ALL-STAR: Saturday Notebook

Sprint Cup

ALL-STAR: Saturday Notebook

Dale Earnhardt Jr. expects to sign a contract extension...

Tom Jensen | Posted May 22, 2011 Concord, NC

Dale Earnhardt Jr. co-owns the JR Motorsports team for which Danica Patrick currently competes. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

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NEW DEAL FOR JUNIOR? — Although he was never a significant factor in the outcome of the Sprint All-Star Race after winning the fan vote to advance out of the Sprint Showdown, Dale Earnhardt Jr. still had reason to smile Saturday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

NASCAR’s most popular driver said he’s still happy at Hendrick Motorsports and hopes to remain there, as he and team owner Rick Hendrick are working on a contract extension.

“We've been talking on the phone a little bit, just kind of saying what we think,” Earnhardt said. “I'm excited to be where I am. From my heart, it's an amazing organization. There's some great, great people there. I've learned a lot being around there. It's made me a better person.”

Earnhardt’s performance has improved dramatically since teaming up with new crew chief Steve Letarte and moving into the shop they share with Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus. “We still got a lot of things we would like to accomplish on the race track,” said Earnhardt. “If I get the opportunity to stick around, I'm definitely excited about that. We've just been talking about it. Hopefully, I don't think we'll have any trouble working things out.”

NO NEWS ON EDWARDS — Sprint All-Star Race winner Carl Edwards is having a dream 2011 season, and his current contract expires at the end of the season. After Saturday’s victory, both the driver and his boss said little about where talks stand for 2012 and beyond.

“All I’ll say about that is we’re running really well right now and it’s because of Jack Roush and Ford and all these people’s hard work, and those talks are going on behind closed doors,” said Edwards. “We’ll hopefully get something done, but right now we’re running well and that is fun and what I’m trying to do is focus on that because we have a championship to win this year. That’s the number one goal.”

“We’re trying to maintain the focus on keeping our season together,” said Roush Fenway Racing founder and co-owner Jack Roush. “We want to put ourselves in the best situation we can to make a championship run, to be in the top 10 and then to make a championship run in the closing months of the year. It’s going on behind closed doors. With some accuracy I say I really don’t do the money and I try to stay out of the money part of it, but I will have to pay attention to this deal as it gets closer, but it’s not something we’re gonna debate or discuss in the public. It’s not a media issue, it’s a private business issue that’s ongoing.”

REUTIMANN RALLIES — One of the biggest surprises in the Sprint All-Star Race was the strong third-place run by David Reutimann and his Michael Waltrip Racing Toyota. Reutimann’s best finish in a Cup points race this year is 13th at Las Vegas, but you’d never know that by the way he ran at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the track where he earned his first career victory.

David Reutimann was strong in the Sprint All-Star Race. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

“We just didn't start very good,” said Reutimann. “That being said, we kept plugging away at it. We had a really good car, but we were back in traffic. Hard to tell how good you were.”

Reutmann’s big move came on the mandatory four-tire pit stop between segments three and four of the race. “The deciding factor was that last pit stop,” he said. “My guys did a good job. We got out fifth. That gave us the track position. Rodney (Childers, crew chief) and the guys made some good adjustments on the car and it was good at the end. ... It just ended up being a situation where we got a run. We had speed with the car all night and are encouraged to come back for the (Coca-Cola) 600 and see what we can do there.”

SMOKE SIGNALS — Coming off a 29th-place finish at Dover a week earlier, Stewart-Haas Racing co-owner/driver Tony Stewart needed a good night and got one in the Sprint All-Star Race. Stewart had an excellent run under the lights at Charlotte Motor Speedway, where he finished fourth. That gave him a measure of optimism for next week’s Coca-Cola 600 at CMS.

“Darian (Grubb, crew chief) has a really good setup for this thing,” said Stewart, who won this race in 2009. “It was good all night. We were loose at the beginning of the race, we got tight through the middle of the race, and we almost got it back to neutral. The good thing is that we have a setup that we can tune to and balance out, so I’m pretty excited about going into next weekend.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100.

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Tom Jensen

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