Not surprisingly, Dale Earnhardt Jr. drew the largest audience in the media center Friday at Martinsville Speedway — his first trip for top 12 driver obligations since November 2008.
But Earnhardt wasn’t asked what he thought of the new spoiler. He wasn’t asked how his car handled for qualifying or about being 15th fastest on the speed chart. Junior was asked about his radio rant from Bristol.
He seemed surprised the topic was still in the news — particularly five days after the fact.
Earnhardt didn’t hide his frustration about NASCAR's timing and scoring system that busted him for speeding while he ran with the leaders last week. It was his crew chief Lance McGrew telling Earnhardt not to “lay down” that struck a raw nerve.
The ever-candid Earnhardt did not hold back his displeasure over the radio. But, in the process, McGrew derived the reaction he’d hoped from his driver. Earnhardt fought back to a seventh-place finish. The performance vaulted Earnhardt five positions in the point standings to eighth, the difference between being in the Chase Zone and an also-ran.
“Throughout my career, everybody has always sort of said I wasn’t focused, especially when my daddy was alive and he was out there running,” Earnhardt said. “Everybody would compare me to him and say that I lacked so much determination, didn’t have the will power, all that he had. He wore it on his sleeve, and I don’t really do that.
“Even after he passed away, I still got that I didn’t have focus and this that and the other. That sort of followed me throughout my career. Anytime somebody would say that I laid down or insinuated that I might or whatever, just sort of pisses me off a little bit. I have a right to feel however I want to feel or get upset about things that I want to get upset about. I’m just a human being.”
It’s Earnhardt’s unique ability to shed the armor and expose his inner self that has endeared him to a legion of fans that would have abandoned another driver. It doesn’t matter that Junior is coming off the worst season of his Sprint Cup career or that it has been 62 starts since his last win. His honest approach is why Earnhardt remains relevant to the success of the sport even when facing adversity.
That said, McGrew’s ability to rebuild Earnhardt’s confidence and offer Junior Nation more than a glimmer of hope has not been an easy task over the past 10 months. But Earnhardt acknowledges it’s what he needs. McGrew made changes after last season that were vital to the No. 88 crew's starting anew. With Earnhardt sitting eighth in the point standings, the results are starting to show.
“I have the confidence that we can do this the right way and we can accomplish our goals,” Earnhardt said. “We haven’t turned a corner. We are maybe turning the corner, but we haven’t quite got there yet. We are approaching it maybe.
“But as a team, we got a lot to fix still. We have a lot to improve upon, and I think that the next 10 races will surely reveal where we are still weak and where we need to work as a team.”
Still, Earnhardt has slowly begun to trust McGrew’s decisions, and in return a bond is developing between the pair. McGrew is the first crew chief outside of the Eury clan (Earnhardt’s uncle Tony “Pops” Sr. and cousin Tony Jr.) that Earnhardt has had calling the shots since 2005. Without that familiarity, there’s a question as to just how far McGrew can push. Last Sunday offered a glimpse as to where that line is drawn.
“The thing about a really good crew chief is he will know exactly what to say for each situation,” Earnhardt said. “Lance knew to cheer me back to my game and steer me in that direction with a little pep talk and he did it and that is what I needed. Maybe at times it is his job, maybe it ain’t. Maybe it is my job to keep my head together.
“If he sees me going off on the wrong path, he cares enough to want to fix it and helped me out a lot at that moment because I was really upset about how that went down. I wasn’t thinking about what I was supposed to be thinking about, my job. He did the right thing.”
Time for a change
NASCAR Sprint Cup teams practiced for 90 minutes on Friday before qualifying was canceled because of rain.
Ryan Newman topped the speed chart with a lap of 96.934mph. But as drivers predicted during the Charlotte test, there was not a discernable difference in the handling of the cars with the new spoiler.
Certainly, Martinsville is not a track where aerodynamics come into play, but one aspect of removing the wing was the visibility out of the rear window.
“I could see more out of the mirror,” Jimmie Johnson said. “So there is something that was different; there is a lot more to see out of the mirror now. Your vision, there is more room back there now. You don’t have the wing kind of in the way blocking things.”
Johnson added that removing the dog ears, which were initially on the end of the spoilers for the test at Talladega, should help with visibility with the restrictor-plate package. Drivers reported heavy reliance on spotters during the Talladega test.
“Directionally, it is going to help us a lot,” Johnson said. “When we first started, we were flying blind pushing guys around Talladega, so that will help us a lot.”
Numbers game
Because of the rainout of qualifying, points leader Kevin Harvick was awarded the top starting position for both the Sprint Cup and Camping World Truck Series. The spot — which comes with the bonus of the first pit stall — was a gift for Harvick, who has never finished better than seventh and has an average qualifying effort of 14.2 at Martinsville.
Mark Martin learned how to make the most of his Hendrick equipment at Martinsville. While Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson top the tour with seven and six wins, respectively, Martin scored top 10s in both visits to the 0.526-mile, hairpin-shaped track last season — the first time he matched that feat since 2002.
Johnson has the best average finish at Martinsville (5.1) followed by Gordon (6.2) and Denny Hamlin (7.2). But keep an eye on Juan Pablo Montoya (11) on Sunday. Montoya has two top 10s at the track in six starts and finished a career-high third last fall.
Say what?
On discovering that he will share the front row with Matt Kenseth (average Martinsville starting position of 16.2), Harvick said: “Could be the worse qualifying row you've ever seen.”
