Dale Earnhardt Jr. looking to climb back into Chase contention with strong run at Pocono
Dale Earnhardt Jr. and crew chief Lance McGrew are hoping their setup for the June race at Pocono will work better this weekend. // Chuck Yadmark, NASCAR Illustrated
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).
