Dale Earnhardt Jr. nervous about Chase prospects, says ‘I don’t want to screw up’
Dale Earnhardt Jr. admits he is nervous about making the Chase. // LaDon George, NASCAR Illustrated
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Three points out of 12th place in the standings with only nine races remaining until the Chase For The Sprint Cup, Dale Earnhardt Jr. says despite his team’s recent efforts, he’s still uneasy as the Chase field begins to take shape.
“I’m nervous,” the Hendrick Motorsports driver said Wednesday after a question and answer session with several hundred fans. “I don’t want to screw up. I don’t want to lose 100 points somewhere over something foolish.”
Losing points hasn’t been a problem in recent weeks as the 35-year-old driver has finishes of 11th or better in his team’s last three starts to climb from 16th to 13th in the standings. The difference between himself and 12th-place Carl Edwards is, at its worst, one finishing position on the race track.
Less promising performances might not still be fresh in his mind, but they haven’t been forgotten entirely, either. And because of that, Earnhardt Jr. tempers his enthusiasm as he prepares for Saturday’s Coke Zero 400 here at Daytona International Speedway.
It’s still too soon, he says, to exhale.
“A couple more weeks, maybe,” he says when asked if he can begin to believe that the team is rounding into contention. “We just need … if we can’t jump the hurdle and get in [the top 12] the next week or two, we’ve got to stay close. We can’t rely on ourselves to rally back from another stumble.”
If this were a heavyweight boxing match, Earnhardt Jr. would be the popular boxer attempting to slug his way past a bigger, faster, stronger, more successful opponent.
Underdog? Think Rocky Balboa with a steering wheel in his hand. A more well-known Rocky, perhaps, but an underdog just the same.
NASCAR’s most popular driver, Earnhardt Jr. has managed to hold his own.
For Cup teams, the championship is the carrot dangling off in the distance at season’s end. But to get there, a driver has to be in the Chase, the 10-race stretch that completes the 36-race season. And to get to the Chase, a team has to be one of the top 12 in points after 26 races.
An 18-race winner and three-time Chase qualifier (2004, ’06 and ’08), Earnhardt JR. has been as high as second in points after a runnerup finish here in February and as far back as 17th thanks to a 22nd-place finish at Charlotte.
“It’s been alright,” Earnhardt Jr. says of his season. “We’ve turned it around the past couple of weeks. We’ve just got to keep it up.”
Time is growing short and the rounds are winding down.
“Nine more [weeks],” he says. “Then we can start thinking about the last 10.”
• Wednesday’s appearance was part of a National Guard outing, and included the official unveiling of this weekend’s “Eight Soldiers, Eight Missions” paint scheme for the No. 88 Chevrolet, honoring eight national members of the Guard.
“We did a lot of stuff on paper,” Earnhardt Jr. said of the design process. “I never saw the [scheme] on an actual [car] body. It’s kind of cool looking.”
• The military tie-in (the National Guard is one of two primary sponsors for the team this year) isn’t much of a stretch for Earnhardt, who attended military school as a youngster.
Earnhardt Jr. the soldier instead of Earnhardt Jr. the racer?
“Yeah, I’ve thought about that,” he says. “I wondered when I was in military school if my destiny or direction would be … a lot of people that were in school then aspired to go on to The Citadel and places like that. I wondered even then, when I was young, whether maybe this was steering me in a direction toward the military.
“But I just wanted to race. I was scared to fail at racing, but I had to try it. Hell, I was probably scared to fail at choosing the military as a life, too.”
His time at Oak Ridge Military Academy, he says, “was definitely a blessing in disguise.
“I’ve got friends that have served and I hear all the stories about what they deal with, what their experience is. It surprises me how much they enjoy it and how much that is a part of them. It becomes who they are. It defines them.
“It’s amazing, and it’s pretty impressive.”
