CUP: Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Sprint Cup

CUP: Dale Earnhardt Jr. – The Return

Martinsville Speedway, where Dale Earnhardt Jr. is winless, will mark his return to competition…

Mike Hembree | Posted October 25, 2012 Martinsville, VA

Dale Earnhardt Jr. has been stellar so far in 2013. (Photo: Getty Images)

Martinsville Speedway is not considered a Dale Earnhardt Jr. track because he has not won there in 25 races.

But that column of numbers is a bit deceptive.

Earnhardt Jr. has finished in the top five 10 times and the top 10 14 times at NASCAR’s shortest track, and his laps led total at Martinsville – 868 – is his career best at any track.

He finished second at Martinsville in 2008 and again last year and seems to be on the verge of crossing the finish line first and finally being able to check the time on his personal grandfather clock, the track’s unique trophy.

But…

None of that will matter a lot this weekend as Earnhardt Jr. prepares for one of the biggest events of his 14-year Sprint Cup career. Just by showing up at Martinsville Sunday and flipping the switch to start his No. 88 Chevrolet, Earnhardt Jr. will attract attention across the motorsports spectrum.

The Tums Fast Relief 500 will mark Earnhardt Jr.’s return to the driver’s seat after he missed races at Charlotte and Kansas because of concussions. He ran test laps Monday at a short track in Georgia to prove that he could handle the speed and stress, and a medical evaluation Tuesday resulted in him being approved to return to competition this weekend.

Earnhardt Jr. is out of the championship race and won’t be considered a race favorite Sunday, but he nevertheless will be a hot topic for the thousands in attendance and those watching via television – not to mention the news media representatives on site.

How will be perform? Will he race, or will he ride? Is he is condition to turn 500 laps – 1,000 left turns – on a long afternoon or a short but demanding race surface?

Will this be the first strong step on the road back, and will it become evident that Junior perhaps should have stayed out longer, perhaps through the end of the season, as some observers suggested?

“It’s great to have him back,” said Jeff Gordon, Earnhardt Jr.’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate. “[I] just continue to applaud him in the decision that he made, and I think he can come back now feeling very positive about how he handled the situation, as well as be a positive impact on the rest of us, and how we’d hopefully handle that same situation. Great to have him back.”

Earnhardt Jr. will make his return to at-speed driving in the weekend’s first Sprint Cup practice at noon (ET) Friday. He is scheduled to talk to news media representatives at 11:10 a.m. Friday at the track.

Also on Friday’s Martinsville schedule is Sprint Cup qualifying, scheduled at 3:40 p.m. There also will be a pair of practices (11 a.m. and 2:10 p.m.) for entries in Saturday’s Camping World Truck Series race. All of Friday’s on-track activities will be televised live by SPEED.

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 30 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mike Hembree

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