NASCAR Cup Series

Tracks favorable to Earnhardt in Chase

Published Sep. 12, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

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Mission accomplished.

For Dale Earnhardt Jr., who missed NASCAR's Chase to the Sprint Cup the past two years, just qualifying for the postseason is a triumph of sorts — not just for the driver but for the sport.

What’s a NASCAR playoff without its Most Popular Driver? At least this season, the marketing gurus won’t be kept up at night wondering.

But realistically, now that Junior has qualified for the Chase, what are his chances to compete against the sport’s elite? If Saturday night at Richmond International Raceway is any indication, the next 10 races might be tough.

It was all Earnhardt could do to stay on the lead lap after receiving damage to his car on Lap 8.

Throughout the evening, crew chief Steve Letarte, who has performed admirably as both crew chief and coach, was constantly reminding Earnhardt of “the big picture.”

With one-third of the race complete, Earnhardt, who was running 29th at the time, replied, “I can't think of the big picture because I really can't see it.”

Letarte and spotter T.J. Majors continued to pacify the driver. After numerous trips to the pits for repairs and adjustments and three lucky-dog beneficiary laps later, Earnhardt soldiered home to a 16th-place finish, two positions ahead of where he needed to land to secure a spot in the Chase.

For Earnhardt, the Richmond performance wasn’t about thriving, it was about surviving.

In the past 12 races, ever since contact with teammate Mark Martin at Michigan International Speedway led to a 21st-place result, Earnhardt appears to be just hanging on. He has led just eight laps throughout that period and scored a single top-10 finish, at Pocono Raceway.

When Junior climbed from his mangled machine on Saturday night, there was a sense of relief even though he fell from ninth to 10th in the points standings.

“I'm proud to be in the Chase,” Earnhardt said. “I feel like I'm a good enough driver to be in the Chase, my team is good enough to be there. As a group, I think we're good enough to be in the top 10, and I can look back over the season and just easily think of several instances where we cost ourselves 10 or 15 points and made this situation difficult this weekend. Had we been more conscious and smarter at certain times, we wouldn't have had to even worry about it this weekend.

“But we're a good team. Hopefully, we're going to work real hard; hopefully, we do a good job.”

There are several obstacles for Earnhardt and the team to address. For the past two weeks, Earnhardt has questioned the current engineering of his cars. On the radio at Richmond, Earnhardt pointed to changes in the cars over the past 10 races that affected his comfort level behind the wheel. After the Wonderful Pistachios 400, he questioned his car’s setup again.

“We had a pretty good run at it going the first 15 races, and for whatever reason we sort of fell off and forgot some things or over-engineered something,” Earnhardt said. “But we need to look hard at what we're doing, what we've been doing, sort of a pattern, find something within what we're trying to maybe harness or (that is) hampering our ability to drive the cars as well as I want to drive them.”

Earnhardt and Tony Stewart are the only two drivers entering the final 10-race stretch who don’t have a win this season. In fact, it has been 119 races since Earnhardt and the No. 88 celebrated in Victory Lane. With the momentum other drivers such as Jeff Gordon, Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski have gained from wins of late, it will be difficult for Earnhardt or any other team that’s struggling right now to fend off their advances.

Sure, strategy has changed. No longer is leading the most laps a sole indicator of winning races. But without the ability to lead any laps — and Earnhardt hasn’t been at the point in the past six races — the percentages of winning diminish.

Compared to the top competitors in the Chase, Earnhardt’s current average finish of 14.3 isn’t even close to what it’s going to take to win the 2011 title. Although it’s unlikely the winning average in the final 10 races will mirror Jimmie Johnson’s remarkable fifth-place showing per race of his 2007 championship run, given the level of competition right now, it’s not entirely impossible.

In 11 previous seasons in Sprint Cup, Earnhardt’s best points finish was third in 2003. It has been five years since he finished among the top five. Since the inception of the Chase in 2004, this is Earnhardt’s fourth showing, but he sounds determined to make the most of it.

“I'm in the Chase, and I've got an opportunity to run for the championship,” Earnhardt said. “I've got an opportunity to compete and improve my points position and improve the overall payout. I've still got a race to run.

“When you're not in the Chase, it's a consolation to finish 13th or whatever your opportunity is, the best you can do, but that's not all that exciting. You basically just kind of hold it together the last 10 races and don't do anything stupid and settle some scores.

“But I think it does validate our team. I think it says a lot about our team, and I've always felt like this team was good enough to be in the top 10, and I feel like we always gave it away. We got outrun all year long several different times, but we always gave it away a few times, too. I'm pretty proud of what we've been able to do all year.”

If the No. 88 crew can revert to the strategy it started the season with, Earnhardt could prosper and even thrive in the Chase. He had an average finish of 6.5 on the first four intermediate tracks on the schedule, and three of those venues — Texas Motor Speedway, Charlotte Motor Speedway and Kansas Speedway — reappear in the Chase.

The remainder of the Chase schedule favors him, as well. He has won five times at Talladega Superspeedway, twice at Phoenix International Raceway and once at Chicagoland and Dover. Earnhardt loves racing at Martinsville Speedway and has an average finish of ninth at Loudon (N.H.) in his past three races.

“I realize now what is really important and that is the performance factor — being up front and being able to account for yourself in the Chase,” Earnhardt said. “It is not fun to be in the Chase if you cannot do that.”

If Earnhardt and Letarte can be competitive in the Chase, it will give the team something to build on for the future.

If not, it could be a long 10 weeks for the team.

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