Earnhardt tries to chase away blues
RICHMOND - The confidence Dale Earnhardt Jr. conveyed last month in Pocono, Pa., about his chances of making the Chase for the NASCAR Nextel Cup Championship went up in a white plume of engine smoke here in Saturday night's Chevy Rock & Roll 400. It was replaced by shock, anger, frustration, and, in the end, acceptance of his fate as the unlucky driver who finished 13th in the points and odd man out of the 12-man field of Chasers who will begin their pursuit of the title Sunday in the Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire International Speedway.
"We just haven't been finishing races," said Earnhardt, who wound up 30th after running as high as second, recording his sixth DNF of the season, five because of engine failure. "We're running in the top five every week. We ain't in the Chase. We deserve to be in the Chase. I wish we were for my fans. But we'll give them something to cheer about. We race hard. We don't quit. We love racing. That's what we do. We'll be all right. It's just disappointing, man.
"These dang motors."
Earnhardt, who was charged with erasing a 128-point deficit to overtake Kevin Harvick for 12th place in the points, needed a miracle finish in Richmond, the last event in the Race for the Chase. So insurmountable were the odds that even Earnhardt the night before had proclaimed himself "the longest of long shots." While Kevin Harvick only needed to finish 32d or better to clinch the 12th spot, Earnhardt, who could not finish any worse than fifth, knew his best shot was to win the race, lead the most laps, and have Kevin Harvick finish 33d or worse.
And so, for 394 laps of the 400-lap race, Earnhardt chased the dream.
Through the first half of the race, Earnhardt battled a loose condition in his Car of Tomorrow. To make matters worse, the seat was killing his back. At every turn, Earnhardt complained to his cousin, crew chief Tony Eury Jr., that his car needed major adjustments. At the midway point, a tweak of the track bar seemed to make the car spring to life. It gave Earnhardt the giddy-up he needed to track down the leaders.
On Lap 242, Kurt Busch, 11th in the points, spun and backed his No. 2 Dodge into the wall, mangling the rear bumper. Kevin Harvick was forced to take evasive maneuvers to avert getting caught up in the wreck and mowed the lawn when he drove onto the grassy frontstretch, causing his car to overheat.
Suddenly, it seemed, Earnhardt's dream was about to come to fruition. The pulse of Junior Nation, Earnhardt's legion of fans, quickened when the No. 8 moved up and began contending with Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon
"We were having a great race there for a second with Tony," Earnhardt said. "I was having a whole lot of fun up there racing with him and Jeff Gordon, and I thought at the end we actually had a good enough car if we got by Tony that we could have raced the 48 [eventual winner Jimmie Johnson] a little bit."
But it wasn't to be. "We broke another motor, and they seem to fall apart when they plug 'em into my car," said Earnhardt, who wound up missing the Chase for the second time in three years. "I don't know what it is about it, but we've had a good car all year long. It's just really frustrating."
That's how the year seemed to go for Earnhardt - one distraction after another. It began at Daytona, when he engaged his stepmother in a very contentious power play for Dale Earnhardt Inc. by demanding majority control of the race team as part of his contract renegotiation. After negotiations seemed to reach an impasse, Earnhardt made the stunning decision to put himself on the open market when he announced in May he was leaving DEI.
That tremor was followed by another in June when Earnhardt announced he had signed to drive next season for Rick Hendrick and join his powerhouse Chevy-backed stable, which included Jeff Gordon, a four-time champion, and Johnson, the reigning Cup champion.
Although he appeared set to part ways with his longtime sponsor, Budweiser, Earnhardt wasn't as willing to leave his crew chief, Eury, who will be coming with him to Hendrick Motorsport, or his treasured car number, which will not make the transfer. Earnhardt popularized the No. 8 among a new generation of fans, but his late grandfather, Ralph Earnhardt, was the first to campaign it around the dirt tracks in North Carolina.
So when Hendrick Motorsports was unable to persuade DEI to cede its rights to the No. 8, Teresa Earnhardt was instantly vilified. Junior became so enraged by the Internet attacks on his stepmother that he rose to her defense and publicly called for a ceasefire in the hostilities.
While controversy seemed to swirl about him off the track on a daily basis, Earnhardt found little refuge on the track, where he engaged Busch, driver of the Miller Lite Dodge, in a heated battle of beerwagons, then spent the last two races jockeying with Kevin Harvick for the last spot in the Chase field.
"I'm just really upset for my team, the guys who work all week to make that car work and to make it run like it did," Earnhardt said as he stood outside his hauler Saturday night. "I'm upset for my team. They deserve better."
Turning philosophical, Earnhardt explained how he planned to approach his final 10 races with DEI.
"I can turn anything into a positive; I always do," he said. "There ain't no reason to get all upset and bent out of shape about anything because there's cooler stuff right around the corner and there's all kinds of things to be excited about, and I'm not just talking about next year. I'm saying every day in life, you know?
"We'll have fun and laugh and enjoy ourselves as we race for the rest of the season. Hopefully, we can win some races there in the last 10 to put a period on what's been pretty much an up-and-down season.
"I've been so fast and so good all year long and I'm just proud of my team, because they make that happen. I would like to think that I run hard every time and they do the same for me."
Of that, Earnhardt is supremely confident, which should come as no surprise.
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