[media-credit name=”Noel Lanier” align=”alignright” width=”219″]
[/media-credit]Those on the verge of writing off Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s chance for the Sprint Cup Series championship, he wants you to think again.
Sure, he knows he hasn’t been as strong as his No. 88 National Guard / Diet Mountain Dew Chevrolet team was before the summer months started. He knows that teammate Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin are the favorites after their hot start. But Earnhardt Jr. says his team is just as good and need not only find a way to win, but get back to the basics.
“I’m telling you, the secret is the practice session itself, how you utilize that time,” Earnhardt Jr. said on Tuesday in his NASCAR teleconference, speaking about the team’s struggles in New Hampshire, in which they couldn’t get the car to roll through the center of the corner.
“If NASCAR gives you an hour, two hours, whatever, how you utilize that time to put changes into your car that you need to make, that you need to know what kind of fruit they bear. How you utilize that practice really determines what kind of racecar you put out on the racetrack on Sunday.”
Earnhardt Jr. summed up his NH weekend by saying the team stubbed their toe. Instead of using one of his best racetracks to close in the championship, he lost nine points. Heading into Dover on Sunday, where he has a lone win in 2001, he’s still seventh in points.
For some it sounds a lot worse than it is. With eight races remaining in the 2012 Chase, he still has a mathematically shot. And he’s got plenty of confidence that he has the team, led by crew chief Steve Letarte, to make it a realistic shot, too.
“We definitely had a frustrating week this past race at New Hampshire. We salvaged a decent finish considering how frustrating it was and how the car actually was performing throughout the day,” reflected Earnhardt Jr. “That gives me a little bit of confidence that even if things aren’t going quite well, we can still get a decent enough run to keep ourselves in the hunt.
“I feel like we’re still in the hunt. Obviously there are some teams that are showing strength over the last couple of weeks. But we’re not giving up. There’s a lot of racing left, a lot of adversity these guys have got to go through. Hopefully we maximize these eight remaining races, capitalize on some unfortunate things happening to some other teams, put ourselves back in the hunt.”
Plus, as Earnhardt Jr. and the rest of the Chasers know, anything can happen in the playoffs. Things change quickly, one week you’re the favorite, the next your almost eliminated from contention. In order for that not to happen to the sports most popular driver, he needs to take advantage of all opportunities that arise.
No more mulligans and bad races. Like New Hampshire, finishing 13th with the same car that he finished top five with in the July race. Or Chicago, where he clawed his way to an eighth place finish following an engine change – relegating him to a 42nd starting spot – and then fighting for track position all day. Making up ground to Chasers who aren’t having bad weekends, those considered the strongest teams in the sport, will be “a heck of challenge” noted Earnhardt Jr., but he’s staying positive that he can knock down some top fives. Of the remaining Chase races, Earnhardt Jr. has a victory at four of them – Dover, Talladega, Texas and Phoenix – with multiple victories at Talladega (5) and Phoenix (2).
Winning will go a long way for Earnhardt Jr.’s championship chances. As such he heads to Dover with his head held high and expectations right there with it. Just don’t count on those expectations to come to fruition by taking chances and risks. Been there, done that and it didn’t work for Earnhardt Jr.
“I don’t think you can take any more chances than we’re taking and get away with it on the track or off the track,” revealed Earnhardt Jr. “I got asked this same question about 15 races into the season, were we going to take any chances. We were viewed, I think, as a team that was safe and drove conservative, made conservative calls. What that did for us was really keep us in the top two or three in points throughout the year.
“Being smart, being conservative was putting points on the board, which wins championships. Then we kept getting asked about taking chances, when we’re going to take chances, why didn’t do this, that. Once we got locked into the Chase, or felt like we were locked into the Chase, we started taking chances. We started finishing 14th, 15th, 20th, 10th.
“Now two races into the Chase, people look at the last eight or ten races we ran and say, ‘You haven’t been that consistent, what’s the deal? Why aren’t you consistent? What are you going to do to get more consistent?’”
Simple says Earnhardt Jr., back to basics for the Dew Crew. No more taking foolish chances in hopes that it works out with a top 10 finish. The next eight weeks will be back to conservative calls, smart calls and using good judgment.
Don’t look for pit calls for no tires just to get track position, only to end up behind all those who have tires. That’s foolish. That’s not going to win a championship. Running as hard as he can, says Earnhardt Jr., will.
“I don’t really know hat else we can do. So we’ll just try to be smart over the next eight and try not to get careless. I think that’s the best thing we can do.”
