CUP: Earnhardt Jr. Rallies To Finish Seventh

Sprint Cup

CUP: Earnhardt Jr. Rallies To Finish Seventh

Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s talk on the team radio Sunday didn't exactly make for family listening...

Bob Pockrass | http://www.scenedaily.com | Posted March 22, 2010 Bristol, TN

Dale Earnhardt's top-10 finish at Bristol moved him up five spots in the NASCAR Sprint Cup driver standings. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Dale Earnhardt Jr. had one of those profanity-laced tirades over his team radio Sunday, the kind that leaves listeners wondering whether it’s a meltdown that could end up costing his team or just a little venting that will turn him into an aggressive but focused driver.

It turned out to be the latter for Earnhardt Jr., who overcame a speeding penalty to finish seventh in the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. With his second top-10 finish of the season, he improved five spots to eighth in the Sprint Cup standings – his first time in the top 12 since the end of the 2008 season and his highest ranking in points in his last 48 races.

Earnhardt Jr. left the track without returning to his hauler to face awaiting reporters after the race but he had to be happy with the way the day worked out. Not only did he overcome the penalty, but if he had not been penalized, he possibly could have been caught up in the big wreck.

“Typical 2009 would have been, we had that penalty, we would have finished 31st and we could have never made our way back through the field,” crew chief Lance McGrew said. “Seventh is not exactly what we were hoping for today. But it’s good enough to put us in the top-eight in points.”

The speeding penalty occurred when Earnhardt Jr. was following Hendrick Motorsports teammate Mark Martin down pit road. Because of where Martin’s box was situated between the timing lines that measure pit-road speed, Martin could speed before hitting his pit box and keep his average speed between the two timing lines under the speed limit. Earnhardt Jr. followed Martin’s surge, and because he had to go a greater distance to his pit box, his average speed in the zone was 35.06 mph – 0.06 mph over the acceptable speed (which includes a 5-mph tolerance).

Earnhardt Jr. obviously wants NASCAR to get rid of timing lines and use the scoring system in the cars like a radar gun and just penalize anyone who is over the limit at any time.

“Not picking on my teammate, but Mark gassed the [expletive] out of his car towards his box,” Earnhardt Jr. screamed over his in-car radio. “So if they want to correctly gauge the pit-road speed they need to get the [expletive] kind of system that can [expletive] do it for every car on the track, not just depending on what stall you’re in.

“Because it’s [expletive] me. It probably did the same thing to the 47 [of Marcos Ambrose]. Everybody behind us before that [expletive] timing line can do all the [expletive] they want getting into their stall. It’s [expletive] [expletive]. It’s two-thousand-and-[expletive]-10. … Getting busted at Bristol for [expletive] speeding or what the [expletive] ever it was, when I didn’t really [expletive] gain nothing on nobody, it’s not the way it should be.”

At one point, McGrew told Earnhardt Jr.: “Don’t [expletive] lay down on me bud, keep digging.”

“I can’t lay down – you can’t lay down here,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “It just won’t turn.”

Afterward, McGrew talked about the exchange.

“You’ve got to let him vent,” McGrew said. “I kind of snapped at him a little bit and got him a little riled. … I shouldn’t have snapped at him like that. But it’s just one of those things where he’s got to be on the wheel the whole time and I’ve got to do what I can do to keep him motivated and keep him pumped up.

“If that makes him a little mad sometimes, then you’ve got to do it.”

Penalty aside, Earnhardt Jr. had a good day. He now has two top-10 finishes and ranks second among his four Hendrick teammates in the standings. His eighth in the standings is a far cry from 25th, where he finished a year ago. McGrew and Earnhardt Jr. have been working together since last May.

“Lance and Dale have great chemistry,” team owner Rick Hendrick said. “I think if you listen to them on the radio, they’re working well together. Dale had a great car. I think he would have been in the top five, or had a real shot at it himself, had he been able to not have that speeding penalty.

“But that team is really coming together. I’m excited about the rest of the year.”

Getting into the top 12 in points was a big deal, McGrew said.

“It took a lot of work for this team to get stronger in the offseason to where he is confident that, ‘The car is good enough where I can get back to the front,’ and not, ‘I was carrying it before and now with no track position, I’m totally screwed,’” McGrew said. “We’ve got three great teammates, and we need to be racing with them.

“And we need to be somewhere in the general area that they are in points. And we are fortunate enough in the first five races to be able to do that.”

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