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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Junior Nation Gets Boost
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series most popular driver leads the pack at AMS...
Mike Hembree  |  Posted March 06, 2010   Hampton, GA
A happy Dale Earnhardt Jr. after winning the pole for the Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

It has been a couple of years – more or less – since Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his throngs of fans have had serious stuff to celebrate.

That perhaps explains the fact that there was an unusual amount of making merry Friday night after Earnhardt Jr. won the pole position for Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

It wasn’t an earth-shattering development – that will happen the next time Junior wins a race, but it was a spike of fun for Earnhardt Nation, a beleaguered constituency that will take its positives in any amount these days.

Across the track and on the other side of the fence, after his run, Earnhardt Jr. could hear the screams: “JUNIORRRR! Yeah, JUNIORRRR! Way to go, JUNIORRRR!”

And Junior himself bounced out of his car after the run like he had won American Idol.

“Just getting a pole anywhere for our team is good,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “But we are just hungry, so hungry to do much better on Sunday. We qualified well at Vegas (fourth), and we were pretty happy to be able to put ourselves in the middle of the company we were around up there in the top 10. To be able to do what we did tonight means a lot to us, but we are starving for a good finish and something like this to happen on Sunday for us. That is really all we can think about.”

Starving. An appropriate one-word summation for Earnhardt Nation in these days of drought. Junior hadn’t won a pole since April 2008 and hasn’t won a race since June 2008.

“We so want to see him do good,” said Judy Mathis, a Columbus, Ga. Earnhardt fan who was celebrating in the AMS infield after Junior’s qualifying run. “It looks so good to see him on top of the scoring tower. We suffer every lap with him. We know he can do it.”

Jim Epps, from North Augusta, S.C., smiled from beneath an Earnhardt Jr. cap. “I hope this says something about Sunday,” he said. “He seems to be running a lot better, but they can’t close the deal. Maybe this will be it.”

From Earnhardt Jr.’s perspective, at least the chances are growing.

“We’re at least seeing the opportunities,” he said. “Even though we’re missing them still, we're seeing them for the first time. We didn’t make the car better all day long and there were some things we've done in the past that made the car better and we should have probably tried this or this or that. It’s just a process of elimination right now for us before we start hitting on a few more cylinders and starting getting us some better finishes.”

And those can’t come too soon for Earnhardt Nation.

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEEDtv.com and has been covering motorsports for 28 years. He has written several books on NASCAR, including "NASCAR: The Definitive History of America's Sport" and "Then Tony Said To Junior: The Best NASCAR Stories Ever Told". He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.

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