Earnhardt Jr. looking for speed as Cup series heads back to Michigan
Dale Earnhardt Jr. won’t give back his victory at Michigan International Speedway in June, for it was his first in more than two years and his first with Hendrick Motorsports. But he’d clearly like to win a Sprint Cup race outright – and not on fuel mileage as he did at Michigan.
Earnhardt Jr. has had a solid season with the No. 88 team, with seven top-five and 12 top-10 finishes. But since his Michigan win, Earnhardt Jr. has had only one top-10 finish, an eighth at Daytona.
So as the series returns to the 2-mile Michigan track, Earnhardt Jr. is looking for more speed.
"I realize we won the last time out at Michigan, but we need to be racing better overall,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Yeah, we rolled the dice and gambled on fuel strategy, but a win is still a win, however you get it, and you're no less proud. This has by far been my most consistent year, but I really want to be racing for wins every week, not just being competitive."
Earnhardt Jr. won the LifeLock 400 in June with a car that wasn’t handling as well as he would’ve liked. Crew chief Tony Eury Jr. said some changes are in order to try to make the No. 88 Chevrolet more competitive.
"Our car was extremely loose about all day, so we're going to change some stuff in the rear end and probably change up some spring split in the rear and go with a different shock combination,” Eury Jr. said. “Those three things right there will be the ones we'll key on when we go back. We were really happy with our car there other than just being really loose, and it didn't really get going until too late.
“Halfway through a run, the car would get pretty good, but we need to get a little bit better on the short run. It was like 20 laps before our car would ever come around. Hopefully we've got it tightened up enough to where we can go on the short run and see what happens on the long run."
Hendrick teammate Jimmie Johnson led the most laps in the first Michigan race, so Eury Jr. said he and Earnhardt Jr. will look at Johnson’s setup.
Scoring a sweep of the Michigan races will “take some luck,” Eury Jr. said.
“I think we've got some issues we know we've got to fix from the last race,” Eury Jr. said. “We really lost some track position and hung around in seventh place. We've got to beat a couple more cars, and I think we've got a pretty good idea. Jimmie ran really well there in the race so we'll take his notes and bounce them around."
