Junior ready for 2008

By SceneDaily Staff Report
Monday, December 03, 2007
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CHRIS TROTMAN / GETTY IMAGES

When Dale Earnhardt Jr. talked about leaving for vacation last Thursday, he talked about how he wished he wasn't going on vacation.

"I'd trade it in if I could start the Daytona 500 tonight or tomorrow," Earnhardt Jr. said last Thursday after winning the NASCAR NMPA Most Popular Driver award. "Obviously, there are guys who had great seasons. When you have a good season and you win a race or two or feel like you've done some things, you probably do enjoy the time off and can wait until the beginning of the next season.

"I can't. I wish it had started. I don't feel like I've ran well enough. I don't want to sit here and go through the memory of how bad we ran last year. I want to get out there and get a top-five and feel like this is where I belong."

Earnhardt Jr. didn't win a race in 2007 and finished 16th in points, and that bitterly disappoints him. It would disappoint him whether he was in his last year at Dale Earnhardt Inc. or not.

Last year was his final year at DEI as he gets ready to move to Hendrick Motorsports next season.

Earnhardt Jr. would have none of the talk that next year would be a transition year and he wouldn't be expected to win.

"I'm expecting to win every year I'm in this sport," Earnhardt Jr. said. "I'm an Earnhardt. That's the way it is. I'm deeply disappointed in being winless last year. I'm shocked. That's why I want to race tomorrow.

"I don't want to be winless all through the offseason. I want to get one in there. I expect to win next year. I expect to win when I get in a car. I'm good. I want to win. I'm good enough to win. I expect to be winning. There's no excuses."

When receiving his most-popular-driver award in New York, Earnhardt wished he was there as one of those being honored for being in the top 10.

But that didn't make his trip painful to handle.

"It was kind of good to see everybody because I missed everybody," Earnhardt Jr. said.

"It was kind of good to see everybody because I missed everybody," Earnhardt Jr. said. "This is my family. We're all around each other - drivers, press, everybody - so much, that you don't really think about it. But after three weeks [when] you don't see each other, you come to New York and you walk into the room and you see all these faces, it's comfortable.

"It's comfortable. I'm [angry] I didn't win a race. That's going to bother me for a while. That bothers me every day. I think about it every day. Otherwise I was proud of my performance and my team's performance."

While Earnhardt Jr. won one award, he saw Hendrick Motorsports win many of the others, including the engine builders award.

Earnhardt Jr. had engine trouble in several races in 2007 as DEI merged its engine department with Richard Childress Racing during the year.

"I'm anticipating them to have the same history they've always had - powerful and aggressive and durable," Earnhardt Jr. said. "[DEI-RCR's] are fast. If they can ever figure out how to keep them together, they'll be the best in the sport."

Mentioned Drivers: Dale Earnhardt Jr.

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2009 Sprint Cup Race for the Chase Standings

Driver Standings after the AMP Energy 500

1 Jimmie Johnson 6248
2 Mark Martin -184
3 Jeff Gordon -192
4 Juan Pablo Montoya -239
5 Tony Stewart -279
6 Kurt Busch -312
7 Greg Biffle -340
8 Ryan Newman -402
9 Kasey Kahne -414
10 Carl Edwards -437
11 Denny Hamlin -448
12 Brian Vickers -556

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