Dale Earnhardt Jr. pleased with car despite contact with wall
Dale Earnhardt's No. 88 Chevrolet shows minor damage from contact with the wall during practice on Thursday at Daytona International Speedway. // Jim Fluharty, NASCAR Illustrated
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Dale Earnhardt Jr. scraped the wall during the final practice Thursday for NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series at Daytona International Speedway, but his Hendrick Motorsports car still handled fairly well Friday in qualifying for the Coke Zero 400.
Earnhardt Jr. said the key will be making good adjustments during the race.
“It felt pretty good right there,” Earnhardt Jr. said after his qualifying lap. “We were a little loose. I think we bent something in the right front because it’s toed out a little bit. … It should be fine.”
Rain eventually forced officials to cancel qualifying after only 12 cars had completed qualifying runs. The 43-car field for Saturday night's race will be set according to the NASCAR rulebook. As a result, Earnhardt Jr. will start 13th.
Earnhardt Jr. was 30th in Thursday's first practice. and 29th in the second session. His No. 88 Chevrolet made contact with the wall during the second session.
Still, Earnhardt Jr. feels he has a good car for the race.
“It drafted [Thursday] really good,” he said. “It was a little bit loose with that spoiler on the back. When cars are around you, they really take a lot more air off the back of you. It should make for some slick race cars, dicey cars moving around a lot more.
“Hopefully we have a pretty good handle on it.”
Looking for his first win at Daytona since the 2004 Daytona 500, Earnhardt Jr. has good memories from his last time in a Cup car on the track. He went from 16th to second in the final three laps of the 2010 Daytona 500.
What does he take from that finish?
“We know tires are a big deal,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “The track gets so slick, it’s kind of like Darlington, tires are real, real important.
“So we’ll just try to keep that in the back of our minds if we feel like we can make some advances by taking tires when other guys aren’t. Hopefully we will run up front all night and we’re in a situation where we just stay out and try to win the race.”
With nine races until the Chase field is set, Earnhardt Jr. is 13th in the standings, just three points behind 12th-place Carl Edwards.
“There’s a lot of pressure to make the Chase no matter what year it is,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “It might be a little more this year. We’re trying real hard. We feel like we’ve improved as a team. We just want to keep it up. We’ve got to get more consistent.”
With finishes of seventh, 11th and eighth in last three races, Earnhardt Jr. has been consistent. But he still wants to get better and not have to rely on strategy late in races to make-or-break him.
“We got some points there that we probably shouldn’t have got,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I don’t know. [Crew chief] Lance [McGrew] and I both know how much we’ve got to gain. Getting good finishes are great and help us in our points but they don’t really go toward improving our performance. Hard work does that. We’ll just keep working.”
