Posts Tagged ‘Dale Earnhardt Jr’

Dale Earnhardt Jr puts together a great lap in qualifying at Atlanta Motor Speedway to put his NO.88 AMP Energy/National Guard Chevrolet on the pole for the Kobalt Tools 500 with a speed of 192.761 miles per hour.

This will be Jr’s first pole in almost two years, his last came in April 2008 A Texas Motor Speedway.

Earnhart’s lap is the fastest lap recorded with the COT Sprint Cup car.

Kyle Busch (192.280), Juan Pablo Montoya (192.106), Mark Martin (191.814) and Jeff Gordon (191.774), rounded off the top five for Sundays Kobalt Tools 500.

  

Earnhardt Jr. said his pole run “definitely a step in the right direction. I hope we’ll see these kinds of improvements on Sunday in our race team. And I think we will. If we keep performing like this, it should start leaking over into our car on Sunday.”

Earnhardt Jr. has finishes of second, 32nd and 16th through the first three races of the season. He is 15th in the point standings.

Busch said the high speeds are fun, , but the track demands attention.

“The only thing I’ve ever really been able to give a close description of to compare it to is this: Pick your favorite (interstate) off ramp that’s a round one and drive it as hard as you can and see if it sticks,” he said. “Now this is like doing that off ramp while it’s raining.

“But it’s a fun racetrack. The sensation doesn’t really hit you because the corners are wide. You’ve got a lot of room off 2 and 4.”

Driver that did not qualify for Sundays race were Casey Mears, Terry Cook and  Aric Almirola .

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After Speedweeks and the Daytona 500 it was looking as though Dale Jr. was back in racing form, but the California race showed pretty much what we saw out of the #88 team in 2009.

The orange and white #88 driven by Earnhardt was not especially fast and he qualified mid-pack just as he did most of the previous year.  They couldn’t get car to run up in lead pack all day.

Radio communication with Lance McGrew showed frustration when Jr. thought a tire was going down.  McGrew showed frustration when it was determined there was a broken axle.  He nearly threatened the crew if they didn’t have a spare axle ready to go for the lame car.

The broken axle could have been do to the fact that JR spun the tires on the concrete area of pit road.  There were other teams having problems with the concrete pit stalls as well.

  

I know it’s only the second race of the season.  The California race was the first real test of the season that shows were a team is at.  California has not been a good track for Earnhardt Jr but a better finish would have been given the team a hope they were back on track.

Unfortunately it’s looking like the same story as last year even though Henrick’s stated that they were going to concentrate on the #88 team to get them on track and that they are a new improved team.

Poor qualifying, poor performance during the race, broken parts, frustrated driver and a frustrated crew chief all sound way too familiar.

The other three drivers for Hendrick Motorsports performed much better as usual with one of them, Jimmie Johnson, winning the race.  This cannot come as a surprise one of the drivers faired poorly and it happened to be Earnhardt Jr.

In spite of all the wishful thinking and praise bellowed after Daytona stating Jr. was back and Jr. Nation had reason to cheer, it may have been for naught.

We want Dale Jr. to be back.  NASCAR needs him to be back.  He wants to be back.  Despite our “wants” something is wrong with the #88 team.

If after the first six races we don’t see the team competitive and top five finishes, it will be obvious there is trouble in River City.

I don’t think Dale Earnhardt Jr. will be content to have another bad season this year regardless of the reason.  They need to find the problem fast.  McGrew being the team leader must do whatever it takes to get the team on track.

Jr. Nation is holding it’s breath as the Las Vegas race nears.  What are the odds on the third attempt for Dale Jr. to get back on track to a winning season?

I for one am a big Jr fan and hope that the 88 team can come to Vegas and have a good showing putting the 2009 season behind them.

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Now that the Daytona 500 dust has settled for most of the cup teams, it’s time to head to California.

All the time, effort and changes the teams have put into their race teams is about to show. Not day Daytona wasn’t important but stats show that the past couple of winners, Ryan Newman in 2008 and Matt Kenseth in 2009  didn’t make the Chase for the Cup championship. Kenseth even made it two wins in a row at California and struggled the rest of the season to finish 14th in the points.

Kevin Harvick won the big race in 2007, finished 10th in the standings and hasn’t won a Cup race since.

On the other hand, a bad day in the 500 isn’t a disaster, either.

That’s the reason that four-time defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson isn’t all that worried his fourth
consecutive bad start at Daytona. This time, it was a flat tire late in the race that relegated Double J to a 35th-place finish.

No worries. He’s got 25 more races to make up for that bad day and put himself among the 12 drivers who qualify for the 10-race Chase. And Johnson goes into this season as the only driver to have made it into the Chase every year since it began in 2004.

  

Denny Hamlin, who hopes to be the driver to unseat Johnson as champion, got off to a so-so start at Daytona, finishing 17th. But he’s looking forward to starting to find the groove in California.

“Why is this race at California important? “ Hamlin said. “All of our hard work over the off-season is going to show up right here in California. This is the first real race track that we go to where the setups are going to matter, the driving and all that is a lot different.

“This is our first real race of 2010 that’s not a superspeedway. It’s a big one for us because it kind of gives everyone a gauge of if we were heading in the right direction during the off season or not.’’

McMurray, who won Daytona in his first race for Earnhardt Ganassi Racing, is anxious to see how the team stacks up on the intermediate tracks that make up the bulk of the Cup schedule. Teammate Juan Pablo Montoya was solid on the 1 ½ and 2 mile ovals a year ago, racing well enough to make the Chase.

“Certainly going and running well at Fontana is the goal from here on out,’’ McMurray said. “As far as putting any thought into what the previous three (Daytona winners) have done, I’m not really paying any attention to that kind of stuff.’’

Now teams need to considerate on the rest of the season and let the past be the past.

Dale Earnhardt JR. had a great finish in the 500 and hopes to keep the momentum going into to this week at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. Hopefully he can show to his fans and doubter that he can drive a race car.

“That’s great, but we have to see what happens at California, Las Vegas and Atlanta,’’ Junior noted. “If we run good at a couple of those races, then we’All know all that work that was done, all the changes that were made over the winter, are paying off.’’

But the Daytona 500 is a season of it’s own. And it’s over.

Speed TV contributed to this report.

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Danicamania has arrived in full force.

Danica Patrick has yet to turn a wheel in competition in a stock car, but already she’s become the biggest story of the stock car off-season as she prepares to make her NASCAR debut.

Patrick, who will race a limited NASCAR Nationwide Series schedule in 2010 for Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s JR Motorsports squad, was at the team’s Mooresville, N.C., shop on Thursday for her first formal session with the NASCAR media.

Later in the day, she will fly to Daytona Beach, Fla., where this weekend she will take part in a three-day open ARCA test to help get her ready for her stock-car debut Feb. 6, 2010 in the season-opening ARCA event at Daytona International Speedway.

Joining Patrick at the event were Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kelley Earnhardt, Tony Eury Jr. and Sr. and Kelly Bires.

Patrick said she will race in as many as 13 NASCAR Nationwide Series races next year, starting Feb. 20 at Auto Club Speedway and then Feb. 27 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Undecided is whether she’ll compete in the season-opening NNS event at Daytona.

“We don’t want to over-commit and under-deliver,” said Patrick, who called the Daytona Nationwide event “basically a Cup race.”

Patricka, who tested last week in Orlando, said she’s ready for the challenge of driving a stock car. “Now it’s time for me to go do my job and do it well,” she said. “I’m pretty excited about this effort,” added Earnhardt.

Video Courtesy of Speed TV