Dale Earnhardt Jr.& DAYTONA
Hendrick Motorsports driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. has won twice at Daytona International Speedway during his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career.
In life – and NASCAR – there are seemingly few opportunities for true vindication for an event or moment gone awry.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. will have such an opportunity in Saturday night’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Daytona International Speedway.
It was at Daytona more than four months ago that the slow-moving-train wreck now known as Earnhardt Jr.’s season took its first journey off course.
Just about everything that could have gone wrong did for the Hendrick Motorsports driver in the 2009 Daytona 500 at DIS, as he finished 27th after twice overshooting his pit stall. The bigger story, however, was the 10-car melee brought about by Earnhardt Jr. sliding into Brian Vickers on the backstretch as he tried to get back a lost lap.
The wreck gobbled up several top contenders and set off an atypical firestorm of criticism toward NASCAR’s most popular driver in the days that followed. He has yet to completely recover.
Since that disastrous day in Daytona, Earnhardt Jr. has posted just one top-five and three top-10s in 16 outings. As Hendrick teammates Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Mark Martin all appear to be in fairly healthy shape to make the 2009 Chase For The Sprint Cup, Earnhardt Jr. won’t get another title shot until at least 2010.
Saddled 19th in the standings, it’s too late to rally into Chase contention with only nine races left before the 12-driver, championship-eligible field is set.
So all Earnhardt Jr. needs to focus on right now is getting better. And in five races under the guidance of recently assigned interim crew chief Lance McGrew, that appears to be happening.
No, Earnhardt Jr. hasn’t gone out and won all five races since team owner Rick Hendrick separated he and cousin crew chief Tony Eury Jr. at the end of May. In fact, Earnhardt Jr. hasn’t posted a single top-10.
But his performances have improved, as evidenced by three top-15s, including one in last Sunday’s race at New Hampshire. In that race, he surged as high as third, battled hard for second and probably would have finished no worse than 10th if a few drivers hadn’t stretched their fuel to the rain-shortened finish.
Expectations will be higher for Earnhardt Jr. at Daytona, a place where he owns two points-paying Cup wins, five wins in what is now the Nationwide Series and several more trophies from trips to victory lane in Speedweeks exhibition races.
Daytona, of course, is also the site of Earnhardt Jr.’s most agonizing day in the sport and perhaps the hardest day of his life. It’s where his father, seven-time Cup champion Dale Earnhardt, died in an accident on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500.
Earnhardt Jr. returned to DIS that summer – eight years ago this weekend – and scored an emotional victory that was the first after his father’s death.
That race turned out to be a pivotal moment in the career of Earnhardt Jr., who went on to build a reputation as one of NASCAR’s best restrictor-plate drivers.
Of all his memories at the Daytona – both good and bad – this year’s season-opener has to rank among the worst. There was no tragedy as in 2001, but it was one of the worst performances of Earnhardt Jr.’s career.
Maybe with a win or otherwise strong showing on Saturday night, he can finally forget that day and get his season pointed in the right direction.
It couldn’t happen at a more fitting place.
