviews and footage of those lost that October day when their plane slammed into a mountain en route to a race in Martinsville, Va. It was rough for Hendrick to watch, but spokesman Jesse Essex, who is credited as a producer on the film, convinced him that it all needed to be included. “Do you pretend like the crash never happened? Do you pretend like I never got sick? Pretend like I didn’t go through the legal problems?” Hendrick asked. “Yeah, all that happened. If we didn’t tell it all like it happened, then we were phony. And I would be ashamed of it.” In the end, Hendrick was thrilled with the final product. It’s narrated by actor Tom Cruise, a friend since 1984 who donated his time to the movie and has been a recent Hendrick guest at several Sprint Cup races. ABC will show a shortened version of the film, which runs almost two hours, before the Oct. 11 race at California. The full-length version goes on sale Oct. 31, and a portion of the proceeds from DVD and Blu-ray Disc sales will go to the Levine Children’s Hospital in Charlotte. Among those attending Tuesday night were current Hendrick drivers Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr., as well as former drivers Darrell Waltrip, Ken Schrader and Bodine. They got to relive the early days, as the late Tim Richmond and crew chief Harry Hyde were brought back to life through old video clips. There was Richmond participating in an all-female aerobics class, stopping an interview to check out a pretty blonde passing by, and drinking the victory-spray beer after a win. Hyde was his cantankerous self, shown arguing in the pits and forming his unusual alliance with Richmond. Also brought back to life in the movie was Hendrick’s father, “Papa” Joe, son, Ricky, and brother John. There’s also a portion for engine builder Randy Dorton, an original Hendrick employee who was killed in the plane crash. It was almost too much for Hendrick, who had seen only a few clips of the film before he screened it privately last Friday. “I saw two partial clips about two, three weeks ago, and it put me in a funk for about three days,” he said. “I don’t know if I ever would have watched a video of Ricky anytime soon, or John, or my dad—that’s the first time I’ve seen any tape of my dad, or heard his voice, since he died. If I hadn’t seen it one time before, I wouldn’t have been able to sit through it (at the premiere), I don’t think.” But Hendrick pressed forward with the film as a tribute to his 500-plus employees, who he believes are actually the ones honored in the film. Affection for the boss pours out in interviews from tough racers who genuinely care for Hendrick. During the outtakes—one of which shows Hendrick clumsily climbing the pit wall at Homestead after Johnson’s third title last November—a list of every employee rolls up the right side of the screen. “I am real proud of the organization, real proud of the fact that we can go through these kinds of things and we get stronger,” he said after. “Those guys feel it and they don’t mind saying how they feel about the company, and I don’t mind saying how I feel about them, and I just think that’s special.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. says David Reutimann needs to 'polish up his craft' Dale Earnhardt Jr. talked with David Reutimann about their on-track incident immediately following the New Hampshire race last week – although from the sounds of it, Earnhardt Jr. did most of the talking. Speaking after his qualifying lap at Dover, Earnhardt Jr. said he was no longer mad at Reutimann but insisted that the Michael Waltrip Racing driver needed to “sharpen up and polish up his craft a little bit.” At New Hampshire, Earnhardt Jr. seemed headed for a top-five run when contact with Reutimann took him out late in the race Following the incident, Earnhardt Jr. made some strong comments about Reutimann’s talent – or lack thereof – and though he said they were out of anger and frustration, he didn’t exactly back off his assertions a week later. “We don’t get opportunities to finish in the top five too often, so I was really disappointed to be taken out,” he said at Dover. “And neither really does he, you know? So we both could have used that finish and neither one of us got it.” The sport’s most popular driver said Reutimann was a “really nice guy” and anyone who had ever spoken to him could see it. But he warned he would no longer give Reutimann a free pass in case of a mistake. “I know what kind of guy he is, but he just drives over his head real hard, trying to make an impression,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “And it cost me. And I don’t want him to cost me no more. Being a nice guy ain’t gonna be good enough no more.” Earnhardt Jr. recalled what he said when Reutimann approached him after the race: “I race you like a gentleman. There are no true rules when it’s at the end of the race, but it wasn’t at the end yet. We still need to take care of each other a little bit. I don’t have a problem racing hard at all – I was on the outside digging, running hard. Next time we go down in the corner side-by-side, just do a better job of taking care of people you respect. And if you respect me, you’ll do it.” The wreck especially irked Earnhardt Jr. because “I try to take care of him, I never just go in and wipe him out,” he said. “I ran into 10 or 15 people’s doors on that Sunday,” he continued. “But not hard enough to put them in any jeopardy – you try to take care of each other out there. A guy can just go in the corner and wipe you out, like the 44 [AJ Allmendinger] and the 47 [Marcos Ambrose] will do.” Earnhardt Jr. said he doesn’t believe Reutimann learns from his errors, “because he’s made them a couple times – and I want him to learn.” At this level, he said, “You can’t make those kind of mistakes, even if you’re making them three, four, five times a year. That’s too many.” As for Dover, Earnhardt Jr. said his poor practice times (he was 28th) were because the team was trying qualifying runs over and over. They never got the car any better, he said, and qualified 24th. But Earnhardt Jr. shrugged off the disappointing day. “I don’t know, I ain’t too worried about it,” he said. “The race setup will be quite a bit different.” Wreath-laying at Arlington humbles Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon In the humid stillness of Arlington National Cemetery on Thursday afternoon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon and team owner Rick Hendrick solemnly walked down a set of stairs toward the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. They lined up, along with a member of the military honor guard who ceremonially patrol the tomb, and then stepped forward together to place a wreath in front of the giant marble structure. Hands over their hearts, they stood silently amidst the quiet of the cemetery where more than 330,000 men and women are buried. A few minutes later, in the basement of a nearby building just down the hall from the guards’ quarters, the two National Guard-sponsored drivers reflected on the magnitude of what they had just experienced. “I was just nervous,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I get real nervous around appearances, but this one was real heavy. There’s a lot of responsibility, and that was definitely the case for this.” Earnhardt Jr. has spent the last several years of his career associated with one military branch or another. First it was the Navy, which sponsored his JR Motorsports team; now it’s the National Guard, which he picked up when he signed with Hendrick Motorsports. Drivers do appearances on behalf of their sponsors all the time. But this one, Earnhardt Jr. said, filled him with excitement and anticipation as he went to bed the previous night. “I tell people all the time it’s so much different than trying to sell a product off the shelf,” he said. “The military is a career choice, it’s a commitment, and you’re trying to convince someone to look into it. When you go to appearances with the Guard like we’re doing today, you definitely see that firsthand. It’s more tangible.” It wasn’t always that way. Earnhardt Jr. said he was “naïve” when he worked with the Navy, and that he was so young he didn’t feel completely worthy of the responsibility. As he has matured, Earnhardt Jr. has accepted the burden of trying to convince young men and women to serve their country. But when he stood before the tomb and watched the Changing of the Guard ceremony prior to the wreath-laying, he said it was “pretty overwhelming.” “Real emotional, I guess,” he said. “The structure of the guard itself at the tomb is quite impressive. That makes the weight of the situation obvious to you.” Like Earnhardt Jr., Gordon had never visited Arlington before and said he regretted not doing so earlier. “This is something I think every American should experience,” Gordon said. “The peace, the security that we feel in the safety of our country is because of the men and women here at Arlington.” Arlington, which holds the remains of soldiers dating back to the Civil War, is still very much an active cemetery. It has 27-30 burials per day and had 6,900 last year; this year, the number will top 7,000. The cemetery’s rolling hills stretch as far as the eye can see, all lined with rows and rows of precisely placed white headstones. The expanse of the place is enough to humble any visitor. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier itself contains the remains of unidentified soldiers from several wars and is symbolic of all those killed in wars whose bodies were never recovered. Four million people per year visit the cemetery, and nearly all of them stop at the Tomb of the Unknowns to watch the changing of the guard. Gordon stood alongside Hendrick and Earnhardt Jr. as they watched the ceremony from the top of the nearby steps, with the soldiers snapping their weapons and clicking their heels together in the most structured of ceremonies. “That blew my mind,” Gordon said. “To watch it, just the way they flip the guns and every movement being perfect. I’m sure they find their own flaws, but I couldn’t find any. You could just tell they are representing something that is very important.” And when it was time for his turn to approach the tomb and lay the wreath, Gordon said his mind was flooded with thoughts of how great an honor he was receiving. “What am I doing here? How did I get this opportunity? What did I do to deserve this?” he said, recalling his thoughts. “It’s very overwhelming and you’re just very honored to put your hands on that wreath. You feel a tremendous amount of pride.” Gordon’s work with the National Guard this season has given him an entirely new perspective on the significance of the military – not that he didn’t appreciate it before, he said, but he acknowledged he had “maybe taken it a little bit for granted.” “I don’t know if you really understand the steps that are taken, especially with the Guard and what they do…” he said. “That’s been a real eye-opening experience for me.” The same might be said for anyone who visits Arlington. Lance McGrew sees improvement in Dale Earnhardt Jr. team as group returns to Dover The last time Dale Earnhardt Jr. headed to Dover International Speedway, he was working with a temporary crew chief for the race and beginning his relationship with Lance McGrew. McGrew had been named interim crew chief for the team just a few days before the Dover race. He was already scheduled to work with Brad Keselowski that race weekend, but when Keselowski missed the field for the race, McGrew and Earnhardt Jr. joined ranks a week early. They finished 12th in that first outing. Since then, they've been working to improve the Hendrick Motorsports team's program with somewhat inconsistent results. Earnhardt Jr. has two top-10 finishes in the 14 races since that time, but he has also been enjoying some good runs in other races before being sidelined by an incident. Such was the case last weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, when he was running fourth with 17 laps to go before being caught up in a crash. McGrew says that he's learning the nuances of working through a race with the driver and feels that they are gaining ground. Earnhardt Jr. is 21st in the point standings heading into this weekend's race. "I think it's going good," McGrew said of his relationship with the driver. "It's definitely been challenging because of the way he describes things and the way I am used to things being described is different. So that's been an adjustment. But I think as a whole, at the race track we are performing better. We still aren't getting the finishes I feel like we deserve, but I'm definitely seeing progress." They’ll try to continue that progress in this weekend's AAA 400 at Dover, where Earnhardt Jr. has seven top-10 finishes in 19 Cup races at the track. His 12th-place finish this spring was his best in the last three races at the track. Now Earnhardt Jr. has a plan for attacking the track, trying to build on last week's run and complete it with a solid finish. "Dover has basically one groove, and it's right on the bottom," he said. "So trying to get around the bottom of the race track and trying to keep the nose down and keep the front of the car turning and gripping is really the most important thing. There's really not a second or third groove that works all day long. The guy that runs around the bottom and can do it the quickest is the best." Promising day for Dale Earnhardt Jr. ends against the NHMS wall Dale Earnhardt Jr. saw a promising run go south in a hurry on Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, finishing 35th on the heels of a crash with 17 laps left in the Sylvania 300 NASCAR Sprint Cup race. Earnhardt Jr. was running fourth when his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet was tagged by Michael Waltrip Racing's David Reutimann in Turn 3, sending the No. 88 car out of control and into the wall. Earnhardt Jr. later blamed Reutimann for the incident, which occurred on the first lap after a restart. "My car is tore up and he ain't got enough talent to run in the top five I guess," Earnhardt Jr. said. "He run down into the side of me and spun me out late in the race. I mean we're all running real hard but you've got to know how much race car you've got and you've got to know how much talent you've got before you go down in the corner. He never knows. It's disappointing. We had a good car." In fact, Earnhardt Jr. said he believed his car was good enough to finish in the top three before the wreck. NASCAR's most popular driver had been hovering around the top five for most of the race after moving forward from his 23rd-place starting position. "I know that [Reutimann] can't hold his line and I should have known that, but I gotta run hard and try to win," said Earnhardt Jr., who is still seeking his first victory of the season. "Some people you just can't race side-by-side with. We're disappointed. ... We had a real good car – a fabulous car all day long. "[It was] probably one of the best cars here. [We were] real hard all day just trying to run the best we can. David just run out of talent there." Sunday's misfortune was just the latest in a season of disappointments for Earnhardt Jr., who missed NASCAR's Chase For The Sprint Cup and remained 21st in the standings with his New Hampshire finish. "Well we're pretty ticked off about how we've been running," he said. "This definitely makes us more upset. We've been driving in the middle of the mess all day long and rooting on being and having fun. "We didn't slap drive down in the corner and knock anybody out but it happens to you sometimes. You've just got to know who you can race and who you can't." Dale Earnhardt Jr. trying to rebound from season of discontent at Hendrick Motorsports Dale Earnhardt Jr. wants to be reunited with former crew chief Tony Eury Jr. … … at JR Motorsports. JR Motorsports is an affiliate of Hendrick Motorsports, where Eury Jr. currently works in the research and development department. But Earnhardt Jr. has another plan for Eury Jr., who was his crew chief for two seasons at Dale Earnhardt Inc. and then moved with him to Hendrick to guide the No. 88 car until he was replaced by Lance McGrew as crew chief in late May during a season where Earnhardt Jr. struggled in his Sprint Cup car. Earnhardt Jr. wasn’t exactly specific on the job title for Eury Jr., but he explained he has a plan for his cousin to join the JR Motorsports operation, where Eury Jr.’s father (Tony “Pops” Eury Sr.) serves as a crew chief/competition director and several other Earnhardt family members work for the Nationwide Series organization. “I’ve been talking to him for about a month about coming over to JR Motorsports and being a big part of that with me because I feel like me and him have some unfinished business,” Earnhardt Jr. said Friday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. “We enjoy being around each other, and so I’ve presented him some things to think about. He’s looking forward to trying to be a big part of that company as well. “He knows everything that we’re doing right now as far as our direction on our sponsors and our drivers. He’s touring people around and shaking hands and trying to help us get everything we need to get nailed down next year. Hopefully he will be a big part of it.” Eury Jr. is not unhappy at Hendrick, but Earnhardt Jr. said he could provide a unique opportunity for his cousin at the organization co-owned by Earnhardt Jr. and Rick Hendrick. “He is happy, but ... it’s an opportunity to work with his daddy again, and him and his father were one hell of a team years ago,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “They haven’t had the opportunity to be that close and work closely in a while. His uncles, Robert and Jimmy Gee, are there. Danny Earnhardt, Danny [Earnhardt] Jr., my mom and my sister – he’s got a lot of family over there to be around and can be around having just as much fun and having a lot more opportunities to go to victory lane. “I just proposed that as an idea for him to think about, and I think that is something that he is really happy to consider. Maybe there will be some more information for you guys … once we come to some agreement there.” The responsibilities for Eury Jr. likely would be working with No. 5 team crew chief Brian Campe as well as in an overall race-car development role, said Earnhardt Jr., who shares seat time in the No. 5 with several other drivers. “I feel like if I can put Tony Jr. over that group, he can guide them in the right direction and help those guys sort of understand some of the things they can do better,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Also, we have to develop the [car of tomorrow] for that series, and Tony Jr. can be a big help there. I’m excited about bringing him in and him being a part of that company for a long time. “Anybody that drives the 5 car next year, driver-wise, would have to be excited about that as well.” Earnhardt Jr. obviously just gets excited when he can hire another family member he believes in. “I just like working with family, and that’s an opportunity for my family and JR Motorsports,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “What’s important there is our family and getting young guys in and out of that series and into the Cup series. … Pops is having the best time of his career, he says, at least particularly the last two seasons. “I think my uncles and everyone that works there feels the same way. I want Tony Jr. to have that same opportunity.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. trying to rebound from season of discontent at Hendrick Motorsports With the 26-race NASCAR Sprint Cup regular season behind him, Dale Earnhardt Jr. would like to turn the corner in Sunday’s Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Earnhardt Jr., who failed to make the Chase For The Sprint Cup, has struggled throughout 2009 and even since undergoing a crew-chief change earlier in the year. Under the guidance of interim pit boss Lance McGrew, who replaced crew chief Tony Eury Jr. in May, Earnhardt Jr. hasn’t been as fast or consistent as he would like to be. The Hendrick Motorsports driver has just five top-10s this season, two of them with McGrew. Only two of those top-10s are top-fives, which came at Talladega in April and at Michigan in August. "We need to become a top-five team every week,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I'd like to see more consistency and more strength in our performance." So would McGrew, who sees the June New Hampshire race as one that should have turned out more favorably for the No. 88 team. Earnhardt Jr. ran in the top five throughout portions of the event, only to end up 13th, in part because the race was called 28 laps early because of rain. "The last race there came down to weather,” McGrew said. “I felt like we had the strategy that it took to win the race or to legitimately have a shot at winning it. The car was really good. “It just happened to rain before the fuel window cycled through. It's aggravating because a lot of times you feel like the best car doesn't win, but that's the case for a lot of places we go to, really." In 20 starts at the 1.058-mile New Hampshire oval, Earnhardt Jr. has eight top-10s, including five top-fives. One of the keys to getting around NHMS, in his opinion, is the rubber build-up around the track. "New Hampshire can be a one-groove race track,” he said. “There's a lot of rubber buildup, and that determines where you can and can't run in the corners. If you can't run the line you want to because of the rubber buildup on the track, it makes it frustrating." Ultimately, though, McGrew says the biggest ingredient to running well is having a car that handles well. “The car has to roll through the center really well and have good grip off the corner because it's so hard to pass there,” he said. “If you can run the bottom and roll through there fast and not have a big wheel spin problem coming off the corner, then you'll be faster. “So it's a challenge to do both because a lot of times to get the car free enough to roll through the center, then he's really going to have trouble getting the throttle down off the corner." After a disappointing season, Dale Earnhardt Jr. looks forward to Richmond When the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series arrived in Richmond, Va., a year ago, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his "Junior Nation" of fans were riding high. It was his first year after joining the powerhouse team of Hendrick Motorsports, and NASCAR's most popular driver was fourth in the standings and headed to the series' Chase for the Cup late-season championship playoff. But Earnhardt faded in the Chase, and he came in last among the playoff's 12 drivers in 2008. And this year was even worse. His race results early in NASCAR's season were so poor that Earnhardt's crew chief, his cousin Tony Eury Jr., was replaced. Now the stock-car racing series again arrives in Richmond for tonight's Chevy Rock & Roll 400, the last race before this year's Chase, and Earnhardt and his No. 88 Chevrolet won't be in the 2009 playoff. Earnhardt is a distant 21st in the drivers' points standings and is still trying to make headway with his new crew chief, Lance McGrew, who took over in early June after Earnhardt finished a dismal 40th in the Coca-Cola 600 race. After Richmond, the 10-race Chase starts Sept. 20 in New Hampshire and its fourth stop is the Pepsi 500 on Oct. 11 at the two-mile Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. For Earnhardt, son of the late and legendary seven-time NASCAR champion Dale Earnhardt, the goal now is simply to win races -- or at least finish near the front -- and prepare for another shot at his first title in 2010. Richmond could provide the lift he needs. Three of Earnhardt's 18 career Cup wins have come at the 0.75-mile Richmond oval. "I have a lot of confidence going into there," Earnhardt said. "It's easier for me to tell my crew chief what the car is doing at that track than some others." McGrew, in turn, said: "I feel like the last couple of races we've finally gotten some of the finishes that I've felt like we've deserved. Right now we're racing for wins." In the meantime, a cloud of uncertainty continues to hover over Earnhardt, 34, who acknowledged when he joined Hendrick that he had "no more excuses" for not winning now that he was driving Hendrick's cars. His struggle stands in even sharper relief when compared with his three Hendrick teammates: Four-time champion Jeff Gordon is second in points, three-time title winner and reigning champ Jimmie Johnson is third, and veteran Mark Martin, who came out of semi-retirement to join Hendrick this year, is 10th with four wins. Martin, in fact, is having the type of year Earnhardt was expected to enjoy when he joined Hendrick. But Earnhardt's last point-paying win came at Michigan in June 2008 -- he also won the Budweiser Shootout exhibition race at Daytona at the start of last year -- so he has now gone 46 races without a victory. And he had a 76-race winless streak before that Michigan win, so Earnhardt has had one trip to Victory Lane in 123 point races. In addition, Earnhardt has shown little improvement since McGrew took over, although both say their communication concerning the race car's setups is getting better. That give-and-take between driver and crew chief is crucial because the cars constantly change, and thus need adjustments, during the course of a race. Earnhardt finished third at Michigan, ninth at Bristol last month and 17th at Atlanta last week, but he's two spots lower in the standings since McGrew replaced Eury. Still, Hendrick Motorsports is optimistic. "Dale Jr. and Lance are really clicking from a communication standpoint, and we've started to see the results of that here lately," said Marshall Carlson, the team's general manager. "Looking ahead to next season would be extremely easy to do, but the entire crew is focused on 2009," Carlson said. "The season isn't over, and we still have a lot left to accomplish." No one is more cognizant of the situation than Earnhardt, who is constantly asked about his career record. "I don't really find it to be a real big problem because, for the most part, most of the criticism was definitely deserved or warranted," Earnhardt said before last month's Michigan race. And after that race, Earnhardt accepted some of the blame, saying he sometimes would get frustrated during races and didn't keep his focus. "Since I started working with Lance, I've been trying to work really hard to be the same person at the end of the race that I am at the start of the race mentally," he said. "It just comes down to sticking with it, staying with the team, and trying to be part of a solution instead of a part of the problem." But it hasn't been easy for Earnhardt's army of fans to be patient. Indeed, some observers have pointed to his slump to explain the slip in television ratings for many Cup races this year. "I'm not sure if that can be possible or not," Earnhardt said of that theory this summer. "If it is, it shouldn't be. The sport shouldn't rest on one man's shoulders." They're back: Tony Eury Jr. helping Dale Earnhardt Jr. in Nationwide race at Atlanta Yes, that’s Tony Eury Jr. in a JR Motorsports shirt hanging out at the No. 5 Nationwide Series car that Dale Earnhardt Jr. is driving this weekend. No, Eury Jr. says, he hasn’t changed jobs, just on assignment from Hendrick Motorsports owner Rick Hendrick, who co-owns JR Motorsports with Earnhardt Jr. Eury Jr. was replaced as Earnhardt Jr.’s crew chief at Hendrick Motorsports in May and was reassigned to the research and development department as well as crew chief for Brad Keselowski and his partial Sprint Cup schedule. “Rick asked me to come over here and just hang out with the 5 [Nationwide] guys,” Eury Jr. said Saturday morning. “Maybe I can pinpoint some direction, try to help [crew chief Brian] Campe to get it up to speed. We’ve got Degree as a sponsor this weekend, and they’re sponsoring the race, so it’s a big weekend for JR Motorsports. “I’m just here helping out and then I’ll be getting ready for Kansas and Brad.” Maybe Eury Jr. was there to help Earnhardt Jr. with a Nationwide practice started at 8 a.m. EDT, which is pretty early in Earnhardt Jr.’s world. “He’s definitely get better,” Eury Jr. said with a laugh about Earnhardt Jr. not being an early morning person. “I got a call from him Wednesday about 7:30 in the morning. I haven’t figured if he [hadn’t] gone to sleep yet or if he was just up that early.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. hoping to duplicate past success at Atlanta Dale Earnhardt Jr. should be pleased to see the Pep Boys Auto 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway on the NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule this weekend. While he has finished 11th at the track in his last two visits, the Hendrick Motorsports driver has 10 top-10 finishes in his last 16 races at the track, a streak that includes his victory there in 2004, when he was driving for Dale Earnhardt Inc. He has an average finish of 11.6 at Atlanta, which ties for a personal best with his performances at Bristol Motor Speedway. This weekend’s event will be Atlanta’s first scheduled night Cup race, but Earnhardt Jr. doesn’t expect the race’s starting time will have much impact. “I don't think it's going to change too much," said Earnhardt Jr., who has finished in the top 10 in the two most recent Cup races this season. "The track is pretty wore down and will slow down over the long runs, but we will be running some pretty fast speeds the first five or 10 laps on new tires under the lights. That place is really, really fast." Crew chief Lance McGrew agrees. As he prepares for the race weekend, he sees this being more of a driver’s track anyway - no matter when the race is run. "I've always thought Atlanta is such a driver's race track because it is so wide and races so wide that there's groove after groove after groove," McGrew said. "If your car is not good on the bottom, we'll try the middle. If it's not good in the middle, we'll try two-thirds. If it's not good there, try the top. You'll go from the top of one end to the bottom of the other. "There's always ability for a driver to hunt a line that helps his car, which I've always liked because, whether you believe it or not, these cars are never perfect. So you always have to be able to hunt and peck and look for every last little hundredth [of a second] that you can find on the race track." The team will be entering the race with less pressure on it than Earnhardt Jr.'s Hendrick teammates. Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon are already locked into the field for the 12-driver Chase For The Sprint Cup, meaning they'll be looking for a win and the 10 bonus points that offers once that championship-determining segment of the season begins. Mark Martin, meanwhile, will be trying to maintain or improve his 10th spot in the standings as he attempts to lock into the field as well. Earnhardt Jr. is 21st in the standings and well out of Chase contention after a season in which he and his team have struggled. So while he's also seeking the win this weekend, his priorities and approach will be a little different than that of his teammates. "We are mathematically out of the Chase at this point, so we are watching everybody else and seeing how they are going to do," Earnhardt Jr. said. "We are trying to help our teammates the best we can and support them in their efforts. I think Hendrick Motorsports has several opportunities to win the championship. We are going to try to win some races and help our teammates the best we can." JR Motorsports exploring options for two Nationwide Series teams in 2010 JR Motorsports is considering several drivers for its two NASCAR Nationwide Series teams next year, team spokesman Mike Davis said Tuesday, although he declined to identify them. The team’s main driver for the last two seasons, Brad Keselowski, is leaving for Penske Racing. Keselowski finished third in points driving the No. 88 car last year and is third in the points this year in that car. JR Motorsports also has entered the No. 5 car in several races with a variety of drivers, including team co-owner Dale Earnhardt Jr., Mark Martin, Ryan Newman, Scott Wimmer and Ron Fellows, and Tony Stewart is also slated to drive before the end of the year. Davis said whether both teams will run full time depends on sponsorship as the organization is currently working on renewals with its sponsors. The organization has not announced any sponsor-driver lineup for 2010. “We have several things in the works for sponsorship, including ongoing discussions with current partners as well as new ones,” Davis said in an email Tuesday. “Obviously, we are considering several drivers for the No. 88 car, as well as the No. 5. We anticipate the setup would be similar to this year’s. Dale Jr. intends to run several Nationwide races in 2010, just as he has this year.” Fastenal, a partial sponsor on the No. 5 car, has announced that it will sponsor Roush Fenway Racing’s Carl Edwards next year. Earnhardt's advice helped Keselowski join Penske Brad Keselowski will admit, it was the hardest decision he's ever had to make. But having the blessing of Dale Earnhardt Jr. made it a little easier. Keselowski, the sought-after NASCAR phenom who won a Sprint Cup race at Talladega earlier this season in a part-time car, has signed a multi-year contract to compete for Penske Racing, beginning in 2010. The deal puts Keselowski in Roger Penske's No. 12 Sprint Cup car, where he will replace current driver David Stremme, as well as in a new, full-time Nationwide Series ride where he will compete as a teammate to Justin Allgaier. "I want to be the guy that comes to Penske Racing and gets them their first NASCAR championship. I want to be that guy," Keselowski said Tuesday in a conference call with reporters. "For everything that's been accomplished here, that's the one thing that's missing, and I want to be the guy that gets it done." And yet, the decision to take the Penske offer was far from a simple one for Keselowski, who's been tied to Earnhardt's JR Motorsports Nationwide team -- and, by extension, Rick Hendrick's juggernaut Cup Series operation -- for most of his career at NASCAR's national levels. Keselowski talked with Hendrick about potentially finding a place at Hendrick Motorsports, something that would allow him to continue to compete for JR Motorsports, but eventually became impossible given the four-car limit NASCAR has placed on organizations in its premier division. Penske's courtship of Keselowski, a fellow Michigander, was no secret. But after Keselowski's stock rose following his victory at Talladega in April, Hendrick asked for a few months to try to find a place for him. Given his existing relationship with the Hendrick camp, Keselowski obliged, and said Penske fully understood. Within the last month, though, it became clear that Hendrick wouldn't have room, and Keselowski accepted the Penske offer. "He worked as hard as he could," Keselowski said of Hendrick. "He told me something that I thought was pretty interesting, that he worked much harder on my deal than he ever had to work on Jimmie [Johnson's] or Jeff [Gordon's] or any of them trying to find a way to keep me in the camp. It became obvious that it just wasn't in the cards. Too many things were going against us with the team limit and so forth, and this opportunity [with Penske] was sitting there." Keselowski will replace Stremme, who hasn't finished better than 13th this season. Keselowski, a third-generation driver, has three Nationwide victories this year in addition to his Cup Series triumph. He is also currently third in Nationwide points driving for JR Motorsports, the Earnhardt-owned organization that gave him his big break when it hired Keselowski for what began as a three-race tryout in 2007. They've won five races together since. "Without a doubt, the hardest part was leaving JR Motorsports," Keselowski said. "But what made it easier for me was to have Dale's blessing to do it. Without it, it would have been much harder to do. And Dale, make no mistake, was the catalyst for my career, the one who called me up and said he believed in me even though other people within his company didn't. He's the one who took the risk, financially and with his reputation, to put me in that car, and I'm eternally grateful to him for that." In the end, it was Earnhardt who encouraged Keselowski to take the Penske opportunity. The two drivers recently had a conversation in which Earnhardt advised Keselowski to go where he had the opportunity to grow. "He was actually one of the people who pushed me fairly hard to take this deal," Keselowski said. "As surprising as that might be to some of the people or the fans or the media, he brought up one of the good points that stuck with me when I made this decision, which was the hardest decision I've ever had to make in my life. And that was, when you have the opportunity to grow, and take on new challenge, and you're capable of conquering those challenges, you need to take it. You need to grow when you have the opportunity to grow, not only in your career but as a person. This is a great opportunity for me to grow." And now, that the decision has finally been made? "I feel like a lot of weight has been lifted off my shoulders," he said. "It's been a lot to carry around for the last couple of months. ... I feel a huge relief. I'm ready to dig my hands in deep in the dirt and get it going." Dale Earnhardt Jr. earns first consecutive top-10 Cup finishes of season For the first time this season, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has consecutive top-10 NASCAR Sprint Cup finishes. Fresh off a third-place finish six days earlier at Michigan, Earnhardt Jr. came home ninth in Saturday night’s Sharpie 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway for his fifth top-10 in the season’s 24 races. “It was a good finish for us,” the Hendrick Motorsports driver said. “The car was working good in practice and when the race started we had some work to do. We made it better. “I'm real proud of my team. My guys worked really hard. They had some awesome pit stops and we just had a pretty decent car.” Earnhardt Jr., who struggled in the early portion of the race before adjustments improved his Chevrolet’s handling, was disappointed that he didn’t end up a little better in the final rundown. He surged into the top five in the closing laps, only to lose several spots as the race drew to its conclusion. Earnhardt Jr. believed he might have been better off without the gaggle of late-race cautions that slowed the action five times in the final 80 laps. He was fourth on the final restart with four laps to go before sliding backward. “That last run there we were real tight,” said Earnhardt Jr., who started 27th. “I needed long runs. My car wasn't good at the restarts and those guys behind us I think had a little bit better tires than we did. I'm real happy. We were running real good. It's a shame we had all them cautions. “I think [second place-finishing teammate] Mark [Martin] could have won the race and we could have probably finished a little bit better. All them cautions just stacked everybody up and we didn't have a good car on the restarts. It's just a shame. We worked hard though." With Chase looming even Junior seems anonymous Monday through Wednesday is the worst part of each week. Right now Dale Earnhardt Jr. wants to be at the race track, wants to build on those small steps of progress he's found with crew chief Lance McGrew, wants to continue the slow and painstaking effort of turning the No. 88 team back into a contender again. He'd be at the race track every day if he could, searching for ways to get faster, but the schedule won't let him. So Monday through Wednesday he sits there, frustrated by inaction, taking care of all the other duties that come with being a NASCAR star but wishing he was strapped into a car going 180 mph. "I just try to keep coming back to the race track," Earnhardt said. "I want to be at the race track, because I feel like if I'm at the race track working with Lance, we're getting closer to turning it around." Efforts like Sunday's third-place result at Michigan surely help, but in no way will this be a quick transition. Earnhardt is in a hole so deep that his strong run on the 2-mile track lifted him four places in points -- and he's still not even in the top 20. As the season has gone on and Earnhardt's position has stagnated, it's become clear that there will be no magical turnaround. This is a slog, a sweaty, roll-up-your-sleeves reclamation project that's going to take up the rest of the 2009 season. Oh sure, there will be moments, glimpses like Sunday that make you wonder what the No. 88 is capable of when it all comes together. But right now Earnhardt and McGrew are like mechanics, their heads under the hood and their oily forearms deep in the machinery, showing no signs of coming up for air anytime soon. It's kind of a strange phenomenon. Earnhardt is still NASCAR's most popular driver -- according to the latest update on the Web site that tabulates fan votes for that award -- and still gets chased through the garage area by autograph-seekers every time he pokes his head outside of his team transporter. He still has enough clout to rattle the NASCAR hierarchy with comments like he made Friday on his desire to see changes made to the current Sprint Cup car. He's still the marketing force he's always been, able to sell everything from blue jeans to stints in the National Guard. All those things exist regardless of his fortunes on the race track. But from a competitive standpoint, it almost seems as if Earnhardt has faded into the background, become just another in a long line of drivers struggling to just finish out the year. When Earnhardt last missed the Chase, in 2007, he was at least in contention until the final weeks of the regular season; heading to Richmond for that year's pivotal cutoff race, he was 13th in points. This year, though, there is no such drama. So as the first 26 races wind down, and as the focus narrows on the 14 or so drivers who have a chance to contend for the championship, fewer and fewer reporters beat a path to Earnhardt's hauler or seek him out after a race. He's just another guy who's not going to make it. In a sport now built around a 10-race playoff, a third-place run at Michigan doesn't hold attention for very long. The all-powerful Chase, the end-all, be-all of the Sprint Cup Series, is so omnipotent that it can make even Dale Earnhardt Jr. seem anonymous. And you know what? He probably doesn't mind. With his departure from Dale Earnhardt Inc. and subsequent joining of Hendrick Motorsports, this is a guy who has been the center of the NASCAR universe for more than two years now. His every move, from his feud with stepmother Teresa to his homecoming with Rick Hendrick to his choice of car number to the opening of his nightclub to his backyard western village to his uneven results in the No. 88 car, have been chronicled in the minutest detail. His profile is so high that his crew chief makes bigger news than most other drivers. Viewed in that context, it might be refreshing to be just another guy working on your stuff. Right now that's just what he is, no different than Casey Mears or Reed Sorenson or Martin Truex Jr. or the dozens of other drivers for whom the Chase is a mathematical impossibility, and the only realistic goal is getting better for next year. At an appearance at Atlanta Motor Speedway last week, Earnhardt seemed to indicate that McGrew would be back. "As of now, he's the man for the future, and he's the guy that we're all placing our confidence in to make the correct decisions," he said. A day later at Michigan, though, he was very clear that the rebuilding process is ongoing. At the moment, he's content to play a supporting role. "We're still not seeing the type of stuff that we need to see to feel like we're going to be able to turn it around," Earnhardt said. "We're working hard. I've got a lot of confidence in Lance. He has a lot of confidence in me. And I think we get along really well and we're working really, really hard together. Our teammates, not just the drivers, but the crews and the crew chiefs are all trying to bond together to try to build the teams up, especially, specifically, our team," he said. "We want to be able to help our teammates in the Chase. We want to be able to be an asset to the company before the end of the season toward their quest for the championship. And that's what's most important, I think, for us, is to feel like we have a hand in controlling everyone's destiny and be a part of it. So, we're trying to become better, and we have reason to do that before the end of the year, not only for ourselves, but for the company as well. "Lance is a company guy. I've always kind of been that way in the past, and try to do the right thing on and off the race track to help the company at that specific moment," Earnhardt added. "So it's sort of a goal of ours, not only to get ourselves turned around, but to try to be an asset to the other teams throughout the Chase, and be in some way, performance-wise, supportive to them." That's vintage Earnhardt -- a savvy driver who understands his sport and his place in it, and is able to see much more than just the viewpoint provided by the seat of his race car. Maybe next year he'll be back in the playoff hunt, showing flashes of that championship potential so many believe he has within him. Time will tell. For now, though, even Dale Earnhardt Jr. has been relegated to the role of bit player in a larger saga. Even NASCAR's most popular driver has been rendered somewhat anonymous by the looming Chase. Earnhardt Jr. hoping to build momentum, team chemistry Dale Earnhardt Jr. complained vociferously about Sprint Cup competition Friday, and he jetted off Saturday to watch a sports-car race in Wisconsin. As it turned out, NASCAR's six-time most popular driver was clearing his head, not contemplating a career change. Despite some stressful turns of events, Earnhardt maintained composure, taking third in Sunday's Carfax 400 at Michigan International Speedway. It was Earnhardt's first top five in 11 races with interim crew chief Lance McGrew, who has coaxed the driver into providing more measured and calculating feedback. "One of the most important things for me is to stay calm," said Earnhardt, who jumped from 25th to 21st in points with his second top-five finish of 2009 (and first since April). "Every race, you face some adversity." There were two anxious moments at Michigan. The No. 88 Chevrolet picked up a vibration near the halfway point that forced Earnhardt into the pits. On a final caution with 41 laps remaining, Earnhardt coolly talked McGrew into pitting rather than staying out with the lead group. He charged from 18th to third over the final 39 laps. "Since I started working with Lance, I've been trying to work really hard to be the same person at the end of the race that I am at the start mentally," Earnhardt said. "That really helps (the crew) stay focused on their job instead of having to control me. It just comes down to staying with the team and trying to be part of a solution instead of a part of the problem." Earnhardt has won at the next three tracks on the circuit (Bristol, Atlanta and Richmond), but the Hendrick Motorsports driver wasn't ready Sunday to proclaim his slump over. "I don't want to get too excited," he said. "You want to be there the whole race. You don't want to just come up there through the last 50 laps and surprise everybody." Earnhardt Jr. takes first step toward fixing problem - admitting he has one Suddenly, there is a glimmer of hope in Junior Nation. And not just because of that little ray of sunshine it got Sunday by way of Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s third-place finish at Michigan. It was, after all, a fuel-mileage race, and the drivers in front of him likely were letting off the throttle to save gas, which explains Junior’s sudden charge to the front (that and his four fresh tires). No, the real encouraging news for Earnhardt Jr. fans came both before and after the race, when the sport's most popular driver displayed a bit of frustration and anger and later admitted that he just might have been part of the problem all along. Prior to Sunday’s race, Junior went off on NASCAR’s new car, saying, basically, that prior to the introduction of the double-file restarts, the racing stunk and that the new rule was simply a quick fix. He believes NASCAR needs to make major changes to the new car and needs to do it soon. This tells us two things we already knew: One, Junior is having a heckuva time driving the new, boxier, harder-to-handle car, and second, that he and his team are struggling to figure out how to make it go fast. Junior is not alone in this. Other successful veteran drivers – Kevin Harvick, Matt Kenseth, Ryan Newman, Greg Biffle, to name a few – also seem to have trouble adjusting to the more finicky machine. Junior’s struggles are much more pronounced, however, because of who he is and because he and his team appear to be way off. The fact that the other drivers at Hendrick Motorsports aren’t having the same problems only clouds the mystery and raises further questions about Earnhardt Jr. and his team. While Junior continues to struggle, teammates Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Mark Martin continue to run up front and win races with the new car. That means that either Junior can’t drive the same chassis setups as his teammates or that he just isn’t quite the driver that they are. His fans, of course, have another view – that he just isn’t getting the same equipment as his teammates. That, of course, is preposterous. Why would team owner Rick Hendrick not give Earnhardt Jr. the very best equipment when he has a huge sponsorship package, has a legion of fans behind him and when the sport as a whole could use a big boost from Junior being a contender again? All of the above calculates to big money, so that conspiracy theory just doesn’t fly. The fact that Junior stood up and challenged NASCAR, urging it to make changes to the new car, reveals the depth of his frustration and confirms that he and his team don’t know where else to turn. Earnhardt Jr. has considerable clout in the sport, and his voice could go a long way toward persuading NASCAR to make some much-needed tweaks to the car. Junior’s peers in the garage had to be pleased to see him step up and take a stand. Whether changes to the car will help him and his struggling team, however, remains to be seen. But the important thing is that Junior is trying to pinpoint his problems and looking for answers, which means he is concerned about his struggles and determined to improve, notions that have been called into question the past two years. After the race at Michigan, Junior admitted what many have suspected all along, that he hasn't always been as focused as he needs to be inside the race car, especially when things go bad. That’s when he sometimes lets his frustrations and emotions get the best of him, causing things to go from bad to worse. Clearly, that was an issue when he was working with cousin/crew chief Tony Eury Jr. Their close family relationship often led to some heated conversations during races and at times seemed to detract from the task at hand. At times it seemed as if Junior was running the team and making key decisions, often overruling his crew chief or forcing him to go against his instincts. That led to mistakes and was a factor in the car and team getting worse instead of better during races. Junior admitted Sunday that, with interim crew chief Lance McGrew, he's trying to remain calm and not overreact when things go wrong instead of causing more problems. “Every race, you know, you sort of face some adversity,” he said. “You'll make changes every pit stop. Some work, and some don't. “I'm my own worst enemy, I guess, in the middle part of a race when I see us not going the right direction … So I just get so frustrated. “Since I started working with Lance, I've been trying to work really hard to be the same person at the end of the race that I am at the start of the race mentally. That really helps them stay focused on their job and working on the car instead of having to control me and my problems. … “I think it just comes down to sticking with it, staying with the team and trying to be part of a solution instead of a part of the problem.” Like most people who overcome emotional issues – whether they are in a competitive environment, relationships or whatever – the first step toward solving a problem is admitting you have one. Junior admits that he has sometimes compounded his team’s problems by losing his cool and not remaining focused. We’ve seen that happen to some of NASCAR’s biggest stars this year – Kyle Busch, Harvick – and it has cost them both on the track and in the point standings and hampered their relationships with their teams and organizations. Earnhardt Jr. is trying to meet his problems head-on, and that could be the first step in making himself and his team better. For Junior Nation, that may be the most positive sign it has seen in months. Click here to vist the Dale Earnhardt Jr New Archive Part 3