CUP: Earnhardt’s Turn To Win?

Sprint Cup

CUP: Earnhardt’s Turn To Win?

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is a five-time Talladega winner ...

Tom Jensen | Posted April 11, 2011 Charlotte, NC

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is currently sixth in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series point standings. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

The winless streak is now 100 races.

The fans are restless.

The pundits are proclaiming his return.

So, can Dale Earnhardt Jr.. deliver the goods and win on Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway, a track where he has five previous NASCAR Sprint Cup victories?

Well, he just might.

In his first year teamed with crew chief Steve Letarte, Earnhardt and the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports team are showing much-improved results this season. Since getting wrecked in the season-opening Daytona 500, Earnhardt has finished 12th or better in each of the subsequent six races. After finishing 21st in points last year, he’s all the way up to sixth now. And while the year is still young, Earnhardt is on track to have his best season since 2006, when he finished fifth in points.

Talladega is one of Earnhardt’s best tracks, a place where he has five victories. At one point early in his career, the third-generation driver went seven consecutive Talladega races without a single finish worse than second place.

Then again, that was long before the current-generation race car and in his last 12 Talladega starts, Earnhardt has mustered but a single top-five finish and three top 10s. And with the crazy two-car drafts that were common in the Daytona 500, there’s no telling what this Talladega race might bring.

Asked how he expected to fare this weekend, Earnhardt was non-committal.

“Well, I don't know really,” Earnhardt said. “The track surface is a little bit more worn out than Daytona so I'm not sure exactly how similar it will be to the Daytona 500. I feel pretty good about Hendrick cars, Hendrick motors anytime you go to a track like that, I mean, you have to feel real confident.”

As for the two-car breakaways that were one of the big stories at Daytona in February, Earnhardt is not a fan. Not at all.

“I don't know man. I don't particularly like that style of racing,” he said. “I'd rather have control of just what I've got to do and having to have responsibility for someone else is a little bit more than I care to deal with. But, that is the way the racing is. But, I don't know if it will be like that at Talladega.”

Earnhardt is also very cautious about getting too hyped up over his season so far. Despite his second-place finish two weeks ago at Martinsville, Earnhardt insists his team still has a lot of upside, and a fairly long way to go if they want to be among the sport’s elite.

“I really don’t know how close we are to getting our first win,” he said flatly. At Martinsville, “we were about a fifth- to seventh-place car and we made some good pit calls near the last half of the race to get ourselves in position if we could battle for the win or run second. We still have a step or two to go, but we’re getting better and we feel pretty competitive every week. I feel like we should finish in the top five; should have finished in the top five every week this year so far. And if I look back at my cars, we’ve taken seventh- and eighth-place cars and finished 12th with them and it was good to take a seventh- and eighth-place place car and finish second.”

And Earnhardt said he knows when hits the high banks of Talladega, that his fans expect him to put the No. 88 Chevrolet out front.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. has a strong start to the 2011 Sprint Cup Series. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

“Yes, there is definitely an obligation, I guess, that I feel to try to do the best I can to put the car out front all the time at that place for obvious reasons,” said Earnhardt. “But, you try to let the reality of the situation and the job you are doing to do override that, but sometimes, you just go all out and want to be in the lead all the time, which is not a bad way to go. It has won races for me there in the past. And, I don't know if that's exactly what's gotten me in trouble in the last couple of events, but, we just haven't made good choices toward the end of those races. Hopefully I can go back with a better sense of what I need to do and make better judgment calls when it comes down to it.”

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.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tom Jensen

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