Last weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, Dale Earnhardt Jr. had one of the most disappointing weeks a driver could have as he finished 43rd after making a mistake early in the race. Earnhardt Jr. made a bad judgement call, getting into the front stretch grass before shooting across the track and into the wall.
Rather than focus on that mistake, Earnhardt Jr. shifted his focus to the tire test at Michigan International Speedway on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“I think we learned some things,” Earnhardt Jr. commented. “I was really happy to have an opportunity to test with Goodyear and get an opportunity to get on the race track and learn. We did go through a lot of different tires and a lot of different constructions. The dual zone tire we tried a couple of different ones. We went through – they had about eight different sets of tires that they wanted to learn something’s about, some for Michigan, some for Kansas and other places. It was a productive test and even though we were cut short on the first day we were able to get a lot of information for Goodyear that I hope is going to be helpful to them.”
Looking to put Texas behind him, Earnhardt Jr. heads to one of NASCAR’s oldest and toughest tracks – Darlington Raceway.
“It’s been around a long time,” Earnhardt Jr. commented. “One of the toughest race tracks physically that we race on, tough track mentally. 500 miles here is a really long race because the track is quite a big race track and the pace slows down. You are working so hard in the corner so just one lap around here is a lot of work. To have to run 500 miles it’s a pretty tough test of man and machine. This track is starting to grey up pretty good so I’m looking forward to getting out there in practice and seeing what we’ve got.”
Earnhardt Jr. qualifed 15th for the Bojangles Southern 500.
