Dale Earnhardt Jr. struggling at Pocono as he tries to fight his way into Chase field
Dale Earnhardt Jr. is 93 points out of Chase For The Sprint Cup contention as he prepares Friday for the race Sunday at Pocono Raceway. // LaDon George, NASCAR Illustrated
LONG POND, Pa. – For Dale Earnhardt Jr., it’s pretty simple as far as what he needs to do to get into the Chase For The Sprint Cup.
With six races left before the 12-team Chase field is determined, Earnhardt Jr. is 14th in the standings and 93 points out of 12th.
“We need to run good and get good finishes – pretty obvious stuff,” Earnhardt Jr. said after qualifying Friday at Pocono Raceway. “We’ll try to do the best we can.”
That might be easier said than done this weekend at Pocono. Earnhardt Jr. struggled in practice, where he was 28th, and wasn’t much better in qualifying as he will start 20th. On his qualifying lap, Earnhardt Jr. said he felt the car was a little bit better but got loose between turns 2 and 3.
“The track is a little bit looser for us than on the last trip,” said Earnhardt Jr., who started third and finished 19th at Pocono earlier this year. “We’ve been trying to catch up and trying not to over-adjust on it.
“The tunnel [turn] is always tricky here. It’s just the track is characteristically a little different and we’re just trying to creep up on it rather than adjusting too much.”
Just as the track has changed since June, it could change again before the race on Sunday, Earnhardt Jr. said.
“Most tracks change a little bit [between races],” he said. “You take a setup that worked the last time, you show up and it won’t be the same.
“You just sort of have to pool your resources together to get the car to feel like you want. Tracks are really different on Friday, Saturday and Sunday so the setup that actually did work in the race might work on Sunday, it just might not be good for Friday because the track is kind of green and picks up a lot of Hoosier rubber [from ARCA]. That sort of goes away on Sunday when we work on the track real hard in the race.”
On a lighter note, Earnhardt Jr. joked a bit about team owner Rick Hendrick growing a beard – the result of a challenge from Earnhardt Jr. for Hendrick to grow a beard while on vacation.
“I was surprised he did it,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “That’s not typically allowed, I guess, over at his business. It’s good to see him loosen up a little bit.”
