Charlotte Motor Speedway brings out range of emotions in Dale Jr.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. holds a long and special connection to Charlotte Motor Speedway.
So long, in fact, that he recalls rolling plastic cars -- replicas of the ones that legends Bobby Allison, Cale Yarborough and Richard Petty raced -- down the banking of the speedway's infield road course as a kid.
As the son of a 1980s and '90s NASCAR superstar, Junior rarely if ever remembers missing Charlotte's annual Memorial Day weekend classic -- now known as the Coca-Cola 600.
"Hell, even when I was going to military school I was coming to this race," Earnhardt, now 40 years old, said during a promotional stop at the speedway on Tuesday. "We came to this one. I think the first time I remember being here was '81."
Earnhardt Jr. recalls his dad, the late Dale Earnhardt, struggling to get his cars to handle consistently well on Charlotte's notoriously sensitive 1.5-mile layout -- despite the elder Earnhardt's five points wins and three All-Star Race triumphs at the track just a few miles away from his hometown of Kannapolis, North Carolina.
"It's such a tough racetrack," said Earnhardt Jr., who is seeking his first Coca-Cola 600 win this weekend. "I learned that watching dad race here year after year through the late '80s and into the '90s. It was always kind of a fickle, hit and miss kind of thing as far as the balance and the setup of the car and the speed that he would have. Sometimes he would show up and would be able to get relatively competitive, and other times they would struggle. It was just a real hard track to master as far as setup and the balance of the race car goes. And it's always kind of been that way for me."
Earnhardt Jr. captured the Sprint All-Star Race in memorable fashion as a rookie in 2000, but has yet to find Victory Lane in 30 points-paying events at Charlotte.
Four years ago, he led the Coca-Cola 600 on the final lap but ran out of gas coming down the backstretch and coasted home seventh.
"We've had some good cars here and we've had some cars that have been a bit of a struggle," Earnhardt Jr. said. "It's 600 miles, so once you're strapped in that thing and it's not working, it's a long night."
A two-time Daytona 500 winner, Earnhardt says there's no place he wants to win a points race more than Charlotte -- a track forever etched on his childhood.
The driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet hopes his breakthrough comes in Sunday night's Coca-Cola 600, and says he expects to perform better than he did in last Saturday night's All-Star Race when he finished 10th out of 20 cars.
"We didn't run really that well in the All-Star Race," said Earnhardt, who is fifth in points on the strength of seven top-10 finishes in 11 races this season. "We had a good segment early but definitely struggled once we got further back than third in the dirty air. I think everybody fought that pretty bad. So we're going to come with a different setup, different car, try a different route, and see if we can improve. I'm optimistic about it.
"No matter what happened yesterday, every time we leave the race shop with our cars, we've got a chance to win even if we're going back to the same track we struggled at, so I feel good."
