Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Left) talks with interim crew chief Brian Whitesell (Right) in the garage during practice for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Autism Speaks 400 at Dover International Speedway. (Photo: Nick Laham/Getty Images)
Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s first day with a new group of leaders at his No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet Impala SS didn’t look a whole lot different than any other of his recent ones.
Earnhardt was 25th fastest in Friday’s lone round of practice for the Autism Speaks 400 at Dover International Speedway and went on to qualify 22nd, right square in the middle of the field.
But more than anyone else, Earnhardt knows the spotlight is on him to start producing after a sub-par first one-third of the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup season.
“Eventually I’m going to have to be the one that has to answer to the fact of how much did I live up to my father’s name and how much did I live up to his wins and everything that he accomplished and how much did I live up to everyone else’s expectations and all my fans and all the media’s expectations?” Earnhardt said Friday at Dover.
Going forward, he’ll have a little more help in trying to live up to those expectations.
This weekend at Dover is Earnhardt’s first race since team owner Rick Hendrick decided to replace Earnhardt’s cousin, Tony Eury Jr., as his crew chief. The move came after Earnhardt’s embarrassing 40th-place finish in Monday’s Coca-Cola 400 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, the home track to the Hendrick squad. That finish dropped Earnhardt to 19th in points.
While Hendrick’s other three drivers are all in the top 12 in points, Earnhardt hasn’t ranked higher than 16th all season long. In 12 races so far this season, Earnhardt has just one top-five and three top-10 finishes and has led only 90 laps. In his last six races, Earnhardt has finished better than 20th once, a runner-up finish at Talladega Superspeedway.
The season-long poor performance led Hendrick to make a change. And it left Hendrick, Earnhardt and others within the team scratching their heads over why the team wasn’t doing better.
