CUP: Earnhardt Says He’s Good To Go

Sprint Cup

CUP: Earnhardt Says He’s Good To Go

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is looking to build on last season’s performance...

Tom Jensen | Posted January 12, 2012 Daytona Beach, FL

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was 11th fastest in the opening round of practice at Daytona Thursday morning. (Photo: Getty Images)

Even though he didn’t win a race in 2011, Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished seventh in the final NASCAR Sprint Cup points standings, his best season since joining Hendrick Motorsports in 2008. And Thursday at Daytona International Speedway, Earnhardt said he expects to improve again this year.

“The offseason has been good,” said Earnhardt, who had a productive 2011 campaign with crew chief Steve Letarte. “I've been able to relax a lot, and I've been looking forward to getting in the car.”

In fact, like many of his millions of race fans, Earnhardt was downright fidgety in the offseason.

“I really wasn't ready to get out of the car (at the end of 2011),” Earnhardt said. “And I've been asking Steve when we were going to test, when we're going to go to the racetrack just to be doing something instead of sitting around at home. We plan to test a little bit more than we did last year before the season starts, which I think will be good for our team. It's been good, though. I've been just enjoying the time off and really getting charged up and ready for the year to start.”

Earnhardt, who was 11th fastest in the opening round of practice at Daytona Thursday morning, said he’s a big fan of the new NASCAR rules package, which should put a lot of speed back in the cars this year.

“I like going faster than we've been going,” Earnhardt said. “The cars are really, really slow by themselves the last couple years at Daytona and Talladega. Qualifying in the mid-180 (mph) range is just way too slow.”

Earnhardt, who is something of a historian of the sport, said he fondly remembered the day in the mid-1980s when the NASCAR Sprint Cup cars ran well over 200 mph at the two restrictor-plate tracks.

“When I was growing up as a kid, hearing the numbers that guys were trying to put up and how fast they would go, 210 (mph) here and 214 at Talladega when (Bill) Elliott was doing that in '85, maybe it was '84, but just back then those kind of numbers, man, that was awesome stuff to read about, and it gets you really excited.

“So going 30 miles an hour slower than that doesn't sound like a lot of fun, and it's not. ... I'm glad that they opened up the cars a little bit, took a little plate away, took a little spoiler away and gave us a bigger (restrictor) plate.”

Earnhardt would love nothing more than to add another Daytona 500 victory to go with the one he captured in 2004.

“Winning the 500 is the biggest race of the year,” said Earnhardt. “It's the greatest feeling. When it comes to winning single events, you can't beat it. A lot of effort goes into this race. ... The effort is quadruple when it comes to how much goes into the engines just for that race and the bodies on the cars just for that race.”

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.

DAYTONA PRESEASON THUNDER TESTING: During the Jan. 12-14 test sessions at Daytona International Speedway, fans can submit questions and comments through Twitter @SPEED (http://www.twitter.com/speed) using the #daytonatesting hashtag.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tom Jensen

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